Category Archives: Transhuman News

Space Station Live: Opening up Science on a New Expedition
NASA Public Affairs Officer Brandi Dean talks with Expedition 43/44 Lead Increment Scientist Jorge Sotomayor about the research plan for the coming six months on board the International Space...

By: ReelNASA

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Space Station Live: Opening up Science on a New Expedition - Video

International Space Station Expedition 43 Crew Prepares for Launch in Kazakhstan
At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Expedition 43 Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Mikhail Kornienko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), NASA ...

By: NASA

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International Space Station Expedition 43 Crew Prepares for Launch in Kazakhstan - Video

ISS: "I wish peace to all earth dwellers" - Russian cosmonaut Shkaplerov
Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov said that he would like to "wish peace to all earth dwellers" during an interview aboard the International Space Station on Friday. Shkaplerov further stated...

By: RuptlyTV

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ISS: "I wish peace to all earth dwellers" - Russian cosmonaut Shkaplerov - Video

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com @BednarChuck

The International Space Station (ISS) has been in service for nearly 15 years, been visited by hundreds of astronauts, travelled well over 1.5 billion miles and provided invaluable scientific research. But have you ever stopped to wonder why it looks so odd?

[STORY: The moon got its shape from tidal forces]

Lets face it, as wonderful as the ISS is, it doesnt look near as badass as the orbital outposts that are depicted in science fiction (Star Treks Deep Space 9 or the Death Star, for example). So why did NASA and its international colleagues choose to give it such an unusual shape?

As it turns out, they didnt, according to Robert Frost, an instructor and engineer in the US space agencys Flight Operations Directorate and the author of a Quora article (reprinted by Gizmodo) that dishes the dirt on why the station lacks the sleek designs of its fictional counterparts.

Where a fictional spacecraft has the luxury of having its design dictated by style, real spacecraft are constrained by budget, tradeoffs, and practicality, Frost wrote. Every feature of the ISS can be explained by those words.

[STORY: Astronaut builds Lego ISS model in space]

We dont yet have the technology to do construction in space, so we have to assemble a large vehicle in space from launch-able components, he added. At the time of the ISS assembly, the two mechanisms for getting a large payload to space were the Space Shuttle Orbiter and the Russian Proton rocket. Those two sentences explain a lot of the ISS appearance.

Frost went on to explain that the ISS had to be assembled from pieces that were small enough to find in the space shuttles payload bay, or in the cargo compartment of a Proton rocket. As such, the maximum length and diameter of these components were limited, forcing crews to rely upon pieces that were primarily cylindrical in shape and able to be linked together.

Parts had to fly themselves

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Why is the ISS shaped so weirdly?