How do astronauts entertain themselves while working in the space station?

Those of us on the ground like to remove that concern by keeping them busy working. But, the docs say we have to give them some free time.

The first thing astronauts usually mention is the simple act of looking out of the window. They have the greatest view on Earth, excuse me, off of Earth. They orbit the Earth once every ninety minutes, so there is always a new thing to look at. They talk about the colors and shapes, the lightning, the aurora, and just how beautiful Earth is. We train them on photography before their flight and many of them really take to it and downlink thousands of photos of the Earth.

The crew is away from family and friends for six months, so any means of contact - whether that be email, phone, or videocon, is a priority for their non-working hours.

Sometimes, talking to strangers is what they need. There is a Ham radio onboard ISS and anyone on the ground, with the right equipment and good timing, can talk to the crew.

Some astronauts have played chess with people on the ground, via ham radio or email.

Some of them do things like Don Pettit's "Saturday morning science" in which he performed experiments for kids, videotaped them and put them on Youtube.

Music is important to many astronauts and cosmonauts. Statistically, an astronaut is more likely than the average person to be proficient at playing an instrument. There are a few instruments on board and the occasional jam session will happen.

It's not unknown for the odd Canadian astronaut to make a music video.

During the day, the astronauts are often working by themselves, performing experiments or maintenance. The U.S. and Russian segments are pretty segmented, so a group dinner is an opportunity for the crew to talk to each other and bond.

Although we schedule exercise for them, everyday, some of them take it a bit further and run the New York or London marathons in realtime.

Reading is a common pastime.

Sometimes the ground will be nice and uplink a sporting event, like the World Cup.

Recently, we sent the crew a projector and screen, so that they can watch a movie together. And maybe give themselves nightmares if they watch a certain movie that has the ISS getting destroyed by space debris.

The odd soccer game has broken out...

And, very rarely, they dress up in gorilla suits and terrorize their crewmates.