Take a Tour of the Phonebooth-sized Crew Quarters on the International Space Station

This NASA graphic shows information about the crew quarters on the ISS. Credit: NASA.

Phone booths. You know, those things that Superman used to change into his cape and tights. According to news reports, the last phone booths in use in the US will be decommissioned and hauled away sometime this year. If you’ve ever had the chance to actually use one of these communication relics, you know how cramped they are inside. But they provide a good size comparison to the tiny crew quarters on board the International Space Station.

In this new video, Japanese astronaut and Expedition 38 Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata provides a tour of the crew quarters inside the International Space Station’s Harmony node where there are four individual living spaces. They include a sleeping bag, laptop computers and gear for communicating with family members.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/