Life in space is not at all like it is here on terra firma. Case in point: how do you wash your hair in space? That's demonstrated here in the microgravity of the International Space Station by Expedition 36 crew member Karen Nyberg, who takes you through the whole procedure in a quick three minutes.
We're marveling at the weird world of weightlessness, where hair, no matter how long it is, stands on end until you direct it to do otherwise. You can't pour water in space, so if you're looking to take a nice long hot shower, you're going to have to wait until you return to Earth.
Washing yourself in space and dealing with water depends mostly on surface tension, which you can see demonstrated as Karen applies water to her scalp. Most of it stays there, but you can see a few stray droplets wandering away from her, behaving in that eerie way things do in microgravity.
Although Karen says her hair feels "squeaky clean" after this quick procedure, we're thinking the only way she got it that way was by actually rinsing her hair by adding water after the application of that "no-rinse" shampoo.
Before we saw this video, it seemed like it would be easier to just cut your hair short before going on a journey into space, but after this fascinating demo of how easy it is to wash your hair while in low-earth orbit, perhaps it doesn't make a huge difference whether your hair is long or short.
Another interesting aspect of this video is the reminder that the astronauts are in their own biosphere, where the evaporated water from wet hair humidifies the environment (as it does on Earth), and as Karen says, the moisture is then removed from the air and used as drinking water. Neat.
What do you think? Is washing your hair in space so much trouble that you'd opt for short hair before taking a voyage aboard the International Space Station?