Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, production from I Heart Radio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, and I
Speaker 1: love all things tech and I think we're in the
Speaker 1: penultimate space station episode, folks. So for those of you
Speaker 1: just you know, tuning into this episode and not hearing
Speaker 1: the others, this is a continuation of a series I've
Speaker 1: done about space stations. So we started off talking about
Speaker 1: monolithic stations, that is, stations that would launch into orbit,
Speaker 1: all in one piece, like fully formed, and you would
Speaker 1: use some sort of heavy lift launch vehicle to get
Speaker 1: them up up, you know, into orbit. That includes stuff
Speaker 1: like the Soviet Saliott stations, which also included a couple
Speaker 1: of military platforms, and also the US sky Lab station.
Speaker 1: Then and the following episode we focused a lot on
Speaker 1: Mir the Soviet slash Russian modular space station, because that
Speaker 1: particular space station was up in orbit and survived the
Speaker 1: transition from the Soviet Union dissolving and becoming its various
Speaker 1: you know, independent states. And then we followed that up
Speaker 1: with an episode about NASA's attempts to get its own
Speaker 1: modular space station up into orbit. That last one was
Speaker 1: a real gut punch because it involves a series of
Speaker 1: different proposals and attempts that you know, fizzled out at
Speaker 1: least as far as NASA's original plans go. But this
Speaker 1: all sets the stage for the International Space Station or
Speaker 1: the I S S, which is what I had intended
Speaker 1: to podcast about in the first place, because, depending upon
Speaker 1: whom you believe, that station is starting to near the
Speaker 1: end of its functional life. All right, so let's do
Speaker 1: a quick look at what was going on as we
Speaker 1: arrived at a point where the I S S becomes possible. First,
Speaker 1: you had a Russia. Back in the Soviet days, the
Speaker 1: Soviet Space Agency built several space modules that could serve
Speaker 1: as the core of a space station. Mirror's core module
Speaker 1: is an example of this. Another example was the Functional
Speaker 1: Cargo Block or f g B. Now, this type of
Speaker 1: module was originally intended for the Mirror space station, but
Speaker 1: it never launched to join Mirror. It was also part
Speaker 1: of a Soviet era anti ballistic missile system kind of
Speaker 1: like the star Wars program was supposed to be here
Speaker 1: in the United States, uh and similarly that also never
Speaker 1: achieved orbit. Now, some in the West suspected that the
Speaker 1: f g B module that would eventually become the first
Speaker 1: I S S component in space, which would be called
Speaker 1: zaria that that means dawn or sunrise in Russian. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they thought that it's possible that this f g B
Speaker 1: unit actually dated to the Soviet era, at least was
Speaker 1: largely constructed in the nineteen eighties. However, other documents show
Speaker 1: that while the design came from the Soviet era, the
Speaker 1: actual construction would take place in the nineties. More on
Speaker 1: that in just a bit. But the Russians also had
Speaker 1: another module with the designation of Saliot Dose eight do
Speaker 1: OS eight, And you might remember from the previous episodes
Speaker 1: that the Saliot program included space stations that had the
Speaker 1: DOS designation, and that Mirror's core module had the designation
Speaker 1: d OS seven. While the d O S eight was
Speaker 1: intended to serve as a core for successor space station,
Speaker 1: the Mirror two. There's supposed to be a second Mirror.
Speaker 1: The Soviets built d OS eight in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: but for various reasons, that program never got off the ground,
Speaker 1: so to speak, and the module sat in storage in
Speaker 1: the factory for many years, and it would eventually emerge
Speaker 1: as Vezda, which means star in Russian, or possibly Zuesda,
Speaker 1: since the V and W sounds are a little tricky,
Speaker 1: I'll say Zvezda, but because I mean, I tried to
Speaker 1: look it up. But honestly, the the resources I looked at,
Speaker 1: I don't fully trust them because a lot of them
Speaker 1: just had that robot telling me it's Vezda. It sounds
Speaker 1: to me like it's just doing it, you know, phonetically. Anyway,
Speaker 1: over in the United States and Europe and Japan, you
Speaker 1: had various space programs all at work on the design
Speaker 1: and development of modules for what was going to be
Speaker 1: Space Station Freedom and then Space Station Alpha or Space
Speaker 1: Station Fred as some would call it, and these included
Speaker 1: a module from the European Space Agency that would be
Speaker 1: called Columbus and one from Japan called the Japanese Experiment
Speaker 1: Module or j E M or Keybo. But by the
Speaker 1: early es all of those plans were starting to fizzle
Speaker 1: out as the United States Congress began to bulk at
Speaker 1: the prospect of paying out for a space station that
Speaker 1: had made little progress since the Reagan administration had announced it.
Speaker 1: In That also put international strain on NASA because it
Speaker 1: had made commitments to these other space agencies, so the
Speaker 1: collapse of the Soviet Union did a serious number both
Speaker 1: on its own space program as well as the United
Speaker 1: States space program. So for decades, the rivalry between the
Speaker 1: United States and the USSR pushed governments to pour more
Speaker 1: resources into the space program for numerous reasons. One was
Speaker 1: to display technological superiority over an opponent in the Cold War.
Speaker 1: Another was to establish technologies that could potentially be weaponized
Speaker 1: in the future in a further escalation of the arms race.
Speaker 1: And of course there were the countless engineers and scientists
Speaker 1: who genuinely wanted to expand our understanding of space and science.
