Astronaut Don Pettit writes about how he uses socks aboard the #ISS in his latest #spaceblog.
http://bit.ly/Kw6WcVToe Koozies
It was time to get new socks. Mine had been worn for a week, and had reached their pull date. Groping in the bag of socks, I pulled out a pair of women's (small) ankle socks by mistake. Not wanting to fold
them up and put them back, I decided to just try them on - maybe they would stretch. They covered my toes, but only reached just past the ball of my foot. I quickly concluded, "This will not work."
But that was based on my experience on Earth. It occurred to me that up here, you use your feet differently. In zero-g, you hook your feet under "handrails," thus shifting the load from the bottom to the top of the foot, just behind the toe knuckle. After about
two months in orbit your feet molt, and like some reptilian creature the callused skin on the bottom of your foot sheds, leaving soft pink flesh in its place. In the weightless environment, calluses apparently have no use, at least on the bottoms of your feet.
However, the tops of your feet become red-rubbed raw and gnarly. And the bottom calluses shed faster than the top calluses can grow. Perpetually raw and hypersensitive, your foot tops can use a bit of padding to ease the pain.
Serendipitously, I discovered that these short socks provide the necessary protection for toes and toe tops while leaving your heels out where they can breathe. They are the zero-gravity equivalent to flip-flops. The more that I wore them, the more I liked
them. I have dubbed this new space fashion "toe koozies" - they are perfect for lounging around in a Node or the Cupola.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the Space-Blogs list, go to the member options login page at
https://lists.nasa.gov/mailman/options/space-blogs. You will need to
log in using your subscription email address and your membership password that was in the welcome message you received when you first subscribed to the list. Click on the Unsubscribe button and a confirmation message will be sent to you. This message will
have a link that you should click on to complete the removal process (you can also confirm by email; see the instructions in the confirmation message).
You also can unsubscribe or make other changes to your member options via email by sending a message to
Space-Blogs-request@lists.nasa.gov with the word `help'
in the subject or body (don't include the quotes), and you will get back a message with instructions.