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Astronauts’ commute from work in space is a bumpy one

The Soyuz spacecraft approaches the International Space Station (ISS) in this still image taken from video November 7, 2013. REUTERS/NASA TV/Handout via Reuters

A fiery trip to Earth crammed inside a capsule that's barreling downward, bringing with it a pull of gravity that can make wearing a watch feel like holding up a small brick; an astronaut's commute from work is like none other.

An explanatory video by the European Space Agency posted online yesterday explains the process of returning to Earth in the Soyuz capsule from the International Space Station, as three people and an Olympic torch did on Nov. 10.

Russian Fyodor, Yurchikhin of Russia, Karen Nyberg of the U.S. and Luca Parmitano of Italy landed safely on Sunday, but as the video shows with claustrophobic footage of astronauts strapped in during another landing, it must have been a bumpy ride.

[ Related: NASA airs historic Olympic torch spacewalk ]

Astronaut Paolo Nespoli, who has worked on two missions at the International Space Station, explains in the video the range of feelings associated with having your body propel through space in a container, from entering the atmosphere to contending with gravity again.

"It felt like there was somebody out there outside the spacecraft with a sledgehammer was hammering here and there, up and down. And so every few milliseconds, the spacecraft was shaking. There's a 'BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!" Nespoli says.

He also described a moment when the capsule passed through a plasma stream, which burned an outside layer of the window.

"It was getting really red. And actually the window was getting pretty dark," he said. "So it was kind of interesting."

"Interesting" might not be everyone's choice of descriptor for falling in a fireball, but that's probably why we're not all astronauts.