Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and love all things tech. And today we are
Speaker 1: going to try and finally wrap up our look at
Speaker 1: the International Space Station and this series of episodes about
Speaker 1: space stations in general. Though you know there's going to
Speaker 1: be some stuff that obviously I just won't touch on,
Speaker 1: because I mean, you could do a full mini series
Speaker 1: that lasts half a year talking about this and only
Speaker 1: barely scratch the surface. Anyway. In our previous episode in
Speaker 1: this series, I talked about how the International Space Station
Speaker 1: or I s S formed out of both the struggling
Speaker 1: Russian space program and NASA's attempts to create a US
Speaker 1: led space station along with Europe, Japan and the contributing
Speaker 1: toward that, and we learned about some of the modules
Speaker 1: that bake up the space station. We also talked about
Speaker 1: how the construction on the I S S was put
Speaker 1: on hold in the wake of the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy,
Speaker 1: and how the station has two main sections. There's one
Speaker 1: that's the Russian Orbital Segment or R O S and
Speaker 1: the other is the U s Orbital Segment or U
Speaker 1: S O S. Alright, so just a few more modules
Speaker 1: to talk about before we get up to date. So
Speaker 1: in NASA sent up a module called Leonardo aboard the
Speaker 1: Space Shuttle Discovery. Leonardo is primarily used as a storage module.
Speaker 1: And you might say, well, storage for what, And it's
Speaker 1: pretty much everything from spare parts to rubbish too, you know, waste.
Speaker 1: Oh and in case you're wondering if this is the
Speaker 1: only Ninja turtle to be associated with the I S S,
Speaker 1: it is not. The Italian Space Agency built through multi
Speaker 1: purpose Logistics modules or mp l ms, and they were
Speaker 1: named Leonardo, Donna Tello, and Rafaelo. And these were designed
Speaker 1: to be pressurized containers that would be nestled in the
Speaker 1: Space Shuttle cargo bay and they would be used to
Speaker 1: transmit you know, cargo like scientific experiments and supplies to
Speaker 1: the I S S. But Leonardo got modified to become
Speaker 1: a permanent storage module attached to the International Space Station
Speaker 1: and the Donna Tello one never launched at all. Rafaello, however,
Speaker 1: was used in the final Shuttle mission to the Space station.
Speaker 1: Leonardo originally docked with Unity you know, the node on
Speaker 1: the earth facing port, the Nadier Point UH In late
Speaker 1: February two eleven and the crew of the space station
Speaker 1: relocated Leonardo and connected it to the forward facing port
Speaker 1: of Tranquility. Because keep in mind, the space station as modular,
Speaker 1: so you can do that. You can undock certain modules
Speaker 1: and redock them elsewhere in order to make room for
Speaker 1: new stuff. Now, at that point, Leonardo also became a
Speaker 1: place where astronauts can go to take you know, sponge baths.
Speaker 1: The main toilet facilities for the U S O S
Speaker 1: part of the station are in Tranquility, the Tranquility node,
Speaker 1: and now Leonardo is attached to Tranquility, so it kind
Speaker 1: of was expanding their area where they could do, you know,
Speaker 1: personal hygiene. So Leonardo went up in the winter of
Speaker 1: that summer. In July, NASA retired the space Shuttle program.
Speaker 1: The final mission was STS one five that was with
Speaker 1: the Space Shuttle Atlantis. This was the one that carried
Speaker 1: rafael O to the I S S and delivered supplies
Speaker 1: and parts up to the space station, and that would
Speaker 1: be the end of the shuttle bringing major components up.
Speaker 1: But there's still a couple of things we can mention
Speaker 1: before we wrap up on modules. So in the spa
Speaker 1: ACEX unscrewed Dragon space capsule, so in other words, you know,
Speaker 1: no people aboard this one. This was called by NASA
Speaker 1: a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services UH spacecraft or a COTS
Speaker 1: spacecraft c o t S. It docked with the International
Speaker 1: Space Station. Space X would become an alternative to relying
Speaker 1: solely on the Russians to get materials up to the
Speaker 1: I S S. And I've done several episodes either directly
Speaker 1: about SpaceX or involving SpaceX in the past, so we're
Speaker 1: not going to go down the entire rabbit hole here.
Speaker 1: It's it's enough for you know, another series of episodes.
Speaker 1: But the important part is that NASA now was able
Speaker 1: to have an alternative because otherwise they had to rely
Speaker 1: on Russian spacecraft at that point, because NASA no longer
Speaker 1: had the crew spacecraft or launch vehicles that would be
Speaker 1: necessary to make trips up to the station. Now that
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily according to plan. I should add NASA had
Speaker 1: a different space flight program that was in plans UH,
Speaker 1: and it was meant to pick up where the Space
Speaker 1: Shuttle program would leave off, plus go a bit further.
Speaker 1: This was called the Constellation program, and the program had
Speaker 1: a couple of different important goals. One was to complete
Speaker 1: the construction of the International Space Station, so you know,
Speaker 1: build launch vehicles capable of bringing payloads up to space
Speaker 1: that would help complete the I s S. But another
Speaker 1: was to send a human crew to the Moon by
Speaker 1: and the third was to eventually send human astronauts to Mars. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, that goal should tell you that things did
Speaker 1: not go as planned, because obviously we have not gone
Speaker 1: back to the Moon and um. Anyway, the Constellation program
Speaker 1: included plans for a few different launch vehicles. Uh These
Speaker 1: were the Areas one, which was meant to launch payloads
Speaker 1: mostly into orbit, and then the Arias five, which it
Speaker 1: was a heavy lift launch vehicle design capable of sending
Speaker 1: stuff much further out than just you know, low Earth orbit.
Speaker 1: And the journey to this plan in itself was a
Speaker 1: bumby one for reasons that I've talked about in this
Speaker 1: series before. Namely, you know, NASA's big projects are somewhat
Speaker 1: subjected to the whims of whomever happens to be in
Speaker 1: charge at the time, and that changes fairly regularly with
Speaker 1: changes in presidential administrations. And that is not great for stability.
Speaker 1: NASA is also subject to budgets that are awarded to
Speaker 1: the agency by Congress, and in fact, just the selection
Speaker 1: of the aria's design in itself involves the story of
Speaker 1: different people coming into the picture and tossing out what
Speaker 1: had come before and saying no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: let's do it this way instead. Now, in addition to
Speaker 1: to those launch vehicles, NASA planned a new spacecraft that
Speaker 1: could carry crew members up to the I S S.
