The ISS Marks 10 Years In Space

Matt_dk writes to point out the upcoming tenth anniversary of the International Space Station in two days' time. "On 20 November 1998, a Russian Proton rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for a historic mission: It was carrying the first module of the International Space Station ISS, named Zarya (Russian for 'dawn'). This cargo and control module, which weighs about 20 tonnes and is almost 13 meters long, provides electrical power, propulsion, flight path guidance and storage space. The launch of the module... heralded a new era in space exploration, as, for the first time ever, lasting cooperation in space was achieved between Russia, the US, Europe, Canada and Japan. Over the next ten years, many other modules were brought into orbit, and ISS developed into the largest human outpost in space. Since that time, the building blocks, transported by Russian launch vehicles or the US Space Shuttle, have expanded the ISS to the size of a soccer pitch and a current total mass of about 300 tons."

Comments

And for what?

[Anonymous Coward]

10 years and what have we really achieved with this (apart from spending billions)???

Re:And for what?

[Smidge207]

"Lasting cooperation in space was achieved between Russia, the US, Europe, Canada and Japan..."

I'd say that's pretty remarkable.

=Smidge=

Re:And for what?

[Tablizer]

10 years and what have we really achieved with this (apart from spending billions)?

The concept of gravity-free materials research sounded good at the time, but it just has strangely not panned out. Perhaps because its cheaper to fake the process on the ground than pay for the real deal up there.

It would be nice if they invented healthy donuts and flying cars up there to justify it all, but so far itsa bust.
   

Re:Pee

[symes]

We all drink recycled pee - there's only so much water on this planet and, according to some estimates, most of it has been drunk eight times already. So unless they were drinking outer space water, rather than earth water, they most certainly were drinking recycled pee for the past ten years.

How much does it weigh in space?

[davidwr]

weighs about 20 tonnes

I assume you mean it weights about 196kN. On Earth. At sea level.

How much does it weigh in space?

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[CensorshipDonkey]

Newton is a measurement of force, and therefore weight, not mass, as you point out. However, pounds are ALSO a unit of force, not mass, and therefore tons (2,000 pounds) is weight. I think your pedantry is wrong, you've merely converted from Imperial weight/force to metric weight/force.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[Anonymous Crowhead]

About 85% of what it weighs on earth depending on altitude. You aren't weightless in space, you essentially experience continual freefall.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

I take it you don't count gravity as a "force" where you come from?

Ahh, this is where relativity and the equivalence principle come in. According to the equivalence principle, there is no experiment that you can do on the ISS that can distinguish whether it is currently in orbit around the Earth, or instead in deep space (not anywhere near any significant masses), or any other variant of 'free fall'. Well, obviously you can look out the window, but that is not what I mean: you cannot determine the force on you due to gravity by doing any kind of experiment with masses etc. (This experiment is easy to do on the surface of the earth, you just need a set of scales!).

Without gravity applying a "force" to the ISS, it would move in what is commonly known as a "straight line".

Yeah true, that is entirely correct in the Newtownian view. But an entirely equivalent way of viewing the motion of the ISS is that it is moving 'straight', but the spacetime surrounding the Earth is curved. This view is easier to grasp if you imagine actually being on the ISS - from this point of view (which is an accelerating reference frame, in Newton's picture), there is no net force acting on it. That is, there is no experiment that you can do to measure the local strength of Earth's gravity.

Another example of motion (acceleration) being equivalent to gravity: Suppose I applied a force to you by putting you in a car and accelerating very quickly down the freeway, you would feel the forces acting upon you. If you attempted to measure the force of gravity at the same time (for example, by using a set of scales, or an accelerometer) there is no way you can distinguish whether I am accelerating you down the freeway, or if you are actually stationary but have been suddenly transported to another planet where the gravity is stronger. This is the Equivalence Principle (I am too lazy to put in the wikipedia link, but the article is reasonably accurate and worth reading).

