• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Astronaut Writing Prompts

Launch day, a week of floating, a message home, and the question of whether you would go.

Astronaut Writing Prompts

Show all 60
  1. The first astronauts had to be short enough to fit the capsule. Write about a rule that would keep you out of something, fairly or not.Fact: the first astronauts, chosen in 1959, had to be shorter than 5 feet 11 inches.
  2. Would you go on a spacewalk as an astronaut, with nothing under your feet? Argue yes or no.Fact: a safety tether ties a spacewalker to the station, and the suit supplies oxygen and water.
  3. An astronaut records a bedtime story for her kids from orbit. Write the first page and what drifts past while she reads.Angle: the book will not stay open. A sock goes by.

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All 60 prompts

Launch day 15

  • A pencil floats up off the astronaut's knee, and that is how she knows she is in orbit. Write that minute. Fact: NASA's word for the weightlessness of orbit is microgravity.
  • An astronaut has trained two years for this morning. Write what she checks one last time on her own, before anyone asks her to. Fact: NASA's astronaut candidates train for two years before they can be assigned to a flight.
  • An astronaut practiced this launch many times in a room that never left the ground. Write what is different about the real one. Angle: the pretend one never smelled like this, and nobody waved.
  • An astronaut walks out to the van in her suit and waves. Write the wave as three people in the crowd see it. Angle: her mother, a reporter, a kid on somebody's shoulders.
  • An astronaut's capsule docks and the hatch opens. Write the moment from the side of the crew already inside. Fact: new crews arrive through the station's docking ports. Eight spacecraft can be connected at once.
  • An astronaut's capsule reaches the station the same day it leaves the ground. Write the hours between as a logbook. Fact: NASA says a spacecraft can reach the space station as soon as four hours after launch.
  • Launch day is called off with one minute to go. Write what the astronaut says when she climbs back out. First line: Well. We are all very good at getting dressed now.
  • The night before launch, an astronaut cannot sleep and writes a list. Write the list. Angle: things checked, things to remember, and one thing to say when the hatch opens.
  • The person at mission control who talks to the astronaut on launch day has one job: sound calm. Write her side of the radio. Angle: short sentences. She says the astronaut's name more often than she needs to.
  • Write a poem for an astronaut's launch day with one line for each part: waiting, fire, noise, quiet, floating. Angle: five lines. Make the quiet line the shortest.
  • Write launch day as an astronaut, from the alarm clock to the moment the hatch closes. Angle: breakfast, the suit, the ride to the pad, the last face you see.
  • Write launch day as the astronaut's dog, who knows only that the suitcase came out and nobody is saying the word walk. Angle: smells, voices, the door. The dog looks at the sky by accident.
  • Write the countdown from ten to one as an astronaut, with one thought for each number. Angle: ten is a big thought. By three they are very small ones.
  • Write the first minutes of an astronaut's flight using only what she can feel, not what she can see. Angle: the push into the seat, the shaking, and then the moment her arms float up.
  • You are the astronaut's little brother or sister, watching the launch from far away. Write the ten seconds after the engines light. First line: We saw it before we heard it, and then we felt it in our shirts.