Speaker 1: This would be a capsule style spacecraft, not a shuttle,
Speaker 1: but a capsule in some ways similar to the old
Speaker 1: Apollo capsules in the late sixties and early seventies, but
Speaker 1: this wouldn't be larger. It would be able to hold
Speaker 1: more crew up to six people in fact, compared to Apollos,
Speaker 1: you know three. And it was called the Crew Exploration Vehicle,
Speaker 1: and later on it would evolve into the spacecraft called Oriyan. Now,
Speaker 1: the Constellation program would end up getting the ACTS under
Speaker 1: the administration of President Barack Obama. Obama cited lots of
Speaker 1: issues like the fact that the the program wasn't on
Speaker 1: schedule and it was over budget. Pretty much always happens
Speaker 1: in the space industry. You know, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of political reasons for this, that it was not his
Speaker 1: administration that proposed the Constellation program, so there were a
Speaker 1: lot of different factors that led into this, but ultimately
Speaker 1: admit that Constellation was no more. However, the Orion spacecraft
Speaker 1: survived that and it still remains part of NASA's Artemus program,
Speaker 1: you know, the one that is supposed to take astronauts
Speaker 1: back to the Moon by but probably no earlier than
Speaker 1: at the point. Three Orion spacecraft have been built so far,
Speaker 1: with a planned test flight to happen later this year
Speaker 1: December potentially, though we'll quite possibly see that get pushed
Speaker 1: to two. Also, part of that test is to test
Speaker 1: out a new launch vehicle a k a. A new rocket.
Speaker 1: This one is called the Space Launch System or s
Speaker 1: L S now. After the cancelation of Constellation, which is
Speaker 1: a fun thing to say, but not a fun thing
Speaker 1: in general, NASA went back to the drawing board and
Speaker 1: began to focus on a super heavy lift launch vehicle.
Speaker 1: This would become the s L S which replaced not
Speaker 1: just the Areas one in Areas five rockets, but it
Speaker 1: also replaced a separate super heavy lift vehicle proposal that
Speaker 1: was called Jupiter. Uh. That one was not technically part
Speaker 1: of Constellation, it was part of a separate, parallel program.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that one got the AX too, So SLS
Speaker 1: would effectively replace areas in Jubiter and this, you know,
Speaker 1: all this bit I'm talking about here is a bit
Speaker 1: of a tangent from the Space Station, I realized, but
Speaker 1: I figured it was important to talk about how NASA
Speaker 1: was attempting to close the gap in operations once they
Speaker 1: got to the end of the Space Shuttle program. The
Speaker 1: plan was to have a continuous means of accessing the
Speaker 1: I S S without relying on the Russians, but it
Speaker 1: just didn't work out. There are some critics, including people
Speaker 1: who previously worked on the SLS design, who say that
Speaker 1: NASA is going to have to just accept that the
Speaker 1: future is one in which the agency depends upon commercial
Speaker 1: launch vehicles like SpaceX's Falcon heavy rockets and UH and
Speaker 1: to to do that instead of trying to operate their
Speaker 1: own because it's going to be less expensive in the
Speaker 1: long run, and these budget issues are going to continue
Speaker 1: to be a barrier for NASA, and that perhaps even
Speaker 1: continuing to develop the sl S is um not wise
Speaker 1: in other words, like like it's just you just can't
Speaker 1: fund it so that it doesn't make sense to keep
Speaker 1: doing it. But so far NASA is still on that track.
Speaker 1: And also, I should add that's just what those critics say.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that that's definitively the case. I certainly
Speaker 1: can't speak with any level of expertise over whether or
Speaker 1: not it makes sense. In the the there were new
Speaker 1: materials being sent up to the space station, including an
Speaker 1: experimental inflatable module called the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module or
Speaker 1: BEAM b E a M. Yeah, this is a space module.
Speaker 1: On the I S s that it's it's made of fabric,
Speaker 1: it's got a fabric hull, and it's from the Bigelow
Speaker 1: Aerospace Company, which was named after its founder, Robert Bigelow.
Speaker 1: He as a multimillionaire sometimes billionaire depending on you know,
Speaker 1: the time, and he made most of his money in
Speaker 1: commercial real estate, but he really wanted to create an
Speaker 1: aerospace company. He has this, you know, big interest in
Speaker 1: space travel. He also has a big interest in things
Speaker 1: like UFOs. Anyway, the BEAM module is part of Bigelow's
Speaker 1: bigger plan to create an inflatable habitats for various space missions,
Speaker 1: including habitats that could be used on the Moon or
Speaker 1: on Mars. Now, the beam module hitched a ride on
Speaker 1: a SpaceX capsule or SpaceX launch vehicle, i should say,
Speaker 1: and it made it into orbit and crews connected it
Speaker 1: to the I S S on a port on the
Speaker 1: Tranquility module. Then they tried to inflate it, but they
Speaker 1: found the first time that was taking more pressure to
Speaker 1: do so than they were expecting. Uh, and the module
Speaker 1: was not expanding at the right rate, and they figured
Speaker 1: that maybe the problem was that it had been folded
Speaker 1: up in its compact shape a little longer than was expected.