Speaker 1: But without that political rivalry, a lot of them was gone,
Speaker 1: at least on a political side. And you know, don't
Speaker 1: get me started on that. I find that so frustrating,
Speaker 1: as if, you know, pushing back the boundaries of ignorance
Speaker 1: is somehow not priceless all by itself. You never know
Speaker 1: what you're gonna learn or how you might be able
Speaker 1: to use it, and it could be an enormous benefit,
Speaker 1: but no, you know, unless there's that other guy to
Speaker 1: race against, it doesn't matter anyway. There was a real
Speaker 1: possibility to any space station plans from anyone, We're just
Speaker 1: gonna get tossed aside at least put on a back
Speaker 1: burner for a really long time. Russia was struggling with
Speaker 1: a financial and political crisis. The United States was struggling
Speaker 1: with the fact that the space station designs had moving
Speaker 1: goalposts and budgetary issues. So every time NASA was trying
Speaker 1: to readjust new criticisms were coming in and various politicians
Speaker 1: were starting to pull money away from NASA budgets. Also,
Speaker 1: by that point, Bill Clinton had become the president of
Speaker 1: the United States, so with a change in presidential administration
Speaker 1: comes another opportunity to salvage the work on developing a
Speaker 1: space station. This time, Russia would be invited to join
Speaker 1: that project rather than serve as some sort of antagonist.
Speaker 1: Clinton's team saw the possibility to combine the efforts of
Speaker 1: Russia with those of the United States, Canada, Europe, and
Speaker 1: Japan to create an international space station. The big benefit
Speaker 1: here would be that the pieces that were already either
Speaker 1: fully built or in the process of being constructed, or
Speaker 1: at least ready to go into manufacturing, could still be
Speaker 1: put to use rather than just go to waste. To
Speaker 1: that end, US Vice President Al Gore and the Russian
Speaker 1: Prime minister whose name I'm not even going to attempt
Speaker 1: to pronounce. First name, Victor, I can get that one anyway.
Speaker 1: They together announced the planned partnership of the I S
Speaker 1: S what would become the I S S, and the
Speaker 1: agreement would also create bonds of international cooperation, which in
Speaker 1: turn could mean a shift in the arms race as
Speaker 1: well as a way to help Russia stabilize politically as
Speaker 1: well as economically in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse.
Speaker 1: That's a good thing. You don't want unstable countries, especially
Speaker 1: unstable countries that might have access to enormous stores of weaponry.
Speaker 1: So the various countries all begin to form an inter
Speaker 1: governmental Agreement or i g A. This would create the
Speaker 1: three phases of the space station project. And actually this
Speaker 1: was the second i g A. The first one actually
Speaker 1: took place in nine, but that one was without Russia's involvement.
Speaker 1: That was back when it was still going to be
Speaker 1: you know, space station Freedom. The second agreement would come
Speaker 1: out like a decade later in nine. All countries except
Speaker 1: the United States in this agreement designated the i g
Speaker 1: A as a treaty in in the US. It was
Speaker 1: not a treaty. It was an executive agreement. Now that's
Speaker 1: an important distinction, because in the United States, a treaty
Speaker 1: with any foreign government requires that the United States Senate
Speaker 1: has to ratify that treaty by a two thirds majority vote.
Speaker 1: Executive agreements do not require that kind of ratification, and
Speaker 1: in fact, they can pretty much hold the same sort
Speaker 1: of powers as a treaty can. Now this is interesting
Speaker 1: because there's no express clause in the United States Constitution
Speaker 1: that actually grants US presidents this particular power. However, there's
Speaker 1: also nothing in there saying that they can't do that.
Speaker 1: So Clinton signed the executive agreement bypassing a congressional battle
Speaker 1: over the whole matter. And as NASA puts it, the
Speaker 1: new i g A established the overall cooperative framework for
Speaker 1: the design, development, operation, and utilization of the I s
Speaker 1: S and addressed several legal topics, including civil and criminal jurisdiction,
Speaker 1: intellectual property, and the operational responsibilities of the participating partners.
Speaker 1: Lower level bilateral memoranda of understanding or m o use
Speaker 1: were signed that same day by NASA Administrator Daniel Golden
Speaker 1: with his Russian, European and Canadian counterparts, and on February
Speaker 1: twenty with Japanese representatives, the m O used described the
Speaker 1: roles and responsibilities of the partners in more detail. A
Speaker 1: third layer consists of bartered contractual agreements establishing the trading
Speaker 1: of the partner's rights and duties end quote. Really interesting
Speaker 1: that bartering was part of this, because I'm going to
Speaker 1: cover a lot of the various components of the International
Speaker 1: Space Station in this episode, and many of those were
Speaker 1: part of this bartering, where you know, one party was
Speaker 1: saying all right, well, I'll let you do this, but
Speaker 1: you need to let me do this, and that all
Speaker 1: kind of came about as international cooperation. So all of
Speaker 1: this was going on while, of course Mirror was still
Speaker 1: operational and an orbit. And as I mentioned in the
Speaker 1: Mirror episode, US astronauts would actually visit the Mirror Space
Speaker 1: station as part of preparations for creating the International Space Station.
Speaker 1: There were ga gathering valuable information about life and space,
Speaker 1: the effects of space on the human body, and more.
Speaker 1: These findings would inform design decisions for the future space
Speaker 1: station modules. In fact, I should add the Mirror state
Speaker 1: in orbit until the spring of two thousand one, so
Speaker 1: there was operational overlap between Mirror and the International Space Station,
Speaker 1: so the Mere program continued while NASA, the E s A, Japan, Canada,
Speaker 1: and Russia worked on components for the new International Space Station.
Speaker 1: In things really got off the ground figuratively and literally.
Speaker 1: And not only is that when the participating countries signed
Speaker 1: that I G A and the m o US, it's
Speaker 1: also when the first component of the International Space Station
Speaker 1: launched into orbit. So ten months after that historic signing,
Speaker 1: Russia sent the Zarya module up into orbit aboard a
Speaker 1: launch vehicle called the Proton K, essentially a big old rocket.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's address some stuff here. Now I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier or that Zaria's design at the very least
Speaker 1: traces its origin to the Soviet era. Now, the purpose
Speaker 1: of the Zaria module was to act as a station
Speaker 1: keeping component. That is, it is a part of the
Speaker 1: station that can work to maintain a fixed distance from
Speaker 1: other stuff in orbit to allow for things like docking
Speaker 1: maneuvers and all that kind of stuff. It's important for
Speaker 1: the stabilization of the station. It would also serve as
Speaker 1: a source of battery power for the station, including you know,
Speaker 1: having having solar arrays that could help charge the batteries.
