OLN.C | Life on the ISS |

OLN.C | Life on the ISS

The International Space Station launched in 1998 in order to provide an international laboratory for experiments within the space environment. It’s hosted 230 people from 18 countries since then. Missions last about six months, with three to six crew members on board at all times. The ISS stays in low Earth orbit, so is much closer to us than the moon is.

The Aquarius is the training ground for the ISS, as we learned at the beginning of this series, so when they arrive at the ISS, astronauts have already experienced living in confined quarters under tough conditions, but the ISS is a lot larger than than the Aquarius. The Aquarius is just over 13 metres in length, and we’ve seen on the walk through video just how tight the spaces are.

The ISS, in comparison, is about the length of an American football field, or about 109 metres, and weighs more than 450 tons! Astronauts have compared the space station’s living space to the cabin of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

Want a closer look? Mouse over the image below to see details about parts of the ISS.

Astronauts spend most of their time on the ISS performing experiments and maintenance, and at least two hours of every day are allocated to exercise and personal care. Some of the crew has left notes for future astronauts.

For example, the resistive exercise machine allows you to lift the equivalent of 600 pounds; That’s a lot of stored energy and you have to be careful with it, so carefully following procedures is critical. There is a placard there that someone wrote on with a Sharpie: ‘Nothing is as important as what you are doing right now.’

Then there are the things that have been left behind, such as a four-inch version of Gort, the robot figure from the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” as well as a toy astronaut figure. There’s also a leftover ping pong ball. That’s especially fun to bounce off walls and predict which trajectory it will take. Also on board are musical instruments (an electric piano, guitar and ukulele) that get a lot of use. Additionally, previous astronauts have left reading material, so by now there is a shoebox-sized library of books to read. And Christmas is still Christmas, even on the ISS. The astronauts have a 2-foot Christmas tree, stockings, and an elf hat. Santa sightings are unreported.

Curriculum Reference Links

Earth and Space / Sustainability / 8: Students should be able to examine some of the current hazards and benefits of space exploration and discuss the future role and implication of space exploration in society

10 Fun Facts: The Hab

1. Aquarius is the the world’s only permanent undersea research station.

2. Most missions last about two or three weeks.

3. Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau, beat his grandfather’s record month-long underwater expedition by spending 31 days on the Aquarius Reef Base in 2014.

4. The lab is used by NASA, the US Navy, and researchers and educators from around the globe for training and research.

5. The internet connection is better in the Hab than at many places above the water.

6. You have to swim underneath the facility in order to enter it.

7. Crew members are called aquanauts (NOT aquaNUTS!)

8. In 1994, a crew of scientists and divers had to evacuate Aquarius and climb up a rescue line to the surface in 15-foot seas after one of the habitat’s generators caught fire.

9. Aquarius was featured in the comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon in 2012.

10. The Hab was originally built in Texas.

10 Fun Facts: Coral

1. Reefs usually grow up on the east shore of land masses.

2. Parts of a coral reef can be harvested to make medications to treat cancers and other illnesses.

3. A coral reef isn’t a single organism; it’s actually a community of life that lives and thrives in one location.

4. Only about one percent of the world’s oceans contain coral reefs. That’s about the size of France.

5. Coral reefs are the largest biological structures on earth.

6. Corals are related to jellyfish and anemones.

7. There are over 2,500 species of corals. About 1,000 are the hard corals that build coral reefs.

8. Reefs grow where there are stronger wave patterns and currents to deliver food and nutrients.

9. The Great Barrier Reef is 500,000 years old.

10. Most coral reefs grow just about two centimeters per year.

10. Most coral reefs grow just about two centimeters per year.

10 Fun Facts: Invasive Species

1. To be considered invasive, a species must adapt to a new area easily. It must reproduce quickly. It must harm property, the economy, or the native plants and animals of the region.

2. Some invasive species are introduced accidentally, but others are brought deliberately.

3. Ship ballast water transports between 3,000 and 7,000 foreign species daily around the globe.

4. The total loss to the world economy as a result of invasive non-native species has been estimated at 5% of annual production

5. Invasive species have contributed to 40% of the animal extinctions that have occurred in the last 400 years.

6. Rodents are some of the worst invasive species.

7. There are an estimated 50,000 wild ring-necked parakeets in parks across London and southeast England.

8. Black and Norway rats annually consume stored grains and destroy other property valued over $19 billion.

9. Northern Pacific seastars reproduce very quickly. In one area where they were introduced, their population reached an estimated 12 million seastars in just two years.

10. Starlings were introduced to New York in the late 1800s, as part of an attempt to bring animals that were mentioned in Shakespeare‘s work to America.

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