Speaker 1: There were delays in launch, which meant that this this
Speaker 1: uh inflatable habitat was compressed longer than it was intended
Speaker 1: to be. And uh so they tried a second time
Speaker 1: and they got it working, and they later were able
Speaker 1: to pressurize it and reach equilibrium with the internal space
Speaker 1: station pressure, which is right around one atmosphere. And yeah,
Speaker 1: astronauts have actually gone into this inflated module and they've
Speaker 1: done work there which blows my mind. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a fabric module, but clearly it's an air tight fabric module,
Speaker 1: and lots of tests were done before anyone set foot
Speaker 1: figuratively speaking, inside of it. Now. The company has also
Speaker 1: made a mock up of an inflatable space station called
Speaker 1: B three three zero. That's a reference to the fact
Speaker 1: that it expands out to allow for an internal volume
Speaker 1: of three cubic meters um, and it starts off with
Speaker 1: a volume of fifty cubic meters so it has quite
Speaker 1: a bit of expansion. Now. Obviously, an inflatable space station
Speaker 1: would have some really incredible advantages because you could design
Speaker 1: much larger modules and not worry about it not fitting
Speaker 1: on a launch vehicle because you know, on Earth you
Speaker 1: could have this as a deflated module, so it's really
Speaker 1: compact and ready to go up in space. Once in space,
Speaker 1: you inflate it just like the beam did and expand
Speaker 1: it out to its full volume in space, and using
Speaker 1: special materials like kevlar, you can create a fabric hull
Speaker 1: that is resistant to stuff like micro meteoroids. You know,
Speaker 1: those impacts can be disastrous if you don't have, you know,
Speaker 1: armor against them. They also can be effective to shield
Speaker 1: against stuff like cosmic radiation. The B three three zero
Speaker 1: mock up does have a disadvantage. There are no windows
Speaker 1: in it, because creating a transparent material with the right
Speaker 1: structural integrity that can also be compressed along with this
Speaker 1: fabric habitat is really tricky, and so the mock up
Speaker 1: instead has curved displays mounted on the inside walls of
Speaker 1: the space station. So presumably, if you were to have
Speaker 1: a real deployment of one of these in orbit, you
Speaker 1: would mount cameras on the exterior of your space station
Speaker 1: and then feed that camera view into displays that are
Speaker 1: mounted on the interior walls. So you don't have a window,
Speaker 1: you would have a view screen kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: the bridge of the Enterprise. Now, while we do not
Speaker 1: yet have inflatable moon habitats or space stations, the beam
Speaker 1: module showed that the concept works. Astronauts have tested the
Speaker 1: air quality in the module. They've installed various components inside it.
Speaker 1: Uh NASA says it's monitored a few likely micro meteoroid
Speaker 1: collisions with the whole of the beam module. The whole
Speaker 1: has weathered those admirably simil early. It appears to be
Speaker 1: at least as effective as the rest of the station
Speaker 1: with regard to protecting against cosmic radiation, So that's good.
Speaker 1: It was intended to be a relatively short term experiment,
Speaker 1: but it's still up there today and it might remain
Speaker 1: there for the foreseeable future. The I s S crew
Speaker 1: actually accessed Beam as recently as September one. The crew
Speaker 1: had a few things to do with Beam, including prepping
Speaker 1: cargo for a return trip to Earth aboard a future
Speaker 1: cargo Dragon mission from SpaceX, and they also tried but
Speaker 1: failed to fix some malfunctioning wireless temperature sensors that were
Speaker 1: part of Beam, but they couldn't get them working now. Sadly,
Speaker 1: Bigelow Aerospace may have already seen its last days before
Speaker 1: we could ever get an inflatable space station, at least
Speaker 1: from that company. In the company shut down its production
Speaker 1: facilities due to COVID, and Robert Bigelow has subsequently said
Speaker 1: that it is unlikely to reopen. So Beam might be
Speaker 1: the first and only Bigelow inflatable space module, But the
Speaker 1: concept has been proven to be at least viable, so
Speaker 1: whether Bigelow comes back and continues that work or someone
Speaker 1: else does, um that might be a future space station mainstay.
Speaker 1: In late twenty SpaceX brought an airlock called Bishop up
Speaker 1: to the I S S. It is now attached to
Speaker 1: tranquility and rather than provide astronauts a way to conduct
Speaker 1: extra vehicular activities you know spacewalks like other airlocks, this
Speaker 1: one is really meant to allow the crew to deploy
Speaker 1: stuff like small satellites like CubeSats and stuff, and maybe
Speaker 1: even rubbish to jettison rubbish in the future. The airlock
Speaker 1: received commercial funding, and you know, it really was a
Speaker 1: necessity because the company that funded it, called nano Rax,
Speaker 1: had this agreement with NASA to use the I S
Speaker 1: S to deploy satellites. But the I S S is
Speaker 1: a pretty busy place and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different countries using the I S S as a test
Speaker 1: bed for numerous experiments, and so the busy schedule meant
Speaker 1: that the limited airlocks were already busy with all these experiments.
Speaker 1: So if nano Rex wanted to deploy these satellites, that
Speaker 1: really needed another airlock. So they made one and then
Speaker 1: send it up to the I S S. And finally,
Speaker 1: for now, at least we have Naka in a u
Speaker 1: k that's a Russian word that means science. This long
Speaker 1: delayed module was supposed to go up before, like way
Speaker 1: back in two thousand seven, but various delays forced that
Speaker 1: date to slip all the way up to this year.
Speaker 1: Those delays included some serious technical issues, such as the
Speaker 1: discovery in that the fuel system aboard Knaka had contamination
Speaker 1: in it in the form of metallic dust, and also
Speaker 1: they found leaks in the fuel system, which necess citated
Speaker 1: lengthy repairs. And later still they found more fuel system
Speaker 1: leaks in and that meant more delays. Plus there are
Speaker 1: all those delays due to budgetary and political issues in Russia.
Speaker 1: But Russia finally launched it on July one. It would
Speaker 1: take the place of the old Piers docking module, the
Speaker 1: p I R S Russian docking module, the one that
Speaker 1: was originally opposite the Poisk module so birthed to the
Speaker 1: Vezda module, and that means that components on Naka were
Speaker 1: already pretty old before it ever saw service as part
Speaker 1: of the I S S, which might have contributed to
Speaker 1: a scary situation which we will talk about after this
Speaker 1: quick break. So the I S S crew undocked the
Speaker 1: Piers module from the Vesta after a few delays, and
Speaker 1: then the old module would enter it's the orbiting path
Speaker 1: and would eventually re enter the atmosphere and break apart
Speaker 1: over the Pacific Ocean. The NAKA module docked in the
Speaker 1: place that Pierce had been, and it did so on
Speaker 1: July using an automatic docking procedure, and all that went,
Speaker 1: you know, fairly well, despite some delays and a couple
Speaker 1: of technical glitches, but nothing critical. But then a few
Speaker 1: hours later NAKA had a software glitch, and that glitch
Speaker 1: gave a direct command to the modules thrusters to fire,
Speaker 1: which caused the I S S to rotate like a lot.
Speaker 1: It flipped one and a half times, and effectively it
Speaker 1: ended up upside down over Earth in the process. I
Speaker 1: guess you could say the I S S developed a
Speaker 1: bit of an attitude problem, kind of like a surly teenager.
Speaker 1: According to Zebulin Scoville, who apart from having an amazing name,
Speaker 1: is also a NASA engineer. He was present when this happened.
