Expedition 1 - Daily Activities

Daily Activities

In a typical day, each crew member divided his time between physical exercise, station assembly and maintenance, experiments, communications with ground personnel, personal time, and bio-needs activities (such as rest and eating). The crew's daily schedule usually operated on UTC; for example, a typical morning had been scheduled to begin with an electronic wake-up tone at about 05:00 UTC. But during the expedition, a more typical wake-up time was actually between 06:00 and 07:00 UTC. The crew's sleep habits were sometimes shifted to accommodate the schedules of visiting shuttles or resupply vehicles.

Following the wake-up call, the crew was given some time to clean up, have breakfast, and read e-mail which had been uplinked to them from flight controllers. Their work day included a lunch break at midday (UTC), and ended with a mid-afternoon planning session with flight controllers, regarding the next day's activities. Most days ended with some entertainment, with the crew watching all or part of a movie; this was thought to be good for crew bonding as well as their psychological well-being. After watching 2010, the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey (film), Shepherd commented, " something strange about watching a movie about a space expedition when you're actually on a space expedition".

An important part of the crew's schedule was regular exercise. They had three pieces of equipment for this: a stationary bicycle, a treadmill (TVIS), and a resistance device (IRED) for weight-lifting. The bicycle malfunctioned in mid-December 2000, and wasn't fixed until March. The treadmill, which used bungee cords to keep the crew member in place, was designed to reduce the vibrations caused by running. A normal treadmill would have produced enough vibrations to shake the station, and potentially affect the sensitive science experiments on board. The treadmill malfunctioned near the end of February, but some in-flight maintenance fixed the problem within a week.