It had a good run, but space station’s first treadmill on way out

NASA

The International Space Station's first treadmill, referred to as the Treadmill Vibration Isolation System, or TVIS, floats inside the orbiting outpost in May as it was being prepared for Tuesday's disposal.

Robert Z. Pearlman Space.com A space apparatus that for more than a dozen years enabled both astronauts and cosmonauts to literally run around the Earth has pretty much run its course, NASA said Tuesday. The International Space Station's original treadmill hss been condemned to a fiery destruction aboard a spent Russian cargo freighter.

The treadmill, which NASA had earlier reported was aboard a spent Russian cargo freighter that left the International Space Station Tuesday , actually will leave the station and be discarded with the next Russian unmanned resupply vehicle, Progress M-18M (50P), which as of Tuesday was scheduled to undock on July 26. After its departure, the cargo craft and its contents including the treadmill will be destroyed during its descent back into Earth's atmosphere.

(A NASA spokesperson confirmed Tuesday afternoon that the information earlier provided earlier to collectSpace.com by the space agency was in error.)

The now-discarded exercise device, called the "Treadmill Vibration Isolation System," or TVIS (pronounced "tee-viss"), was used by the orbiting outpost's first 34 resident crews from November 2000 until March of this year, when it was replaced by a new Russian-built unit. The 12-year-old running machine (and sometimes marathon track) was previously succeeded by a more advanced U.S. treadmill that was famously renamed after the television comedian Stephen Colbert.

"There has been a history of treadmills, trying to get them to work pretty well in space, and it is no easy feat," said NASA astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams, who ran on the TVIS, and later the C.O.L.B.E.R.T. (Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill), to stay in shape during her two long-duration missions onboard the space station in 2006 and 2012. [ Photos: Comedian Stephen Colbert Visits NASA ]

Astronauts and cosmonauts use treadmills and other types of exercise devices as a countermeasure to the debilitating effects that extended exposure to microgravity has on the human body, including the loss of muscle mass and bone density.

Williams made history on the TVIS by becoming the first person to run a full marathon in space. On April 16, 2007, as thousands on the ground ran in the Boston Marathon, Williams completed the same distance on the stationary-but-still-circling-the-Earth treadmill.

"It made it through the (marathon's) 26.2 miles without a fault," Williams recalled in an interview with collectSpace about the TVIS's legacy.

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It had a good run, but space station's first treadmill on way out