Speaker 1: Naka is apparently trying to pull away from the station
Speaker 1: that it had just docked with. He didn't know that immediately.
Speaker 1: In fact, when he first saw an alert come in,
Speaker 1: it was just a couple of lines, and he thought
Speaker 1: it was perhaps just a sensor error, But then he
Speaker 1: checked the video monitors and saw that the thrusters were
Speaker 1: active and that this was the real deal now. Initially,
Speaker 1: as NASA was getting a handle on what was going on,
Speaker 1: the agency reported that the attitude of the I S
Speaker 1: shifted only by about forty five degrees, which is already
Speaker 1: a lot, but it was incorrect. It was more like
Speaker 1: five hundred forty degrees. Kind of crazy. NASA engineers had
Speaker 1: no control over knockas thrusters. Only Russian ground control had
Speaker 1: the ability to send a direct command to the knock
Speaker 1: A module, and unfortunately, the space station was not in
Speaker 1: line of sight with Russia. It would take another hour
Speaker 1: before the I S S could potentially be in communication
Speaker 1: range with Russian ground control. So NASA engineers responded by
Speaker 1: working with the I S S crew and using other
Speaker 1: thrusters on the International Space Station, specifically on this Vezda
Speaker 1: module and on a progress cargo ship that was docked
Speaker 1: with the I S S. In order to counteract naka's error.
Speaker 1: The station needed to flip a hundred eighty degrees to
Speaker 1: get back into the correct attitude, and it took a
Speaker 1: lot of work to get it all done. At The
Speaker 1: final orbital correction took place on August twenty one. Remember,
Speaker 1: the initial uh thrust R misfire was at the end
Speaker 1: of July, and fortunately no disaster occurred, but it must
Speaker 1: have been pretty darn tense. Now that being said, Scoville
Speaker 1: asserted that the crew were never really in danger, that
Speaker 1: the situation, while unusual, was not catastrophic, and that the
Speaker 1: process of turning the station back to its normal attitude
Speaker 1: was so gradual that the crew aboard the I S
Speaker 1: S couldn't even detect that the station was was turning,
Speaker 1: that it was moving like that. Naka's main purpose is
Speaker 1: to serve as a science lab for the Russians, and
Speaker 1: this is interesting because it's the first Russian module that's
Speaker 1: actually really dedicated to scientific experiments beyond stuff like E
Speaker 1: V A S and it just became part of the
Speaker 1: I S S. So, after more than twenty years of
Speaker 1: being an orbit, the r OS finally has its primary
Speaker 1: laboratory in place. Uh NACA is also going to serve
Speaker 1: as the docking port for another module in the near future,
Speaker 1: assuming everything goes as planned. This is the us Lavoy
Speaker 1: Module or Pretty Shell Module. It's scheduled to launch in
Speaker 1: November of this year, and dockwood. Naka's other port you know,
Speaker 1: the port that's not connected to the Selvezda and the
Speaker 1: uh OS. Lavoy is also another docking module. This one
Speaker 1: has the ability to dock with up to five other spacecraft,
Speaker 1: so it increases the station's docking capacity. One important component
Speaker 1: of NAKA came not from Russia but from the European
Speaker 1: Space Agency or e s A. This is the European
Speaker 1: Robotic Arm or e r A. This will be used
Speaker 1: to help the docking procedures with Oslavoy once that connects
Speaker 1: to NACO later this year. Again, assuming everything goes well,
Speaker 1: potentially NAKA and Oslavoy might see some continued use beyond
Speaker 1: the lifespan of the I S S, but I'll talk
Speaker 1: about that more towards the end of this episode. Then
Speaker 1: we have some other proposed modules that are supposed to
Speaker 1: join the I S S in the near future. These
Speaker 1: modules come not from NASA but from a commercial space
Speaker 1: company called Axiom Space. So you've no doubt heard many
Speaker 1: times in this series. Budget issues are a constant challenge
Speaker 1: with NASA. It's also a big challenge in Russia. The
Speaker 1: agency has thus chosen to partner with commercial space companies,
Speaker 1: not just to provide transportation to and from the I
Speaker 1: S S, but also to build onto the existing space
Speaker 1: station itself. The plan is for Axiom to build and
Speaker 1: deploy several modules that will connect to the Harmony node
Speaker 1: aboard the I S S. These include a node module
Speaker 1: so very similar to Harmony and Unity and Tranquility. This
Speaker 1: will act as kind of an adapter between the U
Speaker 1: S O S part of the space station and the
Speaker 1: Axiom Space part of it. Other modules will include one
Speaker 1: with large windows to allow for spectacular views of Earth,
Speaker 1: a crew habitat module, and a module dedicated to researching
Speaker 1: manufacturing processes in space. And like Nauka and us LaVoi,
Speaker 1: these Axiom modules could potentially have a life beyond that
Speaker 1: of the I S S. Also, Axiom is planning on
Speaker 1: sending non astronauts or commercial astronauts up into space, including
Speaker 1: a reality TV series winner. I guess because Discovery has
Speaker 1: planned a reality series called Who Wants to Be an Astronaut,
Speaker 1: and the winner of that series will go up in
Speaker 1: a future space X Dragon Cruel crew vessel up to
Speaker 1: the Axiom section of the I S S. UH. They're
Speaker 1: already taking applications for that, so you can check that
Speaker 1: out if you're interested. I Uh, I did not apply. Now,
Speaker 1: this is not the first time that non astronauts will
Speaker 1: have visited the space station. In fact, that has happened
Speaker 1: in the past already, only a handful of times, but
Speaker 1: it has happened. So to talk about this we have
Speaker 1: to dial the clock back quite a bit. Now. It's
Speaker 1: the late nineteen nineties and the Soviet Union had collapsed,
Speaker 1: the Russia was having trouble funding its space agency, and
Speaker 1: it was having a lot of trouble maintaining the Mere
Speaker 1: space station. A private company called Mere Core took shape
Speaker 1: and took charge of the space station. So this one
Speaker 1: had private funding and was trying to turn Mere into
Speaker 1: a commercial space station instead of a state backed one.