Speaker 1: Are really not help charge the batteries, charge the batteries.
Speaker 1: And uh. It was based off the f GB cargo
Speaker 1: spacecraft design. Now the thing is a module that was
Speaker 1: meant to do the very same thing as Zaria was
Speaker 1: originally part of this Soviet anti ballistic program called Skiff,
Speaker 1: which was an abandoned project. They tried to launch a
Speaker 1: laser based anti ballistic weapon up into space. The Russians did,
Speaker 1: but that launch failed. So there were some folks who
Speaker 1: suspected that Zaria was not made in the nineties but
Speaker 1: was actually a leftover, perhaps even a spare f g
Speaker 1: B that was originally meant for this weapons program back
Speaker 1: in the eighties. Now, if that was the case, then
Speaker 1: the United States was essentially helping fund something that was
Speaker 1: already built. Right because the United States paid the bill
Speaker 1: for Russia to make this thing, it could be that
Speaker 1: they already had it made and they were just like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: things are going great, keep sending the money, you know,
Speaker 1: checks in the mail. It would largely explain how this
Speaker 1: spacecraft managed to come in under budget and on time.
Speaker 1: Those are two things that are pretty darn rare when
Speaker 1: it happens in the space industry. Now, does that mean
Speaker 1: for sure that it was actually built in the eighties
Speaker 1: but passed off as being built in the nineties. No, No,
Speaker 1: not at all, just that it's possible, but whether it
Speaker 1: was constructed in the nineteen eighties or the nineties, Zaria
Speaker 1: did launch into space on November twentie n It launched
Speaker 1: from Kazakhstan and it got into orbit without any major problems. Now,
Speaker 1: the intent was to have Zaria operate on its own
Speaker 1: with no crew aboard for up to eight months, and
Speaker 1: it would turn out that the module would be lonely
Speaker 1: a bit longer than that. Now, broadly speaking, you can
Speaker 1: think of the I S S as being made of
Speaker 1: two major sections. There's the Russian orbital segment or r
Speaker 1: O S, and there is the US Orbital segment or
Speaker 1: U S O S. Zaria is the module that connects
Speaker 1: the R O S to the U S O S,
Speaker 1: or at least on the Russian side. So Zaria is
Speaker 1: twelve point five six meters that's a bit more than
Speaker 1: forty one feet long, and it's four point one one
Speaker 1: ms or about thirteen and a half feet wide at
Speaker 1: its widest point. It is sort of a uh you know,
Speaker 1: it's a cylinder, but a stepped cylinder, so it's not
Speaker 1: all the same diameter across the entire length of spacecraft.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it also has a pair of solar
Speaker 1: arrays that stretched out to either side, kind of like
Speaker 1: wings to help you know to to generate electricity. Zaria
Speaker 1: has three docking ports, one on each end of the module,
Speaker 1: So like if you look at a cylinder, one on
Speaker 1: one end of the cylinder, one on the other, and
Speaker 1: there's a third one that faces Earth, typically on the
Speaker 1: outer circumference near the forward end of the module. They
Speaker 1: call this the Nader So you have the Nader ports.
Speaker 1: Those are ones that typically face towards Earth in the
Speaker 1: I S S normal orientation, and then you have the
Speaker 1: zenith ports, which face away from Earth in I S
Speaker 1: S is normal orientation. Then you also have port and
Speaker 1: starboard uh ports, and some of these starboard being the
Speaker 1: right hand side, assuming you're facing forward and your upright.
Speaker 1: You normally don't have to say that because you're normally
Speaker 1: talking about starboard import on a boat, and you're almost
Speaker 1: always upright on a boat unless you're really sick, and
Speaker 1: then port of course is the left side. So anyway,
Speaker 1: those are the various directions. We try to keep them straight.
Speaker 1: It's hard to do when you're talking about being in
Speaker 1: a microgravity environment. We're up and down are more concepts
Speaker 1: than anything else anyway. So three ports, one on either
Speaker 1: end of this module, one on the nader or Earth
Speaker 1: facing side of Zaria and uh Zaria links to the
Speaker 1: Vezda module on the aft end, and it connects to
Speaker 1: a U S module we're going to talk about in
Speaker 1: the second on the forward end, and it connects to
Speaker 1: a third module called Ross Vett on the earth facing port.
Speaker 1: Although originally that port was actually used for Selia's space
Speaker 1: capsules to dock with the station. As I mentioned, this
Speaker 1: module alone was not enough to support life aboard the station,
Speaker 1: so there was no crew at this point. The second
Speaker 1: component to join the I S S was the U
Speaker 1: S built Unity Module. This is a connector piece kind
Speaker 1: of Its main purpose is to connect the R O
Speaker 1: S section of the space station with the U S
Speaker 1: O S section, so this is the United States version
Speaker 1: of that. It also serves as a crew dining area,
Speaker 1: and it launched on December four as part of the
Speaker 1: Space Shuttle Endeavor mission. So this module was in the
Speaker 1: payload of that space shuttle. We'll talk more about Unity
Speaker 1: as well as lots of other modules on the I
Speaker 1: S S after we come back from this quick break.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back to Unity. Let's learn some more
Speaker 1: about this particular little module, which again was sort of
Speaker 1: the connector piece, one of three nodes, as it would
Speaker 1: turn out. So there are two other um units aboard
Speaker 1: the I S S or part of the I S
Speaker 1: S that are similar to Unity. So Unity measures five
Speaker 1: point four seven ms or nearly eighteen feet long and
Speaker 1: four point five seven ms or fifteen feet in diameter,
Speaker 1: so it looks like a very short cylinder when you're
Speaker 1: at a distance. Right has six ports on it, as
Speaker 1: one on either end. So these are the axial births.
