Regular readers know I’m not a huge fan of the International Space Station. With an unclear purpose and a $100+ billion price tag, I think the money might have been better spent on a better design. Still, it’s a space station, and it’s pretty cool. Cooler yet, NASA just put out a four-part series of videos of a tour of the ISS. It’s hosted by astronaut Mike Fincke (who, in microgravity, bears a weird resemblance to Louie Anderson), and he’ll show you various geegaws and gizmos on board.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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January 25th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Or you can pay $20Million to Russia and get a personal tour. Please send donations to my PayPal account so I can go!
January 25th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
I have a question about the term “microgravity”. The ISS is under almost as much gravity as we on the surface. Only because it’s in orbit do objects and people aboard the ISS appear to be free from gravity.
Why was the term “zero gravity” replaced by the term “microgravity”? Is it because of the very slight drag on the ISS from Earth’s atmosphere at that altitude?
January 25th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
WAST OVERSIMPLIFICATIONS FOLLOW: Zero Gravity is a layterm really. Microgravity is the more correct term. The terminology has nothing to do with atmospheric drag, but rather with how close to the earth the ISS is. If you think about it, the ISS is continually falling into the earth’s gravity well. It’s all that forward motion that has it missing the planetary body that it’s falling towards.
January 25th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
I’m ambivalent about the term “microgravity”. The gravity that the ISS experiences is very close to that on the surface of the earth and atmospheric drag is infinitesimal. So the craft’s acceleration is large but its acceleration with respect to gravity is tiny. This acceleration with respect to gravity being near zero is what gives the ISS its “weightless” environment. The infinitesimal acceleration with respect to gravity is what causes the craft to gradually spiral in and without occasional boosts, the craft will eventually disintegrate in the upper atmosphere.
January 25th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
And being from Emsworth, near Pittsburgh.. HE’S A STEELERS FAN!
Here’s Fincke waving the Terrible Towel on the ISS!!
(Good luck to the Cardinals next week too!)
January 25th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Nice tour but I think the ISS needs some interior decorating. The place looks gray and cluttered. How about some woodgrain, houseplants and artwork? At least the view is pretty damn good.
January 25th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Microgravity refers to the fact that objects inside the station do experience slight accelerations with respect to the station itself. These accelerations come from 2 sources that I can think of: atmospheric drag, and orbital dynamics (e.g, tides).
Atmospheric drag causes everything on board to feel a slight acceleration relative to the station in the direction of the station’s orbit.
Accelerations due to orbital dynamics are a bit more complicated. Objects below the station’s center of mass feel an acceleration towards Earth, and objects above the center feel an acceleration away from Earth. Objects to the left or right of the center of mass feel an acceleration towards the center.
January 25th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
It’s interesting that the crew still use the concept of up-and-down on board. In the video, he talks about “floors” and “ceilings”, and about about flying “up” into the JLP and looking back “down” into the JEM.
January 25th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
External forces aren’t the only ones. Don’t forget that the station has mass too.
There is of course a tiny gravitational acceleration towards the station’s center of gravity (rougly – the station’s density and mass distribution isn’t exactly constant
– objects at the station’s ends will be accelerated “down” the tube.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
@wb4: Doesn’t surprise me really. First we have the concepts of up and down from a very early age and it would be difficult for an adult to let go of it. From a practical point of view considering areas of the station to be up, down, left, right is useful for orienting yourself, giving directions, or describing where you are to other crew members.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
I forgot about videos 2-4. Not everything is gray and the host promises there will be less clutter after they clean up a bit.
I wonder if we will see “artificial gravity” due to spinning of a spacecraft in this century. That way, astronauts wouldn’t have to exercise so much just to maintain reasonable health. However, there may be serious Coriolis issues when attempting “number one” into the toilet.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
My mom would definitely disapprove of the clutter. She would probably prefer the clean look of the Space Station 5 from 2001: A Space Odyssey:
The future ain’t what it used to be. – Yogi Berra
January 25th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Here’s all 4 parts in an embeddable playlist for your convenience.
