Floating in Space: Life on the International Space Station

Imagine you are floating in a spacecraft. You are weightless! You push off the wall and float down a long room. You feel like Superman flying across space. You duck your head and do a quick flip before landing against the other wall, then push off it to soar in the opposite direction. At the end of the next room, you grab a handle and stop to look out the round bubble window. Far below, you see a glittering blue ocean, clouds, and brown land. You are 200 miles above Earth onboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Speed and Orbit

Have you ever heard of the International Space Station? Right now, it’s circling the Earth above you at 17,000 miles per hour (28,000 kilometres per hour). It is going so fast that it orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, which is 15 ½ times a day! That’s incredibly fast! Some people think the Space Station is floating in space, but it’s actually falling around the Earth in what is known as an orbit.

The International Space Station, also known as the ISS, is special because it’s not owned by a single country but by many countries who worked together to build it. It started as a single module and has grown piece by piece into the larger station it is now. In 1998, Russia launched the module Zarya into low-Earth orbit as the first piece. Low-Earth orbit means it is still within the Earth’s orbit, not far off in space beyond the Earth’s strong gravitational pull.

Construction of the ISS

Two weeks after Zarya was launched, the United States launched its space shuttle with the Unity module and its astronauts onboard. The next step was connecting the first two modules. The astronauts did this by floating out into space and attaching them. That is how the International Space Station began! After that, other pieces were slowly added to the ISS. In 2000, the Russian module Zvezda was added, then NASA’s Destiny module. Canada’s space program contributed a robotic arm for spacewalks and remote-controlled repairs. The Harmony module was added in 2007, then the European Space Agency sent up the Columbus module. Japan sent up its module in 2008. Next came NASA’s Tranquility module, then Europe’s Leonardo module, and finally the Bigelow module sent up by a private company. One reason the ISS is amazing is that it is a team effort!

Space Station Activities

Usually, around 3 to 6 astronauts live and work on the ISS at a time. It was made for many reasons, but one of them was to do research. Since humans plan to go to Mars someday, they are using the ISS to see how space will affect the astronauts during their journey to Mars. For example, what will space flight do to their bodies? What kind of foods will they need to eat? What kind of exercise will they need? Will they be able to grow plants?

On the ISS, the crew’s days are very busy. Besides doing experiments, they spend a lot of time doing maintenance — which means keeping the station running smoothly. Each astronaut has different responsibilities. Only by working together will the ISS continue to work properly. Often the astronauts climb into their spacesuits and spacewalk — which means going outside of the ISS and floating around to make repairs. This can be dangerous work, so they always attach themselves to the ISS for safety. The astronauts have also been testing a robot that they can use to fly around the ISS and make repairs for them.

Daily Life on the ISS

The other important part of an astronaut’s day is taking care of themselves, making sure they eat the right foods, showering, brushing their teeth, and getting exercise. They also do things like video chat with schoolchildren and talk about what they’re doing with people around the world. They do this to get others excited about the space station and space research.

Eating in zero gravity can be very tricky! Their food has to be strapped down to a table and utensils and water bottles have magnets on them to keep them from floating away. In zero gravity, water floats around in blobs!

Space Station Crew

People from 19 different countries have visited the ISS. These include the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. At the ISS, it’s exciting to see people from many different countries working together. It’s a perfect example of how working together with people across the world can accomplish amazing things!

Space Tourism

Many people dream of visiting space someday and some companies promise that someday anyone who can pay for it will be able to do it. Right now, it can be very expensive (and at times not even possible) to visit places like the ISS, but someday space vacations may be available to everyone. Can you imagine visiting a place like the ISS or a far-off hotel on the moon? This is called space tourism and a few very wealthy people have been able to visit the ISS by paying for it. It costs them many millions of dollars!

Anousheh Ansari: A Space Tourist

One of these people was Anousheh Ansari. Anousheh was born in Iran and moved to the United States when she was little. She was interested in engineering and graduated from college to become an engineer. She and her husband later started a company that was so successful that it made them very wealthy. She’d always dreamt of going to space and became interested in visiting the space station. When she found out they were allowing some to visit the ISS if they paid, she jumped at the opportunity. First, Anousheh trained for the journey, then took a Russian rocket up to the ISS and lived and worked there for a short while. There Anousheh helped do experiments and later wrote a book about her amazing journey.

The International Space Station is an incredible feat of engineering and international cooperation. From its rapid orbit around the Earth to the daily lives of astronauts onboard, the ISS represents human ingenuity and our desire to explore space. Whether through scientific research, maintenance tasks, or space tourism dreams, the ISS continues to inspire people around the world. So next time you look up at the night sky, remember that there’s a little piece of humanity orbiting far above, where people from many nations work together to push the boundaries of what we know and what we can achieve.