Unloading supplies onto the International Space Station

As Matt Lynley put it, "Meanwhile, in space ..."

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: astronauts • fun • gifs • ISS • lol • Science • Space • space station

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

snagglepuss_62629

Awesome. That is all. really.
http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline

Get Back to Work D:
pfff. bloody scientists.
PracticePerfect

Supplies!
http://www.facebook.com/people/James-Agenbroad/100002463876063 James Agenbroad

Looks like she almost hit her head…
- t3kna2007
  
  Yeah, that looks like kinda iffy for sure. (Sometimes it’s a good thing that in space no one can hear you scream.)
  
  Maybe it’s just the perspective.
  - cservant
    
    And speed. Don’t forget speed. This is an animated gif, so it could be she’s travelling much slower thus chances of getting a bad head injury is not as great.
    
    Still owww, if it did happen.
- Ross Bearman
  
  Watching that ISS tour that was posted here the other day had me thinking the same thing. The astronaut giving the tour was constantly narrowly missing hitting her head, I kept wincing on her behalf.
  - ocker3
    
    Considering you don’t have to fight gravity to move on the ISS, perhaps hitting your head doesn’t involve as much force?
    - kayan2
      
      She is weightless while in orbit, but her mass is exactly same as it is on Earth. Force = mass x speed, so the force of impact would be exactly the same in orbit as on Earth.
http://www.epinardscaramel.com TokenFrenchDude

I can’t wait for anti-G drives !
yoshua

Looks like a great way to get a concussion.
retrojoe

I assume it’s an issue with shadows and the contrast of a white sock/boot against a white background but; the feet of the guy doing the sorting look unusually skinny, almost like a prosthetic. I can’t look away.
- http://twitter.com/tntjarks Tom Tjarks
  
  They look weird until you realize he’s hooked the top of his feet under the railing, then the perspective on them sorts itself out.
  - retrojoe
    
    For me; no. I saw right off how he was remaining stable (because my brain needed to deal with that first). It was looking at how he was fixing his feet in place that led me to the above issue.
awjt

I’m having a hard time not thinking about how long those guys have gone without seeing a woman, and how she’s being loaded onboard like an object…
- Timmy Corkery
  
  Well then scoot back from your keyboard, take a couple of deep breaths, and focus on the fact that a) it’s a sight gag, b) if they’re unloading, they last saw women earlier in the day at Baikonur, and c) it’s a sight gag. From the practical side of the sight gag, she’s probably the only member of the crew small enough to pull it off. I’m pretty sure from the grins on everyone’s faces that everyone including the “object” are in on the joke.
  
  EDIT: I do see your point, and, while a lot of the time it is about gender and power, it’s not always about gender and power. Sometimes it’s just about funny. And, as you surely know from reading BoingBoing, low/zero G has just about infinite potential for funny. Just sayin’.
  - anansi133
    
    it’s not always about gender and power. Sometimes it’s just about funny.
    
    Who gets to decide? The exact same thing can be said about every bigoted joke ever uttered, and there’s no hard and fast rule that objectively defines who’s a bigot and who’s a victim.
    
    I laughed, and wasn’t offended…. but if someone else says they *are* offended, I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong.
- ephophex
  
  There have been 31 women on the ISS, including 2 commanders of said ISS. Why would you assume they hadn’t seen one in a while?
  - wysinwyg
    
    Yeah, that assumption does way more to objectify women than the GIF does.
    - awjt
      
      I’m just laughing at all these people taking offense at my irony.
      - JProffitt71
        
        That’s.. that’s not irony. What?
      - foobar
        
        There’s no rain on your wedding day in space.
      - Timmy Corkery
        
        I’ll admit to having been successfully trolled here, if that was your intent. If not, please remember to close your irony and sarcasm tags.
      - awjt
        
        I don’t even like to open them. I leave everything to the will o’ the wind. Even the very definition of irony.
      - wysinwyg
        
        I didn’t take any offense. I just thought it was a stupid thing to say. (I often have trouble identifying statements as jokes when they are not funny. The only irony I can see is that your attempt at mock-feminist concern trolling was actually relatively anti-feminist.)
oasisob1

Space food: You’ve come a long way, baby!
chellberty

“Now we all know women make the best hostages. They’re smaller, easy to take along, eat less, smell nice.” http://www.hark.com/clips/cjxtbqzwcj-we-all-know-women-make-the-best-hostages
kroeghe

I’m still trying to find the original source, but that’s what I’ve got at the moment: http://kidstube.com/video/4318/Inside-the-space-stationAwesome–ISS
A short movie with strangely familiar soundtrack;) As you can see – it was much slower than the gif version is – she still could get herself a nasty bump, but it would be a bump – not a trepannation;)
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  That is much better than the usual tours of the ISS which appear on line.
- anansi133
  
  Thank you! The video gives a lot more context, and the gag works better at normal speed.
  
  I’m a little sad that these videos haven’t changed much since Skylab. I’d rather be watching astronauts interact with stuff that’s never been on earth.
- SolarCel
  
  the original source is an IMAX movie called ‘space station’ narrated by tom cruise.
  - kroeghe
    
    Oh, thank you. I couldn’t find it nowhere and it was like an itch you can’t scratch:)