Currently we are using the
equivalent of 1 and a half planets worth of resources in order to survive on
earth. With the advancement of medical technology and discoveries, we have an
ever increasing population. In the near future we will need to find another
planet to live on.
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| Previous Expedition 34 of the ISS |
The ISS is carrying out investigations, testing out the conditions that
humans would have to withstand to live on a planet such as Mars to solve this problem, without having
to risk money and human health by sending shuttles to Mars or other prospective
planets. Other experiments that the ISS carries out are in various fields, for
example biology, human biology, physics, astronomy and meteorology (which is
the study of the weather)
The ISS may be circling the
earth at 7,706.6m/s at 370km, but the International Space Station does a lot
more than that. The ISS was sent into orbit on the 20th November
1998.The ISS has spent a staggering 5243 days in orbit, 4530 of them have been
spent occupied, that’s nearly 12 and a half years.
The cost of construction of the ISS mounted up to a massive 150 billion
US dollars. The size of the ISS is approximately the size of an American
football field and it is the largest man made machinery that orbits the earth. The ISS has been visited by astronauts and
cosmonauts from 15 different nations
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| View of a spiral cloud from the ISS (@Cmdr_Hadfield |
The technology onboard the
ISS allows pioneering research to be carried out, most of which could very well
be put to good use within our lifetime. One of the many experiments is tissue culture. This
is where living cells can be grown in an environment where the results are not
distorted by the force of gravity. These results could be used to test for
treatments of deadly diseases and illnesses like cancer, without risking harm
to patients whilst the treatment is still in the production stages. NASA has
already developed a Bioreactor device on earth that can be used to simulate
these effects that happen in space. Every
so often the ISS needs to be serviced, like a car, to do this a Soyuz space
shuttle is sent out to service the ISS and deliver any essential equipment or
materials to the station. Recently on the 29th March the Soyuz
shuttle managed to reach the ISS in less than 6 hours, compared to the usual 2
days. This brings forward new prospects of space travel, potentially making
journeys to planets such as Mars possibly achievable in a reasonable timespan.
The crew on board the ISS changes regularly. On-board
the ISS currently is Commander Chris Hadfield and Flight Engineers Tom Marshburn
and Roman Romanenko who began their stay when they docked their Soyuz TMA-07M
which transported the crew to the ISS on Dec. 21, 2012.The crew on Expedition
35 is scheduled to remain on-board until May 2013.
You can see when the ISS passes are online here for June http://www.meteorwatch.org/iss-international-space-station-uk-passes-june-2013/
. Follow @VirtualAstro on twitter for
more information on astronomy or @Cmdr_Hadfield
for amazing photos from the ISS
