Interesting facts about the International Space Station

Even before the space race officially started, experts were already making plans for the orbiting space station, where people could live and work.

Once humans leave footprints on the surface of the moon, the focus will shift to establishing permanent human settlements in space. The first official space station salute No.1 was built by the Soviet Union in 197 1 year.

1986, the Soviet union launched the mir space station. Unlike previous relatively simple workstations, it is modular and can be increased with time. This space station is the most impressive construction project in human history.

Starting from 1998, the Soviet Union and the United States began a joint project to build a large-scale orbital laboratory in near-Earth orbit. With the addition of the first two modules "Zarija" and "Unity", the International Space Station was born. Its creation has enabled human beings to survive in space for more than 20 years, and provided an operational basis for microgravity experiments and research on the effects of space flight on human bodies.

The International Space Station is laying the foundation for future long-term missions to Mars and other places, and it is also the coolest thing we have built.

First of all, it runs fast.

The International Space Station is not the fastest thing built by mankind-this honor belongs to the Parker Solar Detector, which flies around the sun and Venus at a speed of 430,000 miles per hour. Nevertheless, the International Space Station is still running at an incredible speed.

The station orbits the earth at a speed of about 17500 miles per hour. At this speed, astronauts orbit the earth once every 90 minutes and experience 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours. Although astronauts may not feel it when working in the space station, it means that they travel 5 miles per second, which is about 23 times the speed of sound.

For space, the distance from the earth to the moon is about 238,900 miles. 1969, it took Apollo 1 1 astronauts about three days to get there, but according to the speed of the space station, they could reach the moon and return to Earth in about one day.

Second, people on the space station experience time more slowly.

Relativity tells us that the faster we move, the slower we experience time. In the process of our daily life, our speed of travel will not significantly change our subjective experience of time, but when you move very fast, the situation is different. When we approach the speed of light, if we know how to do this, the change of subjective time will have a real impact.

Although it is fast, compared with the amazing speed of light of 186000 miles per second, the moving speed of the International Space Station is still relatively slow. Nevertheless, the moving speed of the International Space Station is enough to measure the impact of time expansion on astronauts.

Astronauts who live on the space station for one year will experience about one hundredth of a second less than those who live on the surface of the earth. This is not much, but it still means that people on the space station travel very slowly into the future compared with the rest of us.

It was built by five space agencies and a total of 15 countries.

Space exploration usually feels like competition between countries, but the International Space Station challenges this attitude. As the name implies, space is a borderless field, which provides opportunities for cooperation for the international community.

At first, the United States and Russia were the only two participating countries, but in the following years, more countries and organizations joined the program. Today, the International Space Station consists of 1 1 countries such as NASA, Russian Federal Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and European Space Agency (ESA).

The crew space on the International Space Station is allocated according to the relative contribution of each country or organization to the whole. So far, the station has received staff and tourists from 18 countries, including every member country and some other countries.

Fourth, the legal status of the space station is ... complicated.

The International Space Station Land Law can be said to be the Intergovernmental Agreement on the International Space Station (IGA) signed in 1998+ 10. Since the space station is jointly owned and operated by various government entities, the legitimacy of the ship has been recognized.

The agreement stipulates the ownership and jurisdiction of each component of the station. In the simplest terms, member States can extend their legal jurisdiction to the space station components (modules or equipment) they provide and the crew they send.

This means that astronauts may be bound by American laws in one room and Japanese, Russian, Canadian or European laws in another room. This may make people's life in the space station complicated, but things become simple through the exemption of responsibilities between the parties. The agreement basically stipulates that no member country will ask any other partner to take responsibility for accidents or damage caused by normal space station activities. In addition, any claims that arise are handled according to the agreement between partner countries.

Fortunately, space travelers often avoid committing crimes when they leave the earth. When crimes do occur, such as an astronaut who is suspected of illegally accessing his partner's bank account from the space station in 20 19, IGA provides a framework to solve these problems.

The space station has received more than 250 astronauts.

At any given time, the space station usually has seven staff members on the International Space Station. Sometimes, especially during the crew change, as many as 13 crew members may board the ship temporarily, but these times are very short and short.

Because the station has been inhabited for more than 20 years, there are many people coming and going. By February 2022, 25 1 people had visited the station, and they came from 19 countries. As mentioned earlier, the allocation of crew is mainly based on a country's contribution to the space station. So most of the crew of the space station, 155 astronauts, are Americans.

There are also 52 Russian astronauts, 1 1 Japanese astronauts, 8 Canadian astronauts, including chris Hadfield, who is in command of the space station, and 5 or less astronauts from member countries or visiting countries of the European Space Agency. At present, the record of the most frequent visits to the space station is held by yuri Yuri Malenchenko and fyodor Yurchishin, both of whom have visited the International Space Station five times.

Six, the International Space Station has a robot crew.

If the International Space Station has no robot crew, it will not be a suitable spacecraft. In order to realize our fantasy of robot space partners, such as data lieutenant colonel and the robot in "Lost in Space", scientists at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) of NASA took Robonaut 2 as the first synthetic member of the space station staff.

It is often called R2- it gives us the impression that luke skywalker-the robot has been living on the International Space Station since 20 12. R2' s vision system, sensors and hands are almost as dexterous as humans. Robots can perform repetitive or dangerous tasks on behalf of the crew, so that they can make time for key work or prevent them from encountering potential injuries.

However, Robonaut 2 is mainly used in the space station as a test bed for robot activities in future long-term space missions. The crew's knowledge of Robonaut's capabilities will enable more advanced robots to assist astronauts in the mission to mars.

Including solar panels, this space station is about the size of a football field.

The International Space Station is the largest spacecraft ever built. If we put it on the ground, the International Space Station extends from one side to the other, from beginning to end to the whole football field.