Speaker 1: It even flew a mission up there after. Mir had
Speaker 1: already been left unoccupied for several months, and the idea
Speaker 1: was that Mere Corps would sell trips to the space
Speaker 1: station to wealthy people who wanted to go to space,
Speaker 1: and then use some of that money to offset the
Speaker 1: maintenance and operation costs of Mirror uh be. But that
Speaker 1: didn't really work out because those costs of operation proved
Speaker 1: to be considerable and there just weren't enough investors jumping
Speaker 1: on board to make this a viable business, so the
Speaker 1: company really had no choice but to allow mir to
Speaker 1: de orbit. However, the company had sold a ticket to
Speaker 1: a guy named Dennis Tito to go up to Mirror,
Speaker 1: and rather than you know, refund that money, Miracorps was
Speaker 1: able to partner with a company in the United States
Speaker 1: called Space Adventures Limited to secure permission for Tito to
Speaker 1: instead visit the International Space Station if he went up
Speaker 1: on a Soyo's Russian space capsule. Now, Tito himself was
Speaker 1: no stranger to the space industry. He had worked for
Speaker 1: the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that's a NASA field center, but
Speaker 1: he also was not a trained astronaut. However, the deal
Speaker 1: meant he could board a Soyo's spacecraft, and in late
Speaker 1: April of two thousand one, he traveled to the I
Speaker 1: S S and became the first person to pay for
Speaker 1: a ticket to visit the I S S. And as such,
Speaker 1: he is sometimes referred to as a space tourist. I
Speaker 1: am told that they hate this title. They don't like
Speaker 1: space tourists because a lot of them had to go
Speaker 1: through training and had to actually be participants in various
Speaker 1: experiments and stuff, so they were working up there too.
Speaker 1: But they're widely referred to as space tourists, and he
Speaker 1: was the first. The reported cost of the trip was
Speaker 1: a whopping twenty million dollars. But you know, the only
Speaker 1: other way to get up there would be to be
Speaker 1: an official astronaut or cosmonaut or maybe be selected as
Speaker 1: a payload specialist, which required a you know, less intense
Speaker 1: training period. So it's a pretty small and elite group
Speaker 1: that he joined. Mark Shuttleworth a South African businessman who
Speaker 1: also has connections to tech and that his company, Canonical,
Speaker 1: is responsible for developing the Ubuntu operating system. Uh he
Speaker 1: followed suit. He also visited the I S S in
Speaker 1: two thousand two, also aboard a Soyo's capsule. But then
Speaker 1: in two thousand three we had the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
Speaker 1: The United States put the entire space Shuttle program on
Speaker 1: hold for more than two years, and at that point,
Speaker 1: the Soyo's capsules became the only way up and back
Speaker 1: from the I S S. So Russia thus put a
Speaker 1: hold on space tourism for that time. Since the capsule space,
Speaker 1: you know, the space inside the capsule was critical for
Speaker 1: servicing the I S S. The tourism program came back
Speaker 1: on track in two thousand five with Gregory Olsen, and
Speaker 1: then in two thousand six, uh A Neuche and sorry
Speaker 1: went up to become a space tourist. Next up was
Speaker 1: Charles Simoni, who actually went up twice. He went up
Speaker 1: once in two thousand seven, and he did it again
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, so you must have loved it.
Speaker 1: In between those visits was guy. I actually know someone
Speaker 1: I've talked to several times, Richard Garriott. Now, if you've
Speaker 1: been listening to this series from the beginning, you know
Speaker 1: that Richard's father, Owen Garriott, was an astronaut who was
Speaker 1: part of the sky Lab missions. So Owen Garriott had
Speaker 1: been aboard Space Station's back in the seventies. Richard Garriott,
Speaker 1: known to a lot of gamers as Lord British, spent
Speaker 1: a good deal of his personal fortune to visit the
Speaker 1: space station, um, you know, without going through the entire
Speaker 1: astronaut process. The seventh and last of the space tourists
Speaker 1: of that era was Guy Lalleberte, who visited the I
Speaker 1: S S in two thousand nine, And this was towards
Speaker 1: the end of the Space Shuttle program, and that meant
Speaker 1: that once again the Saya's capsule would become the only
Speaker 1: way that astronauts and cosmonauts could go to and from
Speaker 1: the I S S. And because of that, Russia once
Speaker 1: again put an end to its space tourism business. So
Speaker 1: for many years that is the end of that. In
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, NASA announced it would entertain the idea of
Speaker 1: tourism to the I S S, using you know, commercial
Speaker 1: UH space companies to take people to and from the
Speaker 1: space station. UH And, as I mentioned, the axiom section
Speaker 1: of the I S S once it becomes reality, will
Speaker 1: include tourism as part of the commercial activities aboard that
Speaker 1: part of the space station. But the vast majority of
Speaker 1: visitors the I S S have either been trained astronauts, cosmonauts,
Speaker 1: or what NASA calls payload specialists. Now, as that name implies,
Speaker 1: the people who fit the category of payload specialists are
Speaker 1: those who have expertise with a specific experiment or a
Speaker 1: piece of equipment that is sent up to the I
Speaker 1: S S. They might be employees of some of the
Speaker 1: private companies that NASA contracts with, or they might be
Speaker 1: leading scientists in a specific field. They typically have a
Speaker 1: much shorter stay aboard the I S S than you know,
Speaker 1: other crew members, and they don't have to train quite
Speaker 1: as much before they joined the International Space Station. In total,
Speaker 1: more than two d forty people have been to the
Speaker 1: I S S since it came online. More than a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty of those came from the United States, so
Speaker 1: the US is in the lead by far. Hack Only
Speaker 1: nine other people from the America continents have been to
Speaker 1: the I S S. Eight of them were from Canada
Speaker 1: and one of them was from Brazil. Every other person
Speaker 1: from this part of the world, from the America's both
Speaker 1: north and south, came from the United States. Russia is
Speaker 1: in second place, with fifty people from Russia and going
Speaker 1: to the I S S, and then fewer than twenty
Speaker 1: came from Europe. Some of those folks have actually been
Speaker 1: multiple times. In fact, a lot of them have visited
Speaker 1: the I S S at least twice, not quite as
Speaker 1: many have been three times. A few like Mark Kelly,
Speaker 1: have been there four times, and there are two cause
Speaker 1: minots who have been to the International Space Station five times.
Speaker 1: Those two are Yuri Malenchinko and Fyodor your Chicken. So
Speaker 1: Malanchinko's career was truly astronomical pun intended He visited mir
Speaker 1: as part of the MERE sixteen crew in nine. He
Speaker 1: was part of the STS one oh six Space Shuttle
Speaker 1: Atlantis crew in two thousand, which marked his first visit
Speaker 1: to the I S. S. In two thousand three, he
Speaker 1: went back to the I S. S. And while he
Speaker 1: was there he got married to his fiancee at Katarina Dimitrieva.
