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The International Space Station Turns 15 (time.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the happy-birthday dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Today marks the 15th birthday of the International Space Station (ISS). Since Nov. 2, 2000 the ISS has hosted more than 220 people from more than a dozen countries. Time reports: "The ISS was little more than three pressurized modules, some supplies and a couple of solar wings to help keep it powered on the day the first crew climbed aboard. Today, the station is a flying piece of cosmic infrastructure the size of a football field, containing 15 pressurized modules, which afford the astronauts as much habitable space as a six-bedroom home. It weighs 1 million pounds (454,000 kg), runs on 3.3 million lines of software code and required 115 launches just to carry all of its components up to orbit."

4 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yet another government boondoggle by Rei · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love how Slashdot is a hotbed for people arguing that:

    A) People who think that ISS, a permanent human presence orbiting our planet, is a huge financial boondoggle that we never should have done; and
    B) Establishing a permanent human presence on the surface of Mars will be cheap and we should have done it long ago.

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    "Oh, goodness. Look at my wrist, I have to go." "But what about your clothes?" "I don't love these."
  2. In-case you want to say "Happy Birthday" by bobthesungeek76036 · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://spotthestation.nasa.gov...

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    Karma: Bad
  3. Re:Yet another government boondoggle by bobbied · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ho boy... The fight is on.. You are wise to observe this, but I'm not so sure it's wise to bring it up..

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  4. Re:Longevity by bobbied · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Weren't they going to crash the ISS into the atmosphere to dispose of it at one point? That would have been incredibly stupid.

    Nope, eventually that will be it's fate.... I believe that the current project only goes out to 2025 which puts the re-entry in 10 years or so unless it's been extended.

    Skylab did, Mir did, the ISS will too...

    We may be able to deorbit parts of it and revamp the station by replacing modules as they become too old to be supportable, but I'm guessing that eventually it's going to be easier to just start over.. The question really is HOW LONG will it take for the funding to dry up, the station to become unsupportable from age or the international coalition that controls the station dissolves. IMHO - I'm guessing that the collation will break up about the same time as funding goes away and that will happen sometime in the next 10 years, if some technical fault doesn't cause irreparable damage and render the ISS uninhabitable before then.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101