International Space

Station
What is it all about?
 A research facility
assembled in orbit
arround Earth
 Joint project between five
space agencies
 National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA,
United States)
 Russian Federal Space
Agency (Roskosmos,
Russian Federation)
 Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency (JAXA, Japan)
 Canadian Space Agency
(CSA, Canada)
 European Space Agency
(ESA, Europe)
A Continuation of…
 the U.S. Space Space Stations:
Station Freedom  Russia's Mir 2,
 The ISS is a merger  European
of Freedom with other Columbus
previously planned  and the Japanese
space stations. Experiment
 projected completion Module
date of 2010
 Largest so far ;P
The Space Analog of Scapto?
 The first resident
crew entered the
station on November
2nd, 2000
 Provides a
permanent human
presence in space
Structures and design
 a set of
communicating
pressurized
modules connected
to a truss
 Powered by the Sun
Pressurized modules so far…
Modules Launched
 two Russian modules Zarya and  Harmony (Node 2) — August
Zvezda
 and two US modules Destiny
and Node 1.
Modules to be Launched
2007
 Columbus Laboratory
Module — October 2007
 Japanese Experiment
Module — 2008/2009
 Multipurpose Laboratory
Module — 2009
 Node 3 and Cupola — 2010
 Russian Research Module —
2010 or later
Life Support
 Provides/controls
elements such as
atmospheric pressure,
oxygen levels, water, fire
extinguishing etc.
 The system recycles
fluid from the sink,
shower, urine, and
condensation
The Costs…
 An estimated
100-130 billion $

Ferrari
 Feed
A full Enzo
some
Harvard
hungry for
Tuition kids
four
years
Some criticism
 A waste of both time and tax money
 Those money could be spent for solving Earth
problems
 Actual research has been trivial even compared
to low expectations
 Requires too much maintenance
 Its highly inclined orbit, means American
launches need to carry more fuel
THANK YOU!