Speaker 1: It was a long distance ceremony because she happened to
Speaker 1: be in Texas while he was in orbit. Malanchinko's time
Speaker 1: in space collectively amounts to an astonishing eight hundred twenty
Speaker 1: seven days, with nearly thirty five hours of that time
Speaker 1: being spent in extra vehicular activities or space walks. Now,
Speaker 1: that is incredible, but it's still more than fifty days
Speaker 1: shy of the career wreck that's held by UH Gennedy Padalka,
Speaker 1: And I apologize. I know I'm butchering these names and
Speaker 1: that's on me. But anyway, Padalka has more than eight
Speaker 1: d seventy eight days logged in space in total. UH
Speaker 1: and he's also been to the International Space Station, but
Speaker 1: only four times. Right, he hasn't been the five times
Speaker 1: UH as for Fyodor. He's also had a stellar career also,
Speaker 1: pun intended. His time in space amounts to nearly six
Speaker 1: seventy three days total across multiple missions, including some aboard
Speaker 1: Space Shuttle missions, and he racked up more spacewalk hours
Speaker 1: than Malinchiko. He had fifty nine hours of spacewalks. That's incredible. Now,
Speaker 1: when we come back, we'll talk a bit about life
Speaker 1: aboard the I S S and what the future holds
Speaker 1: for the station, and maybe a couple of other bits
Speaker 1: of information. But first let's take this quick break. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about what a typical day would be like
Speaker 1: aboard the International Space Station. First of all, the space
Speaker 1: station climate control keeps the station at about seventy two
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit, which is twenty two point to celsius, and
Speaker 1: that's all year round, winter, summer, spring, and fall. The
Speaker 1: atmosphere aboard the I S S is very much like
Speaker 1: that on Earth, and that it's mostly nitrogen around and
Speaker 1: then oxygen at around. A mineral called zeolite acts as
Speaker 1: a carbon dioxide scrubber uh c O two gets trapped
Speaker 1: in poores that are in the zero lite mineral, and
Speaker 1: then you just expose the zeolite to outer space and
Speaker 1: all the carbon dioxide gets vented out into space, and
Speaker 1: then you can use the zeolite again, so that keeps
Speaker 1: the station habitable. You also have a water reclamation system
Speaker 1: that can reclaim water from pretty much any waste source
Speaker 1: and then filter it to the point where it becomes
Speaker 1: drinkable water. Again, that includes everything from you know, the
Speaker 1: water vapor you breathe out when you are breathing too,
Speaker 1: the water you pee out when you're peeing, to the
Speaker 1: water that is you know, used for a shower. All
Speaker 1: of the sources of water get reclaimed, filtered, and reused. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's say that you are on the I S S.
Speaker 1: You're in the U s OS segment the United States
Speaker 1: run section for this example. You wake up. We'll talk
Speaker 1: more about sleeping quarters in a second, and it's time
Speaker 1: to tend to hygiene. Maybe the first thing you want
Speaker 1: to do is visit the little Astronauts room. In other words,
Speaker 1: you know you want to go to the toilet. Well,
Speaker 1: space toilets are a little bit weird. For one thing,
Speaker 1: they have restraints built into them so that you can
Speaker 1: remain you know, attached to what is effectively the toilet seat.
Speaker 1: After all, your in microgravity, so you need something to
Speaker 1: keep you in place so that you know, you don't
Speaker 1: have stuff floating around you. So the toilet has leg
Speaker 1: restraints and it also has a fan system that creates
Speaker 1: suction to pull waste away. As you go to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: you position your posterior over a hole in the toilet seat.
Speaker 1: Some of the astronauts actually prefer to lift the toilet
Speaker 1: seat and position themselves directly over the hole that leads
Speaker 1: down into a bag. So there is a bag set
Speaker 1: down in the waist system. The fan draws the waist
Speaker 1: into the bag, and after you're done, you seal the
Speaker 1: bag shut and then you push the sealed bag into
Speaker 1: the waist container that is below the toilet. And then,
Speaker 1: you know, to be nice, you should put a brand
Speaker 1: new bag in place uh in the toilet so that
Speaker 1: the next person to use it doesn't have to, you know,
Speaker 1: prepare it first. And then if for urine, you actually
Speaker 1: have a hose and each astronaut has their own personal
Speaker 1: little urine funnel that they attached to the hose and
Speaker 1: the funnel goes, you know, over the relevant equipment and
Speaker 1: of the astronaut that is, and then you get your
Speaker 1: own little urine funnel. You know, it's a collector's item. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this helps you get the p to go the right
Speaker 1: way into the hose. And again you've got a fan
Speaker 1: system that is sucking that you're in down the hose
Speaker 1: into a wastewater tank where then it can go through
Speaker 1: the reclamation system and get filtered and turned back into water. Now,
Speaker 1: let's say that after you do this, you might want
Speaker 1: to take a shower. Well, the Skylab space station had
Speaker 1: an experimental shower in it, but using it was a
Speaker 1: real hassle and it could take more than an hour
Speaker 1: to do it, and so a lot of astronauts aboard
Speaker 1: the Skylab space station chose not to use it. So
Speaker 1: the crew aboard the I s S instead of a shower,
Speaker 1: they use a rentless shampoo for their hair, and they
Speaker 1: use a little bit of liquid soap and some water
Speaker 1: to do a simple sort of sponge bath and use
Speaker 1: towels to wipe off the larger globules of water, and
Speaker 1: and air flow system evaporate rates excess water. That also
Speaker 1: makes it really cold when you're done with your shower.
Speaker 1: By the way, it's like when you're sweating and your
Speaker 1: sweat evaporates and it cools you down. Well, the air
Speaker 1: flow system cools you down pretty quickly because the water
Speaker 1: is evaporating off your skin and pulling heat from your body. Well,
Speaker 1: that water then gets collected by the water reclamation system
Speaker 1: to Some crew might also use disposable tallet's as part
Speaker 1: of their hygiene to help, you know, clean themselves, and
Speaker 1: that also means that you have to attend to brushing
Speaker 1: your teeth. Astronauts typically get to take whatever brand of
Speaker 1: toothpaste they prefer, although depending on the time, sometimes they
Speaker 1: just end up sharing a communal toothpaste. So you're kind
Speaker 1: of stuck with whatever happens to be up there. But
Speaker 1: there are no faucets or taps or running water aboard
Speaker 1: the I s S. So two brush your teeth, you
Speaker 1: would get a pouch that would you could fill with water.
