HomeLong-Duration Spaceflight PhysiologyCO2 Pocket at the Sleep Station

CO2 Pocket at the Sleep Station

Interactive 3D model of exhaled CO2 pooling around a sleeping astronaut's head in microgravity: no buoyant convection means the gas has to be swept away by forced airflow, or it slowly builds toward a hypercapnia risk.

Long-Duration Spaceflight Physiology3DModerate60 FPS
space-sleep ↗ Open standalone

Without gravity there is no buoyant convection to carry a sleeping astronaut's exhaled breath away from their face, so carbon dioxide slowly pools into a stagnant pocket around the head — a documented ISS phenomenon that flight rules now guard against with mandatory sleep-station airflow. This simulator renders a 3D crew quarter with an instanced particle cloud standing in for local CO2 concentration, integrates a real mass-balance ODE for production versus fan-driven removal, and lets you tune breathing rate, fan power, and vent distance while watching the concentration, removal rate, and equilibrium level update live.

⚙ Under the hood

Model exhaled carbon dioxide pooling around a sleeping astronaut's head in microgravity, where there is no buoyant convection to carry it away, and see how fan power and vent distance keep it below hypercapnia risk.

space medicinemicrogravityCO2life supportsleepISS

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install

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