A week on the station 15

  • A supply ship reaches the station with something fresh in it. Write the astronauts' faces when the hatch opens. Angle: an orange, a letter, new socks. Decide which one causes the most joy.
  • An astronaut floats to the big window after work. Write what passes underneath during one trip around the world. Fact: the station circles Earth about every 90 minutes, at five miles a second.
  • An astronaut lets go of a wrench on a spacewalk. Write the next five seconds. Fact: spacewalkers tether their tools to their spacesuits so the tools cannot float away.
  • An astronaut on the station sees sixteen sunrises in one day. Write which one she stops to watch, and why. Fact: in 24 hours the station orbits Earth 16 times and passes through 16 sunrises and sunsets.
  • An astronaut rides the station's robot arm to a repair. Write it as the crew member steering the arm from inside. Fact: the station's 55-foot robotic arm has seven joints and can carry spacewalking astronauts.
  • Give a new astronaut the tour of the station, room by room, as the crew member who has been there longest. Fact: NASA says the station has six sleeping quarters, two bathrooms, a gym and a bay window.
  • It is Sunday on the station and an astronaut has an hour with nothing to do. Write the hour. Angle: somersaults, a book that will not stay open, the window again.
  • Seven astronauts share the station for a week. Write the argument over whose turn it is to do the least favorite chore. Fact: a crew of seven lives and works on the station, with more aboard during a crew handover.
  • Something on the station needs fixing, and the people who know how are on the ground. Write the astronaut's radio call. Fact: software on the station monitors about 350,000 sensors.
  • Water is precious on the station. Write an astronaut's thank-you speech to the machine that saves it. Fact: the station's Water Recovery System cuts the water that cargo ships must deliver by 65 percent.
  • Write an astronaut's spacewalk day, from putting on the suit to coming back in through the second door. Fact: an airlock has two doors, and a spacewalk usually lasts between five and eight hours.
  • Write an astronaut's turn in the station gym, where nothing weighs anything and the workout is still hard. Fact: astronauts on the station work out at least two hours a day.
  • Write Monday on the space station: an astronaut's first full day of floating. Fact: the International Space Station orbits about 250 miles above Earth.
  • Write the space station's own diary for one week, as a house that never lands. Fact: people have lived on the station every day since the first crew arrived on November 2, 2000.
  • Write Wednesday on the station as the astronaut in charge of the plant experiment. Fact: plant scientists on Earth design growing experiments for astronauts to carry out on the station.

A message home 15

  • A first grader writes to ask an astronaut whether she gets homesick. Write the reply. Angle: tell the truth, kindly. Say what she looks at when she misses home.
  • An astronaut flies over her own hometown. Write the message she sends to the people looking up. Fact: the station's path takes it over 90 percent of the world's people.
  • An astronaut on the station votes in an election back home. Write her message to a niece about why she bothered. Fact: NASA astronauts on the station can vote in elections by absentee ballot.
  • An astronaut records a bedtime story for her kids from orbit. Write the first page and what drifts past while she reads. Angle: the book will not stay open. A sock goes by.
  • An astronaut sends home one photograph of Earth. Write the caption, then the longer note on the back. Fact: astronauts and cosmonauts on the station have taken more than 3.5 million photographs of Earth.
  • An astronaut starts a message home four times and deletes each one. Write the four, and the short one she finally sends. Angle: the long ones explain too much. The short one is five words.
  • An astronaut's message home has to explain why she will miss dinner on Thursday. Write it as a joke that is also true. First line: Running late. About two hundred and fifty miles late, straight up.
  • The astronaut's family writes back. Write the message from home that makes the whole crew laugh. First line: The dog has taken your side of the couch and says to tell you it is permanent.
  • By the time an astronaut finishes a long message home, the station has gone around the world. Write it with the places she passes in the margins. Fact: the station moves at 17,500 miles an hour, about the distance to the Moon and back in a day.
  • Write a message home from an astronaut who has just come in from a spacewalk and cannot stop talking. First line: I held on with one hand and the whole world went by under my boots.
  • Write a message home from the last night of an astronaut's stay, about what she will miss about floating. Angle: also what she will not miss. Be honest about the food.
  • Write an astronaut's birthday message to someone at home, sent from a place with no candles. Angle: what she would have brought, and what she sends instead.
  • Write an astronaut's first message home from orbit. It may be only three sentences long. Angle: one about the ride, one about the view, one for the person reading.
  • Write the message an astronaut sends from the station to her old science teacher. Angle: one thing the teacher said that turned out to be right, and one that looks different from up here.
  • Write the message home in which an astronaut tells her family when to go outside and wave. Fact: NASA says the station can sometimes be seen at dawn or dusk, even from a big city.