Speaker 1: The pouch has a straw extending out from the pouch,
Speaker 1: and the straw has a clamp on it, so you
Speaker 1: would open up the clamp and squeeze out a little
Speaker 1: ball of water. Because again you're in microgravity, so the
Speaker 1: water forms a little ball. You could wet your toothbrush.
Speaker 1: Toothbrush just sucks that water right into the bristles, put
Speaker 1: a little toothpaste on your toothbrush, and then you would
Speaker 1: brush your teeth as normal. But where do you spit
Speaker 1: the toothpaste when you're done, Well, you don't you swallow it?
Speaker 1: Maybe then you want some breakfast, and you would go
Speaker 1: over to the kitchen area of the galley area UH
Speaker 1: in one of the crew habitats, and you would grab
Speaker 1: your food and heat it up. You might do this
Speaker 1: with a pouch of food that you then insert into
Speaker 1: a system that injects hot water into the pouch and
Speaker 1: thus rehydrates otherwise dehydrated food. There's other types of food
Speaker 1: where you don't need to do the rehydration. Instead, you
Speaker 1: use a warmer, a food warmer, a little oven essentially
Speaker 1: that heats the food up. And there's a decent variety
Speaker 1: of food up there, from eggs to waffles to oatmeal.
Speaker 1: Food tends to stick to the utensils you use, and
Speaker 1: because you're in microgravity, you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: the food falling off of them, so even if you
Speaker 1: turn your spoon upside down, the oatmeal typically stays in
Speaker 1: the spoon. UH. There's also no actual bread because bread
Speaker 1: has a tendency to form crumbs, which would float around
Speaker 1: and potentially gum stuff up aboard the I s s.
Speaker 1: So generally speaking, rather than bread, the crew typically uses tortillas. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some foods like fruits can be eaten just as they
Speaker 1: are on Earth, and others, like I said, have to
Speaker 1: have the special preparation. If you need salt or pepper,
Speaker 1: you apply that in liquid form because again you have
Speaker 1: no gravity, so you can't sprinkle a little particles anywhere
Speaker 1: that would just float around and get into stuff. So
Speaker 1: salt and pepper come in liquid condiment form, kind of
Speaker 1: like ketchup and mustard, And after eating you would need
Speaker 1: to toss your rubbish away so that doesn't just float around.
Speaker 1: Now you would likely start your work day, so you
Speaker 1: would likely work on one of several active experiments aboard
Speaker 1: the station. Some of these might be controlled from the ground,
Speaker 1: but you might need to endure them to see how
Speaker 1: they're doing. Others might need your active involvement. You might
Speaker 1: also spend some time taking part in medical experiments, all
Speaker 1: of which are meant to gather more information about the
Speaker 1: effects of space on the human body, obviously stuff we
Speaker 1: need to know for the future of space travel. You
Speaker 1: might also perform some maintenance tasks aboard the station in
Speaker 1: order to keep it operational and clean. That can include
Speaker 1: stuff like replacing filters or loading up a cargo ship
Speaker 1: with rubbish to offload it from the station, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. In that work day, you would also have
Speaker 1: two and a half hours of exercise scheduled. UH. This
Speaker 1: is needed to counteract the effects of space that can
Speaker 1: lead to stuff like muscle and bone loss. Your body
Speaker 1: would actually reabsorb those tissues in a way. Your body
Speaker 1: is eating your muscle and bone, so you have to
Speaker 1: have exercise to counteract those effects. This exercise includes stuff
Speaker 1: like running on a treadmill, or using an exercise bike,
Speaker 1: or lifting weights. But Jonathan, I hear you say you
Speaker 1: and have gravity to deal with. How does a treadmill
Speaker 1: or weights? How do those work well? With the treadmill,
Speaker 1: you're held in place by essentially bungee cords, like you
Speaker 1: have a harness that holds you down against the treadmill. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the treadmill, at least one of them is on
Speaker 1: the wall of one of the modules, and you're typically
Speaker 1: facing earth as you run, which is kind of neat.
Speaker 1: The weights are more like pneumatic systems where you've got
Speaker 1: like a platform and a bar almost like a weight bar,
Speaker 1: and you have these pneumatic tubes that end up creating resistance.
Speaker 1: So you do various exercises. Some of them are like squats,
Speaker 1: some of them are like curls, uh, And it's all
Speaker 1: in how you're positioning yourself on this platform and using
Speaker 1: this bar and using the pneumatic resistance so that you're
Speaker 1: working against that, because obviously weights and micro gravity wouldn't
Speaker 1: mean much. They would have a lot of mass, but
Speaker 1: you know, they wouldn't quote unquote way anything you would
Speaker 1: have moment intem to deal with because you have mass
Speaker 1: and acceleration, but you wouldn't have weight, so resistance is
Speaker 1: more important in that sense. Of course, then you would
Speaker 1: have lunch during the day and at the evening you
Speaker 1: would have dinner. You would also have some free time
Speaker 1: worked into your schedule. NASA learned early on that if
Speaker 1: they did not allow astronauts free time, that their performance
Speaker 1: and morale quickly deteriorated, and free time was absolutely necessary.
Speaker 1: So that gets worked into your schedule so that you're
Speaker 1: not just constantly tending to you know, your hygiene or
Speaker 1: working out or working at an experiment. Okay, we're just
Speaker 1: about ready to wrap up on space stations. But before
Speaker 1: we get to that, let's take one more quick break.
Speaker 1: Lots of the crew have said over the years that
Speaker 1: their favorite thing to do in their free time would
Speaker 1: be to look out a window back at Earth and
Speaker 1: the space station orbits are fast enough that crew can
Speaker 1: watch a sunset or unrise every forty five minutes or so,
Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. Astronauts also get weekends off, though
Speaker 1: you know, they might have to do some maintenance stuff
Speaker 1: here and there on weekends, but otherwise they get to
Speaker 1: be a little leisurely. They can watch movies, they can
Speaker 1: read books, they might play games, they might play with toys,
Speaker 1: they might play pranks on each other. Uh. Apparently they
Speaker 1: occasionally do prank phone calls back down to Earth from
Speaker 1: the space station, which I think is awesome. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they do talk to their families. They get about once
Speaker 1: a week they get a chance to chat with folks
Speaker 1: back on Earth besides the you know, regular communications with
Speaker 1: like ground control. Now, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's time to go to bed, except there aren't actually beds.