Speaker 1: That's b E r t h S. Not not birth
Speaker 1: is in like birthday, but birth is in you know,
Speaker 1: ship birth. And it also has four along the circumference
Speaker 1: of the spacecraft if you like. These would be the zenith,
Speaker 1: nadir um and port and starboard h ports or births
Speaker 1: so on the forward and aft births, which are called
Speaker 1: the common birthing mechanisms. Again b E R t H
Speaker 1: these are cb ms. These at these ends, they had
Speaker 1: two pressurized mating adapters one on either side. These are
Speaker 1: called p m as, and as the name suggests, p
Speaker 1: m as serve as a way to connect two components
Speaker 1: together and maintain a pressurized environment so that different pieces
Speaker 1: could link together. The p m A on the aft
Speaker 1: side of Unity dock with the Zarya module at the
Speaker 1: p m A on the forward side would later serve
Speaker 1: as a docking point for space shuttles, though in subsequent missions,
Speaker 1: crews would disconnect this p m A and attach it
Speaker 1: to other births while connecting new components to the I
Speaker 1: S S, so it was not permanently affixed to the
Speaker 1: forward side. It was, however, and is permanently affixed to
Speaker 1: the aft side, where it connects to the Russian part
Speaker 1: of the space station. Astronauts a board Endeavor used the
Speaker 1: shuttle's robotic arm to connect Unity to Zaria, locking the
Speaker 1: two pieces together and creating the first linked modules for
Speaker 1: the I S S. It still wasn't ready to support
Speaker 1: a crew yet, but it was the first step towards
Speaker 1: the dream of an international space station. You know in
Speaker 1: space Now I mentioned that Unity, the connector module, uh
Speaker 1: you know, serves as a place where crews eat meals together,
Speaker 1: and it also acts as a pass through for the
Speaker 1: various electrical and fluid systems on board the I S S,
Speaker 1: meaning it allows for those things to continue through this
Speaker 1: module and connect to others. Very important, like all these
Speaker 1: modules need to not just fit together, that they need
Speaker 1: to allow the various systems, especially life support, to go
Speaker 1: from one unit to another so that you have it
Speaker 1: throughout the entire space station. A unity was responsible for
Speaker 1: one of these things, even though it wasn't itself, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a life support system module. Now, the plan
Speaker 1: was to add other components in pretty short order and
Speaker 1: get the station to a point where it could be
Speaker 1: habitable for cruise. Like the idea was, all right, we'll
Speaker 1: get the third module up there with life support, and
Speaker 1: then we'll have a crew aboard and we'll be ready
Speaker 1: to go by the end of But the next module
Speaker 1: to go up would be a Russian one, and the
Speaker 1: Russian space program rose Cosmos was really struggling. The United States,
Speaker 1: as I said, actually owned Zaria, having paid for its construction. Again,
Speaker 1: assuming it wasn't already constructed, Zvezda would need extra help
Speaker 1: in order to get off the ground, both figuratively and literally,
Speaker 1: and it got some help from and I promise I'm
Speaker 1: not making this up Pizza Hut. So Russia as a
Speaker 1: whole was still really unstable economically around this time, and
Speaker 1: the Space Agency, while never lacking in scientific expertise and ingenuity,
Speaker 1: often found itself strapped for cash, which makes it really
Speaker 1: hard if you want to launch something into space. So
Speaker 1: part of the funding for this project actually came from advertising.
Speaker 1: Pizza Hut spent a truckload of money to have its
Speaker 1: company logo painted on the Proton launch vehicle that it
Speaker 1: carries Vesta up to orbit. The New York Times reported
Speaker 1: that the pizza company spent about half of what it
Speaker 1: would take to run a thirty second ad during the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl at that time, and that was around two
Speaker 1: and a half million dollars, so more than a million dollars,
Speaker 1: maybe a little less than a million and a half.
Speaker 1: And hey, you know, this might sound a little crass about,
Speaker 1: you know, slapping a logo on the space rocket, but
Speaker 1: the money helped keep the dream of the I S
Speaker 1: S alive. Zvezda would be the first module to actually
Speaker 1: have a life support system incorporated into it, so would
Speaker 1: finally allow people to go aboard the young I s s.
Speaker 1: Once everything was connected and operational, Zvesda launched on July twelfth,
Speaker 1: two thousand. The initial docking with the aft port of
Speaker 1: Zaria happened on July two thousand. However, it would take
Speaker 1: a Space Shuttle mission that was launched a few months
Speaker 1: later in September for astronaut h and a cosmonaut and
Speaker 1: astronaut cosmonaut each to go on a spacewalk and make
Speaker 1: all the cable connections between Vesta and Zaria. That spacewalk
Speaker 1: lasted more than six hours to get all those connections complete,
Speaker 1: and at the end of it, Vesta, Zaria and by
Speaker 1: extension unity, we're all connected together. On September twelve, two thousand,
Speaker 1: all the systems operational members of the Space Shuttle crew
Speaker 1: boarded the space station for the first time. Now as
Speaker 1: part of that transfer, Zaria's computers handed over control of
Speaker 1: the station to VESDA. So Zaria now was no longer
Speaker 1: mission control for the Russian part of the space station,
Speaker 1: and Zvezda would serve as the living quarters for astronauts
Speaker 1: in the time. For the time being, it also had
Speaker 1: propulsion systems for making attitude and orientation adjustments to the station.