January 25th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Sometimes I think it’s worth the entire ISS just to get Don Pettit’s science lessons.
January 25th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
IMO, the term “microgravity” is just as misleading as the term “zero gravity.” Everything is in freefall. Relative to the rest of the space station, the contents are accelerating just as fast (aside from the imperceptible difference due to atmospheric drag as others have mentioned), so the relative effect on the passengers is that there’s no perceived gravity.
I think the term “orbital freefall” would work a lot better.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:07 am
That’s NOT cool – it just makes me want to go up and visit all the more
My fund is sitting at about £600 right now, going to be tricky raising those extra millions by the end of the year.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Looks like he’s hanging upside down all the time. Gee, real space, with the dirty laundry, fluid retention, and all the other issues certainly isn’t as glamourous as the Buck Rodgers image most media gives us.
It’s a little of what this site talks about: the disconnect between real science, and entertainment science. The same reason Discovery channel and CSI make labs dark and full of coloured light, rather than the dingy, smelly fluorescent-lit places they are in reality.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:58 am
Scientists seem to take engineering for granted, as if it is some lesser form of work that they can just take for granted.
I find that funny personally, because I would say that about half of the PHd scientists I know and have worked with couldn’t take one of their discoveries out of a lab and make it useful if they had a gun pointed to their head with the threat of being shot if they didn’t.
And that’s precisely the attitude scientists have towards the ISS National Laboratory — that its construction and ongoing operation counts for nothing and that it can be taken for granted. They seem to miss that putting it into orbit and keeping it there was the first phase of the operation, and until it is truly completed it will be difficult if not impossible for them to do their science.
They also fail to notice and see the experience and knowledge of long-term human flight and its challenges, and how the ISSNL has greatly contributed to that aspect of spaceflight knowledge.
January 26th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Again, 100 billion is *what the US paid for their share of the station*, not the total cost. The total cost was around a quarter trillion US dollars.
January 26th, 2009 at 9:01 am
So where is the enemy’s gate?
January 26th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Or should I just have made that a joke about the Soyuz’ docking station and let people figure it out on their own?
Ah well.
January 26th, 2009 at 9:08 am
That’s not necessarily true. $100 billion is one estimate for the overall cost. Only the ESA puts it as high as $250 billion. And this is over the entire lifespan, so we’re talking about through 2015 if not 2020 and beyond.
I have to completely agree about the Petit lessons. That man instantly became my favorite astronaut when through simple physics he designed on the fly a cup so astronauts no longer have to sip liquids through straws. NASA needs to clone him and get him up there 24/7.
January 26th, 2009 at 10:31 am
You know, all the time while I watched this I had 2001: A space Oddyssey in my mind.
Even the hum of the machinery has a György Ligetiesque quality. I was expecting to see HAL 9000’s eye at any moment!
January 26th, 2009 at 11:35 am
gss_000: Yeah, I like that guy too:). I love it when people jury-rig solutions on the fly.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
“With an unclear purpose…” That sounds delightfully sinister. What’s the standard conspiracy theory take? Have they built an energy weapon up there? That would explain why Bush and Putin have kept up the funding. Have they been prototyping the Tardis? That would explain all those “Einstein” experiments we’ve been hearing about.
January 27th, 2009 at 12:39 am
“Nice tour but I think the ISS needs some interior decorating. The place looks gray and cluttered. How about some woodgrain, houseplants and artwork? At least the view is pretty damn good.”
Next on Extreme Makeover: ISS edition !!!!
February 9th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
[...] con ustedes unos videos que encontré en un blog que me encanta: Bad Astronomy de Phil Plait. Es un tour recorriendo la ISS hecho por la NASA. Está dividido en cuatro partes. Acá incluyo la primera y abajo linkeo a las [...]
May 18th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
[...] Tour the International Space Station (really cool video!) [...]