If any of you are under the impression that our billionaires might succeed in "escaping" to space, while the world burns, let me put those fears to rest with what I know from being the spouse of a NASA flight controller. 🧵

For a half-dozen people to exist up on the ISS, it takes a ground team of thousands of people, constantly problem-solving how to keep them alive. Their quality of life is bouncing around in a narrow tube with the same 5 people who can't really bathe for months. /

Every minute of their day is micromanaged so they can survive. They follow strict exercise regimens to keep their bones from turning to goo. They spend a ton of time studying systems and conducting repairs on equipment that's continually breaking because SPACE WANTS TO KILL YOU /

Their sleeping situation is akin to a floating coffin. Their pooping situation is a 20-something-step process in a port-o-potty where everything FLOATS and the door is a plastic curtain. The wifi cuts out at regular intervals. The food is NOT michelin starred, to say the least. /

The only reason they're alive up there at all is because multiple countries have thousands of brilliant, highly-trained engineers and doctors and astrophysicists and computer experts whose full-time job is keeping the astronauts alive and the ISS functioning. /