Jasmin Moghbeli—NASA astronaut, aerospace engineer and test pilot—has met one of her greatest challenges: hair care in space. Astronauts can spend months on the International Space Station. Living in microgravity is a much different experience than living on Earth. Something as seemingly simple as combing your hair becomes a more complex process. It shows how the small tasks of daily living become magnified in a space environment.
Moghbeli has been in residence on the International Space Station since August and is packing up to come home. “I found an item from early on in the mission that made me laugh—the hairbrush that didn’t survive two months of managing my space hair,” the astronaut tweeted in a post on X.
Moghbeli posed for a photo with the broken brush as her hair swept upward behind her. “Between all the floating particles that get caught in my hair, the Velcro that my hair gets caught in, and the ease with which my free-flying locks get tangled, hair management up here has been harder than I expected,” she wrote. This has been Moghbeli’s first visit to the ISS.
NASA astronauts often have active social media accounts for public outreach. Moghbeli has been sharing photos, science experiments and details of everyday life on board the ISS. Moghbeli’s sense of humor is a highlight, as shown in her tongue-in-cheek hairbrush lamentation.
There are good reasons why hair is tough to manage in space. In microgravity, water tends to collect in spheres and float around, so astronauts can’t just hop into a shower to scrub their locks. “Astronauts wash their hair with a ‘rinseless’ shampoo that was originally developed for hospital patients who were unable to take a shower,” NASA said in an explainer. Astronaut Karen Nyberg gave a 2013 demonstration of how to wash hair in space using a small amount of water, shampoo and a robust comb.
Astronauts take some personal items into space, so they may be able to pack a favorite brush or grooming product. Crew members can give each other haircuts while up in orbit, but have to be careful to vacuum up stray hairs that wander about.
Moghbeli previously shared what it’s like to to cut hair on the ISS with a time-lapse video of her trimming Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa’s hair. “Up here on the space station, we are the scientists, maintenance crew, medical staff, entertainment, hair stylists, and more,” the NASA astronaut tweeted.
Moghbeli traveled to the ISS in a SpaceX Dragon capsule as part of the Crew-7 mission last year. The team is scheduled to hop back into the capsule and come back to Earth on Monday with a splashdown off the coast of Florida. “The departing crew has spent the week packing Dragon with station cargo and personal items for return,” said NASA in an update. It’s unknown if Moghbeli plans to bring the brush back as a souvenir. More likely, it will end up in the ISS trash. Most ISS garbage is packed into cargo spacecraft that are eventually released to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
With her time on the station drawing short, Moghbeli has been reflecting on the journey. “I truly can’t believe this adventure is almost over. This is what I’ve dreamed of since I was a little girl,” the astronaut tweeted on February 24. “I was afraid I might get here and be disappointed after having such high expectations my entire life but, if anything, this experience has surpassed all my expectations.” No bad space-hair days can take that away.
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