Speaker 1: Very important, and it also had a communication system for
Speaker 1: making contact with Earth. Finally, after components had been in
Speaker 1: orbit for about two years, the space station would have
Speaker 1: occupants and it would maintain some crew, sometimes a very
Speaker 1: small one, but it would always have a crew all
Speaker 1: the way up to and including today, So since September
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, there has always been at least a
Speaker 1: crew aboard the I S S. So Zezda would be
Speaker 1: home to early cruise at the I S S. You
Speaker 1: might wonder what it was like. LA module was thirteen
Speaker 1: point one long, that's about forty three and our feet
Speaker 1: in length rather and it's whitest point in Its diameter
Speaker 1: is four point three fives that's a bit more than
Speaker 1: fourteen feet, and it has four docking ports. Three of
Speaker 1: those are part of a section called a transfer compartment,
Speaker 1: which it's at one end of this So imagine like
Speaker 1: a cylinder has almost like a ball at one end.
Speaker 1: That's the the where the transfer compartment is, and that's
Speaker 1: where you could find three of those ports. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's at the forward end, like I said, of the
Speaker 1: the module, you have one port in the axial direction,
Speaker 1: so it means coming out from the end and The
Speaker 1: other two ports are on either side of the sphere
Speaker 1: at ninety degrees from the axial port, so you can
Speaker 1: think of him as Zenith and Nadier up and down.
Speaker 1: You can also think of them as left and right,
Speaker 1: depending on how you're looking at the station. So the
Speaker 1: axial port docked with Zaria, so these modules connected end
Speaker 1: to end. You can think of him as like two
Speaker 1: cylinders connected end to end with one another. The other
Speaker 1: two ports on the transfer compartment attached ultimately would attach
Speaker 1: to the Poist module on one side, and originally a
Speaker 1: module called Piers on the other, but Piers would later
Speaker 1: get swapped out for a new module called Naka, which
Speaker 1: will have a lot more to say about later on.
Speaker 1: A fourth docking port was on the aft end of
Speaker 1: the VESDA module, so on the opposite side of the cylinder.
Speaker 1: This would serve as a docking port for Soya's spacecraft
Speaker 1: and cargo ships coming up from Russia to resupply the station.
Speaker 1: This VESDA supports up to six crew members, actually as
Speaker 1: sleeping quarters for two, so folks have to kind of
Speaker 1: sleep in shifts. It also has other necessities like a toilet,
Speaker 1: obviously really important astronauts who flew aboard the Apollo missions
Speaker 1: could tell you all about that, and it also had
Speaker 1: exercise equipment in order to help crew members stay healthy
Speaker 1: in space and counteract things like muscle and bone loss.
Speaker 1: It also has a kitchen area for food preparation. There
Speaker 1: are fourteen windows in Zvezda UM, including one in each
Speaker 1: of the sleeping compartments, and one of the carryovers from
Speaker 1: the Soviet era of Russia's space program would end up
Speaker 1: being a real source spot for VESDA, also for Zaria. So.
Speaker 1: NASA's approach to space modules was to include components that
Speaker 1: could be swapped out, so that should something fail, you
Speaker 1: could bring up a replacement on a subsequent mission, remove
Speaker 1: the failed piece of equipment and install the new one,
Speaker 1: and now you've got operational abilities back again. Russia built
Speaker 1: everything directly into their spacecraft like it was not something
Speaker 1: that was removable, so if anything failed, then the only
Speaker 1: approach you had was to repair the thing that failed.
Speaker 1: Otherwise it was just useless because there was no way
Speaker 1: to replace it. You couldn't get out and put a
Speaker 1: new whatever it was in like a new computer system,
Speaker 1: for example. You either fixed what you had or you
Speaker 1: had a broken one and that was it. So that
Speaker 1: included Vezda's oxygen generation system. The device used is called
Speaker 1: an electron that's E L E K T R O N,
Speaker 1: and it uses surprise surprise electricity to generate oxygen from water.
Speaker 1: This process is called electrolysis. I've talked about it a
Speaker 1: few times on this show. Is pretty darn simple and
Speaker 1: concept you you apply an electric charge to water molecules,
Speaker 1: and that that electricity, that that energy breaks the molecular
Speaker 1: bond between oxygen and hydrogen, and both of them get
Speaker 1: released as gases. Now, you could theoretically use that hydrogen
Speaker 1: as fuel, but it's pretty dangerous stuff. It's incredibly flammable,
Speaker 1: and so the electron system would simply vent hydrogen into space,
Speaker 1: but the oxygen would be used as part of the
Speaker 1: life support system. But the trouble is the electron system
Speaker 1: on Zvezda is pretty darn rickety. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: originally developed for the Mere space station, and frequently it
Speaker 1: requires repairs because as a tendency to break down, and
Speaker 1: the cosmonauts can't get a new electron into the Vezda
Speaker 1: module because and here's a classic problem, the electron system
Speaker 1: is larger than the Vezda modules hatches, so in other words,
Speaker 1: you couldn't get a replacement system in there because it
Speaker 1: won't fit through the door. Whoops. Say. But anyway, back
Speaker 1: in two thousand, all of this was brand new and
Speaker 1: started breaking down yet, and on September twelve, two thousand,
Speaker 1: there would be a crew aboard the space station and
Speaker 1: there has been every day since. Next the US attached
Speaker 1: a trust segment called the Z one to Unity and
Speaker 1: also added a third pressurized mating adapter, the other two
Speaker 1: being mounted to either axial end of Unity and the
Speaker 1: trust of the space station. You could think of it
Speaker 1: like a scaffold. Uh. It's it's a it's a skeleton
Speaker 1: in a way upon which you can suspend numerous components,
Speaker 1: and there are a ton of them. Uh. This trust
Speaker 1: extends outward from the space station, and it can hold
Speaker 1: stuff like the massive solar arrays. When you look at
Speaker 1: a picture of the space station and you see those
Speaker 1: big wings of solar arrays, those connect back to the
Speaker 1: trusts of the space station. Uh, but a lot of
Speaker 1: other stuff connects to it. To The Z one was
Speaker 1: the first of these trust pieces, and NASA would add
Speaker 1: to this many many times over the following years. However,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna let you know, I'm gonna skip all
Speaker 1: of those different trust editions because there's a ton of them.