Would you go 15

  • An astronaut says the hardest part was coming home. Write why that might be true, and whether it changes your answer. Angle: loud streets, shoes, and everybody asking the same question.
  • Finish these as an astronaut would and then as you would: I would go because. I would stay because. Angle: four sentences. See which pair sounds more like you.
  • The first astronauts had to be short enough to fit the capsule. Write about a rule that would keep you out of something, fairly or not. Fact: the first astronauts, chosen in 1959, had to be shorter than 5 feet 11 inches.
  • Is being an astronaut a job for one kind of person? Write who you think should go, then read the fact and write again. Fact: NASA says astronauts come from the military, medicine, science research and engineering.
  • More people want to be astronauts than can be. Write the letter you would send with your application. Fact: more than 8,000 people applied to NASA in 2024, and 10 were chosen as astronaut candidates.
  • Nobody on the station can step outside to cool off. Would you go as an astronaut with someone you do not get along with? Write day one. Fact: the station is 356 feet end to end, a yard short of an American football field with its end zones.
  • Should kids be allowed to go to space? Argue it to a room of astronauts. Angle: guess their first three questions, and answer those.
  • What would you be glad to leave on the ground for a while? Write the list before you answer whether you would go as an astronaut. Angle: traffic, chores, the alarm clock. Then check whether any of them come along.
  • Would you go on a spacewalk as an astronaut, with nothing under your feet? Argue yes or no. Fact: a safety tether ties a spacewalker to the station, and the suit supplies oxygen and water.
  • Would you go to space as an astronaut if you could never tell anyone what you saw? Write your answer. Angle: is the trip for you, or for the story afterward?
  • Would you go to space as an astronaut if you were asked tomorrow? Answer as yourself, with your real reasons. Angle: one reason to go, one reason to stay, and which one wins.
  • Would you go to the space station if it meant months away from everyone you know? Write the talk with the person you would miss most. Angle: they do not say do not go. Write what they say instead.
  • Would you rather be the astronaut who goes or the person on the ground who talks them through it? Choose and defend it. Angle: one gets the view. The other gets to go home for dinner.
  • Would you train underwater for seven hours to earn one hour outside as an astronaut? Write your answer after the first day in the pool. Fact: astronauts train seven hours in a 6.2-million-gallon pool for each hour of a spacewalk.
  • You are offered an astronaut's seat to the station if you take the least popular chore on board for the whole stay. Write the deal you try to make. Angle: start by asking what the chore is.

How it works

These astronaut writing prompts stay in orbit, on the space station and the ride up to it. Under many sits a NASA fact to build on: sixteen sunrises a day, a gym, a bay window, tools on tethers.

Read the full guide

A week on the station

Fifteen prompts cover the days between arriving and leaving, and most rest on a figure from NASA. The station circles Earth about every 90 minutes, about 250 miles up. Seven people share six sleeping quarters and two bathrooms. A spacewalk usually lasts five to eight hours, and the way back in is an airlock with two doors.

Would you go

The last fifteen are opinions to argue. More than 8,000 people applied to NASA in 2024 and 10 became astronaut candidates, so one prompt asks for your application letter. Others ask whether seven hours in a training pool is a fair price for one hour outside, and who you could stand to share the station with.

  • Show weightlessness through objects: say what drifts off, and where it turns up later.
  • A message home is short. Decide who is reading before you write a word.

Questions and answers

What is a good astronaut writing prompt?

One that puts you in the seat. Write the countdown from ten to one with one thought for each number. Or steer the station's robot arm from inside while another astronaut rides it to a repair.

How many sunrises does an astronaut see in a day?

Sixteen on the space station. NASA says the station makes 16 orbits of Earth in 24 hours and passes through 16 sunrises and sunsets. One prompt asks which sunrise an astronaut stops to watch.

How long do astronauts train?

NASA's astronaut candidates spend two years learning the basics: spacewalking, running the station, flying jets and working a robotic arm.

Are these astronaut writing prompts for kids?

Yes. Launch day is also told by a little brother or sister, by the family dog and by the calm voice on the radio, and the messages home include a bedtime story recorded in orbit and a reply to a first grader's letter.

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