The stationmaster is 357 feet long and weighs nearly 6,543.8+0,000 pounds, which provides enough space for the crew to move and complete their goals. With the expansion of the beam module, the International Space Station has a huge internal space of 32,898 cubic feet-although most of it is used for storage equipment. Nevertheless, the crew can still enjoy many conveniences. The space station has a sleeping area, a bathroom and a gym. Astronauts use it for two hours every day to avoid bone and muscle loss. However, its biggest feature is that it allows astronauts to stare at the earth outside the window.

Although it is already very big, the space station may soon become bigger. It is planned to add three additional modules to the space station in the next few years, which may bring us closer to a city with 1000 planets.

Eighth, it made an astronaut live in space for nearly two years.

One of the main goals of the International Space Station is to understand the impact of staying in space for a long time on the human body, because this knowledge is the key for us to travel to more distant places, such as Mars. For this reason, it is not uncommon for people to stand in space for several months at a time.

However, as far as American astronauts are concerned, no one has spent more time in space than Peggy whitson. In her career, she spent 665 days, 22 hours and 22 minutes outside the earth, only a few months away from two years.

Whitson retired from NASA in 20 18, which may have ended her time in space. However, she will return to the International Space Station on the manned dragon spacecraft of Space Exploration Technology Company as the commander of Axiom Mission 2. This will be her fourth flight.

Other notable long-term missions include NASA's twin research, during which scott kelly spent a year on the International Space Station, while his brother Mark, also an astronaut, stayed on the earth. This study attempts to determine the impact of space on human body for one year by using identical twins as control.

Nine, it lasted 10 years and completed dozens of tasks.

President Reagan signed a plan to create a space station in June 65438 +0984 +65438 10, with the goal of starting it in the next 65438 +00 years. Although no timetable was reached in the end, the space station was finally built.

The first part, Zarija control module, was launched by Roscosmos in June1998165438+10. Just two weeks later, NASA's Unity module encountered the module in orbit. In the next decade, before the space station is completed, more modules and supplies will be delivered.

A total of more than 30 tasks are needed to transport modules for the space station, complete maintenance and reserve materials. Many of these tasks were completed by various space shuttles-in fact, this is why the space shuttle program has been maintained for so long.

The construction of the station was completed in 2009, when it was fully put into operation.

Ten, astronauts must drink recycled urine.

When you are in space, you must take everything you need. This means that in addition to scientific instruments, experiments and other necessities, astronauts also need to transport food and water frequently.

It is expensive to transport materials to the space station, sometimes tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars per kilogram. Therefore, NASA and other space agencies do their best to limit the weight of payload and ultimately reduce fuel costs.

An effective way is to reduce the amount of water that needs to be transported to the station. The International Space Station does this by using a water circulation system, which absorbs urine from humans and experimental animals, as well as condensed water in the air, and recycles it into potable water.

This may not sound attractive, but it is basically the same as what happened on earth, but on a smaller scale. So far, the water recovery rate of the station is about 93.5%, but the goal of scientists is 98%. Reaching this milestone will help pave the way for mission to mars in the future. In these tasks, replenishment will be more difficult. As part of this work, a new recovery system component was delivered to the International Space Station in 20021year.

The International Space Station can't see you, but you can.

Astronauts on the space station can see many things through the dome, including clearly visible large features. However, it is impossible to see a person from about 250 miles or more. It is much easier to see the space station with the naked eye.

As long as the sun doesn't come out, you may see the International Space Station in the sky. The exterior of the space station, mainly its solar panel array, will reflect most of the sunlight when it runs in the sky.

In fact, the space station is so bright that it is the third most obvious thing in the night sky, second only to the moon and Venus. In addition, the orbital path of the station covers about 90% of the population centers on earth, which means that no matter where you live, if you know when and where to see it, you have a good chance to see it.

NASA's Spot the Station service and many other websites and applications can track the movement of the space station in the sky and even send you an alert when your area is visible. Then, as long as the sky is clear, all you have to do is look up.

Twelve, it is constantly threatened by thousands of pieces of space junk.

According to Space, in the 20 years of space station operation, there are about 30 times in danger of being hit by space junk, and the risk of impact is increasing. Three of these 30 incidents occurred in 2020.

As of 202 1, the Ministry of National Defense is tracking 23,000 pieces of space junk, each about 4 inches or more. These are just what we know. When space junk flies around in space, it may break up, making it more difficult to track.

NASA estimates that there are 500,000 pieces of marble-sized debris, all of which fly at roughly the same speed as the space station. Even small objects that move very fast can damage the spacecraft, which is objectively not good when you rely on the spacecraft to sustain your life.

In most cases, the tracking work is normal, and the International Space Station can avoid major collisions. However, 202 1 inevitably happened. A small piece of debris hit the robotic arm CanadaArm2 outside the space station. Although the arm can still work, the impact does make a hole in it like a bullet. Space agencies are studying possible solutions, such as ELSA-d satellite, to clean up the mess they caused.

Thirteen, the International Space Station will run until at least 2030, and it may find neighbors.

On June 65438+1October 3 1 day, 2022, NASA confirmed that the activities of the International Space Station had been extended to 2030. After that, the future of the space station is still unclear. Roscosmos has expressed his wish to quit the space station, because the aging technology is now beyond the original mission design. This may happen as early as 2025.

Even if the Russian Space Agency does leave the International Space Station, they will not completely quit the space station game. Plans for a new space station called Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS) are under way.

In addition, NASA is working with business partners to build more space stations in low Earth orbit, some of which may become the famous space hotels we have been waiting for. No matter what happens, the legacy of the International Space Station is safe, and the future of on-orbit and foreign space exploration is bright.