Speaker 1: They're important, but if I focused on all those, I
Speaker 1: would never get to the modules. So the next module
Speaker 1: to join the party was from the United States, and
Speaker 1: this was the Destiny module. It launched on February seven,
Speaker 1: two thou one aboard this Space shuttle Atlantis, docking with
Speaker 1: the other end of the Unity capsule on right tenth
Speaker 1: and before that could even happen, the Atlantis crew used
Speaker 1: the Space shuttle's robotic arm to detach the p M
Speaker 1: A two from Unity's forward docking port. So this was
Speaker 1: the one that was opposite the one that connects Unity
Speaker 1: to the Russian module Zarya. The p M A two
Speaker 1: got shuffled around a bit until Destiny had been docked
Speaker 1: into place uh in the forward side of Unity, and
Speaker 1: then the Atlantis crew reattached p M A two to
Speaker 1: the other end of Destiny. It would take several days
Speaker 1: for a strong astronauts to make all the connections necessary
Speaker 1: in order to bring Destiny fully online. Now, this module
Speaker 1: is eight point four meters or twenty eight feet long,
Speaker 1: and it has a diameter of four point two meters
Speaker 1: or fourteen feet, and it kind of looks like a
Speaker 1: can of soda to me. But obviously with docking ports
Speaker 1: on either axial end, uh, those are the only two
Speaker 1: docking ports on Destiny. It does not have any of
Speaker 1: the ones at the zenith, nader or starboard or ports sides,
Speaker 1: so it just has one on either end of the cylinder.
Speaker 1: Destiny serves as the first and primary research lab aboard
Speaker 1: the I S S, at least on the U S
Speaker 1: O S side. This is where the science gets done,
Speaker 1: but you know, not to make a neat gun for
Speaker 1: the people who are still alive. We're talking about biomedical experiments,
Speaker 1: engineering experiments, physics experiments, earth science experiments, material science experiments,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. When you think of the
Speaker 1: science that's happening aboard the International Space Station, Destiny is
Speaker 1: the primary spot where that stuff happens, not the only one,
Speaker 1: but the main one. So this is the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that astronauts aboard the sky Lab space station focused
Speaker 1: on back in the nineteen seventies. Destiny was the first
Speaker 1: module to make use of racks to hold various station
Speaker 1: systems and experiments in place. So these are kind of
Speaker 1: like mounting points for various experiments. Obviously, when you're in
Speaker 1: a microgravity environment, you've gotta have ways to attach stuff
Speaker 1: to your spacecraft or else it's just gonna you know,
Speaker 1: float around and bump around in microgravity. So these are
Speaker 1: standardized racks, and in fact they're called International Standard Payload
Speaker 1: Racks or i sprs, and other countries with the exception
Speaker 1: of Russia, use the same standard, so that experiments and
Speaker 1: systems can fit on any of these. The Destiny has
Speaker 1: eight rack bays and they can hold up to twenty
Speaker 1: four racks. These things, by the way, are massive, unearthed,
Speaker 1: way around t pounds. Of course in microgravity you don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about that now. As I mentioned, some
Speaker 1: of those racks hold station systems in place, you know,
Speaker 1: stuff like life support systems and electrical power systems or
Speaker 1: climate control systems. Uh and Destiny did not have the
Speaker 1: full complement of twenty four racks when it launched. It
Speaker 1: had some, but not all of them. Additional space shuttle
Speaker 1: missions would bring up more racks, which would then get
Speaker 1: installed into the rack bays in Destiny's lab. Destiny also
Speaker 1: includes a twenty inch window of incredible clarity. NASA calls
Speaker 1: it like the quality of a telescope lens, like that
Speaker 1: kind of level of clarity, and astronauts mostly use this
Speaker 1: to conduct Earth science experiments. So if you've ever felt
Speaker 1: like someone was just kind of watching you, maybe it
Speaker 1: was a peeper aboard the I S. S. Except it
Speaker 1: doesn't like magnify everything. Obviously I'm being a little facetious.
Speaker 1: The pictures of it are amazing, but obviously, like then,
Speaker 1: you're looking at a lens through a lens, right, you're
Speaker 1: looking at a camera image of the glass. I really
Speaker 1: wish I could see what it looks like to look
Speaker 1: at the Earth through that glass, you know, in person,
Speaker 1: I imagine has to be absolutely spectacular. We've got a
Speaker 1: lot more to say about the I S. S. And boy,
Speaker 1: this is really a huge, huge undertaking. We are going
Speaker 1: to take another break and come back right after this. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's get back to it. In July two thousand one,
Speaker 1: the United States launched a joint airlock module named Quest
Speaker 1: and this module attached to the Unity module, and it
Speaker 1: gave astronauts on the U S O S side of
Speaker 1: the space station the ability to perform e V A
Speaker 1: S or spacewalks, because up to that point the only
Speaker 1: airlock aboard the space station was on the Russian side
Speaker 1: of the I S S, so, uh, you know, astronauts
Speaker 1: weren't really going over to the Russian side and vice versa,
Speaker 1: so they didn't really get to use that airlock. All
Speaker 1: the other e v A s that were performed on
Speaker 1: the US side had been part of Space Shuttle missions
Speaker 1: rather than and you know, conducted by the crew aboard
Speaker 1: the I S S because they had no airlock to
Speaker 1: go through in order to you know, exit the station
Speaker 1: and do an e v A. But Quest changed all that.
Speaker 1: Then the Russians launched another module in September two thou one.