Speaker 1: It's more like little sleeping chambers. They kind of look
Speaker 1: like padded phone booths. If you happen to remember what
Speaker 1: phone booths look like. Uh. And inside these booths, there's
Speaker 1: like a sleeping bag tied to the wall. Typically the
Speaker 1: bag has a little arm slits worked into it, so
Speaker 1: you would get into your pj's, you go into your
Speaker 1: sleeping chamber, you know, your phone booth thing, and you
Speaker 1: would climb into your little sleeping bag and zip it
Speaker 1: up and put your arms through the arm slits, and
Speaker 1: like I said, you're tethered to the wall so that
Speaker 1: you don't just bump around as you sleep. The chamber
Speaker 1: also has little doors, so you can close the doors.
Speaker 1: You've got privacy and your little tiny you know phone
Speaker 1: booth of a bed bedroom. Uh, you can have like
Speaker 1: a computer in there, so you could do a little work,
Speaker 1: or you could watch something on the computer if you liked,
Speaker 1: or you could just drift off to sleep, where upon
Speaker 1: your arms would lift up in front of you, kind
Speaker 1: of like your Frankenstein's monster, and you can totally just
Speaker 1: you know, relax, and you don't have to worry about anything, Like,
Speaker 1: you don't need anything to support you because again you're
Speaker 1: in microgravity, so you don't need a pillow, you don't
Speaker 1: need anything like that. You just you're just floating in place, sleeping.
Speaker 1: Crew get eight hours scheduled for sleep on each mission day. Now,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the future of the I S S.
Speaker 1: While Russia has just had no could join the r
Speaker 1: OS section of the station, and there's another module that's
Speaker 1: scheduled to launch before the end of this year. The
Speaker 1: current agreement for the I S S between Russia and
Speaker 1: the other partners, in fact between all the partners expires
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. Now, there have been some talks
Speaker 1: from Russia that have indicated that the country is prepared
Speaker 1: to cease participation in the space station upon citing, in
Speaker 1: part sanctions that Americans, you know, the American government has
Speaker 1: leveled against Russia as one of the reasons for that. Subsequently, however,
Speaker 1: Russia has backed off from that kind of rhetoric, so
Speaker 1: the future of the I S S remains uncertain. There's
Speaker 1: also been some concern that some sections of the I
Speaker 1: S S, particularly the original modules, the Russian ones, are
Speaker 1: well beyond their projected lifespan and they're getting a little
Speaker 1: too old to rely upon. Russian engineer Vladimir Solovyov has
Speaker 1: said that around eight of the in flight systems in
Speaker 1: the r OS are at the end of their service period,
Speaker 1: and he has warned that there could be irreparable failures
Speaker 1: to follow now. As I mentioned in the previous episode,
Speaker 1: the oldest modules in the r O S followed a
Speaker 1: Soviet design that directly incorporated equipment into the station structure itself,
Speaker 1: meaning it's impossible to replace those components. They are part
Speaker 1: of the station, so when they break, you have to
Speaker 1: repair them or you gotta do without. You can't replace them.
Speaker 1: The US takes a much different approach. The U S
Speaker 1: takes a if it breaks, we can replace it kind
Speaker 1: of approach. Meanwhile, various parties in the International Agreement are
Speaker 1: hoping to extend the I S S experiment to eight now.
Speaker 1: Whether or not the station will make it that far
Speaker 1: remains to be seen, but there are a lot of
Speaker 1: engineers who have said that they believe they can make
Speaker 1: the goal of operating into eight maybe even a little
Speaker 1: bit further, maybe as far as twenty uh maybe even
Speaker 1: more than that. The Axiom modules that are proposed to
Speaker 1: connect to the I S S starting next year could
Speaker 1: potentially separate from the I S S at the end
Speaker 1: of the older space station's service, and then the Axiom
Speaker 1: station could operate as its own standalone commercial space station. Likewise,
Speaker 1: there's been talk that the Knaka module could detach from
Speaker 1: the I S S and reposition to join a new
Speaker 1: Russian space station. The other plans for a Russian Russian
Speaker 1: space stations say that all components would be made specifically
Speaker 1: for that station. That seems to be contradictory. At the
Speaker 1: end of the I S S service, the station will
Speaker 1: be cleared out and then de orbited. It will likely
Speaker 1: be the last US backed space station, with future stations
Speaker 1: being commercial enterprises. The NASA will likely form partnerships with
Speaker 1: so that the agency can make use of the facilities
Speaker 1: for future experiments. And there's one other space station I
Speaker 1: need to quickly mention before we sign off. This year,
Speaker 1: China launched a module called tiaton a h the first
Speaker 1: of three modules for a space station named tian Gong.
Speaker 1: This module is a habitation module a crew habitat module.
Speaker 1: The other two are lab modules, which China plans to
Speaker 1: launch and join to tian Hay next year. One crew
Speaker 1: has already visited tian Hay. They did so earlier this summer.
Speaker 1: Three Chinese astronauts visited briefly and uh, yeah, they prepared
Speaker 1: it for future missions that will build it out as
Speaker 1: a full space station. So we do have another one
Speaker 1: up there, and there's some plans for different commercial ones
Speaker 1: potentially in the future, but obviously I can't really say
Speaker 1: much about them now. They're in the planning stages. And
Speaker 1: as we have learned in this series, if nothing else,
Speaker 1: you can't plan on anything as being absolute. There's always
Speaker 1: wiggle room in these things. And that's it. That's it
Speaker 1: for this this round up about space stations. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: move on to different topics. So I hope you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: this series of episodes about the evolution of space station
Speaker 1: over the years. It's really interesting. It's a lot more
Speaker 1: haphazard than I originally thought, Like I just didn't realize
Speaker 1: how delicate the whole process is. Like the station itself
Speaker 1: is incredibly resilient, but the path to getting there was
Speaker 1: fraught with challenges. And uh, if you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: please reach out to me. The best way to do
Speaker 1: that is over on Twitter. The handle we use is
Speaker 1: text stuff h s W and I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Text Stuff is an i heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.