10 things astronauts need in space

Like every other living creature we know of, humans evolved at the bottom of a gravity well.

We take the Earth's tug for granted, and so do our bodies. So it's not surprising that our bodies behave oddly in orbit.

What is surprising is that humans turn out to adapt remarkably well to zero-g (more precisely, microgravity). After all, back in 1961, Soviet scientists were genuinely worried that any prolonged period of weightless might even be fatal - which is why they limited Yuri Gagarin's first space flight to just 108 minutes and a single orbit.

Since then, scientists around the world have had the benefit of years of data on the effects of long-term space living.

(The record for a long-duration mission is still held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who completed a 438-day tour of duty aboard the Mir space station in 1995.) The crews of the ISS are already making full use of that experience, and will certainly add to it.