Speaker 1: This one was the Piers module, that's p I R S,
Speaker 1: and the Russians docked it with a port on This
Speaker 1: Vezda module frequently referred to as the bottom or Nadier
Speaker 1: Point because it was facing the Earth usually and it
Speaker 1: served as a docking module. In other words, this was
Speaker 1: a way for other spacecraft like so Yu's capsules and
Speaker 1: cargo ships unscrewed cargo ships two dock with the I
Speaker 1: S S. It could also serve as an airlock so
Speaker 1: that cosmonauts could go on e v A. So this
Speaker 1: expanded the station's ability to have you know, spacecraft dock
Speaker 1: with it. I should add that one thing that is
Speaker 1: consistent aboard the I S S is that it always
Speaker 1: has a couple of Soya's capsules attached to it to
Speaker 1: serve as escape capsules, so that should there be a
Speaker 1: catastrophic failure aboard the space station, cosmonauts and astronauts would
Speaker 1: have the ability to get into a spacecraft capable of
Speaker 1: making the return back to Earth. So some of these
Speaker 1: docking ports end up being in use as these these
Speaker 1: various capsules stay attached for up to like six months
Speaker 1: at a time before being swapped around. Now, this module,
Speaker 1: the Piers module, is one that we can actually refer
Speaker 1: to in the past tense because while it was part
Speaker 1: of the I S S for a really long time,
Speaker 1: I mean almost twenty years, it is no longer part
Speaker 1: of the I S S today. Earlier this year, Russia
Speaker 1: removed Peers from the I S S and maneuvered it
Speaker 1: for re entry and de orbited the module on July one.
Speaker 1: This was so that they could make room for a
Speaker 1: new module, which we will talk about possibly in the
Speaker 1: next episode, because this one's running longer than I anticipated.
Speaker 1: But for twenty years, piers was a big part of
Speaker 1: the I S S. Then, from the end of two
Speaker 1: thousand one to two thousand seven, the I S S
Speaker 1: pretty much stayed as I described it, with no other
Speaker 1: modules joining, although crews would continue to join and leave
Speaker 1: through various so us and a few spatial emissions. Also,
Speaker 1: the trust section did get larger with more components, but
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, I'm not gonna cover all those.
Speaker 1: It would just take way too much time. It's fascinating stuff,
Speaker 1: by the way, I mean like it added tons of
Speaker 1: different functionality to the I S S. But I gotta
Speaker 1: draw the line somewhere anyway. Part of the reason for
Speaker 1: that long delay, why nothing happened really as far as
Speaker 1: modules are concerned between two thousand one and two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: is that the Space Shuttle program was grounded due to
Speaker 1: the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster that happened on February first,
Speaker 1: two thousand three. Just like NASA put the spatial program
Speaker 1: on pause for more than two years after the Challenger disaster,
Speaker 1: they did the same thing after Columbia. Shuttle missions would
Speaker 1: not start again until July of two thousand five, so
Speaker 1: it really set back plans of building out the I
Speaker 1: S S and only Russian capsules visited the I S
Speaker 1: S in the meantime, and a skeleton crew of two
Speaker 1: people served to occupy the station at that point because
Speaker 1: there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity to do much else.
Speaker 1: So this was an era of the I S S
Speaker 1: where not that much science is getting done. You only
Speaker 1: got two people aboard there. They have to handle everything
Speaker 1: aboard the station, not just the experiments, but you know,
Speaker 1: the regular maintenance and operations of the station itself. The
Speaker 1: next module to join would not launch until October two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. It was aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, and
Speaker 1: this would be the module that would be called Harmony.
Speaker 1: And this module is very similar to Unity. It's one
Speaker 1: of the node modules, and like I said, a third
Speaker 1: one will join the I S S before we're all
Speaker 1: done with it, so, like you know, Unity, Harmony's purpose
Speaker 1: is partly to provide connecting points between other units in
Speaker 1: the space station, but it also serves as sleeping quarters
Speaker 1: for up to four crew members. Initially, Harmony docked with
Speaker 1: one of the births on Unity, so that these two
Speaker 1: nodes were connected directly to each other, but a few
Speaker 1: weeks later, crews would move Harmony to the other end
Speaker 1: of Destiny, so that Destiny connected to unity on one
Speaker 1: end and Harmony on the other end. Harmony also serves
Speaker 1: as the mounting location for the space station's robotic arm
Speaker 1: Cannad armed too. It also has four I sprs dedicated
Speaker 1: to cruise storage and another four I s p r
Speaker 1: s for avionics systems. In two thousand eight, the European
Speaker 1: Space Agency module Columbus joined the I S s NOW.
Speaker 1: This was originally intended to be part of Space Station
Speaker 1: Freedom more than a decade earlier, you know, back when
Speaker 1: that was still a thing. Columbus launched aboard the Space
Speaker 1: Shuttle Atlantis on February seven eight. It is seven ms long,
Speaker 1: that's twenty three ft and it's four and a half
Speaker 1: meters in diameter or fifteen feet and they can hold
Speaker 1: up to ten I s p rs for science experiments
Speaker 1: and then more for various systems. The e s A
Speaker 1: technically has operational control of Columbus, NASA has the rest
Speaker 1: of it. That means that the two agencies actually split
Speaker 1: these racks between them, so e s A has control
Speaker 1: of five racks for experiments and NASA has control of
Speaker 1: the other five and that they just share the space.
Speaker 1: They cohabitate. Like Destiny, the activities on Columbus are geared
Speaker 1: towards scientific experiments and expanding our knowledge, particularly when it
Speaker 1: comes to ace exploration. Columbus docked with the starboard port
Speaker 1: of Harmony on February eleven eight. So again, that means
Speaker 1: if you were in the Harmony module and your right
Speaker 1: side up, which is you know, again a weak distinction
Speaker 1: when you're in space and you have the Destiny module
Speaker 1: behind you that's to your aft you're facing forward, that
Speaker 1: would mean that Columbus would be on your right hand side.
Speaker 1: You would need to go through the hatch on the
Speaker 1: right to get to the Columbus module. Again, all these
Speaker 1: directions get pretty loosey goosey when you start to lose
Speaker 1: reference points like up and down, so your mileage may vary.
Speaker 1: I guess next up. Shortly after Columbus came the Japanese
Speaker 1: Experiment Module or KEYBO. Now, Keybo is a really big module.