In orbit, the acceleration of the motion precisely cancels out with the force due to gravity. The net force experienced by the astronauts is zero and they are weightless. The equivalence principle states that this situation is precisely equivalent to being in empty space with no gravitational masses anywhere nearby in the sense that it is not possible to distinguish these cases by measuring the local gravitational field. In both cases, it is zero. Similarly, it is impossible to distinguish, by measuring the local gravitational field, between the two cases of (1) a stationary object on the Earth, experiencing a weight of mass*9.81m/s^2, and (2) a rocket ship in free space with the engines on and accelerating at 9.81m/s^2. In both situations, you have the same mass and any experiment you do to measure the strength of the local gravitational field will give the same reading. [*]

[*] Actually, you can tell, but it is very subtle: on the Earth, the gravitational force is towards the center of the earth, so of you move slightly to the left the direction of the gravitational force changes slightly. But in an accelerating rocket, the force is uniform. These are called 'tidal forces', and with a careful experiment you could measure it. You would see this, for example, in an elevator that is accelerating downwards at exactly the rate of the acceleration due to gravity (so that objects in the elevator were weightless and floating around), and you placed two objects some distance apart, the tidal forces would tend to push them together. This is because they are both accelerating towards the center of the earth, rather than straight down. It is easier if you imagine doing this experiment on a very small and very heavy asteroid. If you put an elevator nearby to the asteroid, and draw lines of force radiating outwards from the center of the asteroid, the lines of force that pass through the elevator are not quite parallel.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[arkhan_jg]

The standard estimated total cost of the ISS (difficult to measure precisely given the multinational aspect) is between $50 billion and $100 billion. Over 10 years.

In comparison, the US military budget for 2009 is $711 billion. $10 billion is spent a month in Iraq alone. total estimated cost of that war so far over 6 years? $660 billion, and that's just US costs.

Going into space for long periods safely, or as safely as is practicable anyway, is very, very hard. I'm not saying the ISS is cheap, but it's not bad in the grand scheme of things.

free market vs. government

[Anonymous Coward]

The governments of the world have a monopoly on space exploration.

When it is clear that there is money to be made, and the governments get out of the way, we'll see amazing leaps in our capabilities and accomplishments in space.

And, I kid you not, a big part of what will get us there is the not-yet-established zero-G porn genre.

Re:free market vs. government

[2short]

"When it is clear that there is money to be made"

There isn't; clearly.

"...and the governments get out of the way..."

Any evidence they're in the way?

"And, I kid you not, a big part of what will get us there is the not-yet-established zero-G porn genre."

Zero-G: A fine example of something associated with space that is much more cheaply had in the atmosphere. Build your porn studio into an appropriate airplane and have it fly parabolic trajectories all day for years before you get to the cost of a day in actual orbit.

What does it have to show for it ?

[savuporo]

So for these several tens of billions sunk, and the "World class science facility" still not being really operational, what does it have to show for this cash and ten years ?
How much technology advancement really has happened and what scientific goals have been accomplished ?

There has been some useful stuff, but wouldnt it be nice to see it all these shortly summarized in a table with the bottomline dollar drawn under it ?

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[AsnFkr]

NASA peaked as Apollo and has been underachieving ever since.

I agree with you (for the most part) on this statement relating to manned space exploration, but NASA has had much success in robotic space exploration in the past 40 years that should not be ignored.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[savuporo]

I'm not saying the ISS is cheap, but it's not bad in the grand scheme of things.
Whether its bad or not can only be measured against the results it has delivered for the money or will deliver. Can you outline those in a concise manner for us ?

Shuttle is a lot of the cost.

[nacnud75]

Well a lot of the cost is the inefficient nature of the Shuttle launch system. Every launch of the shuttle puts 110 tonnes in orbit, but around 90% of that is the shuttle itself. Rather than 10s of launches the ISS could have been put up with a handful of NLS launches freeing the shuttle for what it does best, servicing a space station and bringing samples back.

Re:Typical "International" Effort

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true, but at the same time, the US has the most control over its utilization. Other contributors like the ESA are lucky to fly one astronaut every other year. Russia generally has at least one up, because they contributed two of the backbone modules, a significant amount of the resupply missions, and the Soyuz that is required to be kept docked for emergency evacuation.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[Darth_brooks]

What's left to do? Here's some short-term ideas, many cribbed from The High Frontier.

It's not "what is left..." it's "what was left..." NASA probably went in a bad direction with the shuttles, but we still kept plugging forward.

NASA has gone a lot farther than they get credit for, and to compare the accomplishments of nations today to what NASA (and the USSR. We spent a great deal of time just trying to catch them.) did literally 40 years ago is almost insulting.