Speaker 1: It's so big that it required three separate shuttle missions
Speaker 1: to bring all the major pieces of the module up
Speaker 1: to the I S S. Like Columbus, Kebo connected to Harmony,
Speaker 1: on the port side, so that's the left side of
Speaker 1: harmony if you've got destiny behind you and your right
Speaker 1: side up. And it has twenty three I s p
Speaker 1: rs aboard it those racks, those enormous experiment racks. UH.
Speaker 1: Ten of those are reserved for science. The rest are
Speaker 1: for Keybos systems and crew storage. Keybo has its own
Speaker 1: robotic arm. It also has its own communication system. UH.
Speaker 1: It hosts a ton of different science experiments, and that
Speaker 1: includes stuff like Earth science experiments that monitor the CEO
Speaker 1: two content of the atmosphere of our planet. Has X
Speaker 1: ray astronomy experiments, electron telescopes, cosmic ray experiments, lots of
Speaker 1: really super cool stuff. It also hosts various physics and
Speaker 1: biology experiments. And then there's an exposed facility. This is
Speaker 1: a a part of the Keybo module that attached to
Speaker 1: the far end of it. UH. This is a science
Speaker 1: platform that's exposed to space for those kinds of experiments,
Speaker 1: you know, the kind where there ain't no air out there.
Speaker 1: It's a little tricky to talk about the size of
Speaker 1: Kebo because of all these different pieces that came together.
Speaker 1: If we're just looking at the pressurized parts of the
Speaker 1: module as the bits that astronauts can move through without
Speaker 1: wearing a spacesuit. Then you have one part of it
Speaker 1: that is about eleven ms long or thirty six and
Speaker 1: a half feet long, and it has a diameter of
Speaker 1: about four point four meters or a little more than
Speaker 1: fourteen feet. But then there's a second part of it,
Speaker 1: a module that extends out from KEBO at a ninety
Speaker 1: degree angle of this tube. So think of this one
Speaker 1: pressurized tube and then think of like almost like a submarine,
Speaker 1: you know, has like that that console at the the
Speaker 1: at one end, you've got this this part that juts
Speaker 1: out of one side of the tube at ninety degrees.
Speaker 1: This one's four point two meters long or thirteen point
Speaker 1: eight feet and four point three nine ms or fourteen
Speaker 1: point four feet in diameter. So KEBO isn't a simple
Speaker 1: cylindrical shape like most of the other modules. It's a
Speaker 1: little funky looking. Next up we get the Poisk module
Speaker 1: p o I s K. This was the first of
Speaker 1: the Russian Orbiting System the r OS portion of the
Speaker 1: space station to be added after many many years. POIS
Speaker 1: is similar to the Piers module, in fact almost identical
Speaker 1: to it, and Piers as I will remind you it
Speaker 1: docked back with the I S S way back in
Speaker 1: two thousand one. So POIS serves as a docking you know,
Speaker 1: docking compartment primarily just as Piers used to do before.
Speaker 1: You know, they gave it the boot from the I
Speaker 1: S S earlier this year. POIS thus houses an airlock
Speaker 1: and docking system, and it attached to this Vesdam module
Speaker 1: on the side opposite the Piers side, or rather, you
Speaker 1: know the side where Piers used to be, so it's
Speaker 1: on the Zen side. On February ten, NASA launched a
Speaker 1: module called Tranquility aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor. Now this
Speaker 1: one was commissioned by the EESA and the Italian Space
Speaker 1: Agency or a s I. The module's main purpose is
Speaker 1: to provide life support systems, environmental control systems, and an
Speaker 1: observation coupola to the space station, sort of like a
Speaker 1: quality of life module if you think about it. And
Speaker 1: Tranquility has six ports or birthing locations, allowing it to
Speaker 1: connect to up to six other components on the space station. Uh,
Speaker 1: it docked with the port side of Unity, and we'll
Speaker 1: chat about a couple of the other components that have
Speaker 1: since docked with tranquility in our next episode. But um,
Speaker 1: I want to do one more before we we wrap
Speaker 1: up here, and that is the ras Vett module r
Speaker 1: A S S V E T. And if you're thinking
Speaker 1: that sounds like that's Russian, you're right. It joined the
Speaker 1: I S S and Rasvet's main purpose is to serve
Speaker 1: as a storage container as well as another docking for spacecraft.
Speaker 1: This one didn't fly aboard a Russian launch vehicle. It
Speaker 1: actually went up courtesy of the Space Shuttle Atlantis on
Speaker 1: May and docked with the I S S on May eighteenth.
Speaker 1: It connected with the bottom or native point of these
Speaker 1: Azario module, the original I S S module that started
Speaker 1: this whole thing, and the other port on Rassevet serves
Speaker 1: as a docking port for Soya's spacecraft and cargo spacecraft.
Speaker 1: This module is six meters or about nineteen point seven
Speaker 1: ft long and two point three five or seven point
Speaker 1: seven feet in diameter. All Right, we're gonna wrap up
Speaker 1: here and we're gonna come back in our next episode
Speaker 1: to pick up where we left off. Talk about the
Speaker 1: last few modules that have joined the I S S,
Speaker 1: including the Naka which is the most recent one. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we've got another one on the way before the
Speaker 1: end of the year if everything goes well, So we'll
Speaker 1: talk about those, and we'll talk about what life is
Speaker 1: like aboard the space station, some of the experiments that
Speaker 1: have been done, some of the you know, interesting things
Speaker 1: that have happened aboard the space station, ring it's you know,
Speaker 1: time and service, as well as talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the plans of what comes next, like how much
Speaker 1: longer does the I S S have before we really
Speaker 1: need to consider retiring it because various components are pretty
Speaker 1: old at this point, and what should come after that.
Speaker 1: But we'll do that for the next episode. This one
Speaker 1: has gone on long enough. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: reach out to me on Twitter. The handle for the
Speaker 1: show is text Stuff h s W and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.