Our second home, the International Space Station (ISS), has been continuously occupied since November 2, 2000. popular science Interview published The study was conducted by science editor Dawn Stover with two of the ISS’s three most energetic residents: NASA astronaut William Shepard and Russian cosmonaut Sergiy Krikelev. The third person was fellow Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gizhenko.
Krikalev told Stover that he considered himself lucky to be one of the first residents of the ISS. “This is the first example of how we can build things in space,” he said. Shepard was more realistic. He hoped the ISS’s treadmills and other exercise equipment would help the crew minimize muscle and bone loss (a negative side effect of weightlessness) during their four-month stay.
A product of 15 countries and their associated space agencies, including NASA in the United States, Roscosmos in Russia, the European Space Agency, the Japanese Space Exploration Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, the ISS serves as a home and laboratory. (So far, more 3,700 experiments), and more recently Spacebnb, which caters to ultra-wealthy civilians looking for short vacations. According to NASA280 people from 23 countries visited the ISS, including trained astronauts and cosmonauts. Thirteen of them are civilians, whom NASA calls “spaceflight participants.”
The commute from the launch pad on Earth to the ISS is just four hours. The key is to reserve one of the eight docking ports in advance to avoid long wait times. Walk-ups and fly-ups are generally not welcome, but a Boeing Starliner accident in June 2024 forced two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, to stay for several months. I had no choice but to extend it.
When Stover asked Krikalev if he expected any glitches, he replied emphatically: “I predict not just a few, but dozens!” One of the worst culprits was the Windows NT laptop computer that the astronauts used for communications, email, and a graphical user interface to the critical command and control module (which fortunately could operate independently). It was. During my first stay, the shepherd complained It’s about the time I had to spend troubleshooting errors on my laptop.
In an article from March 2001 popular science Special feature “Living with Alpha” Author Jim Schefter chronicled the early days of four astronauts’ lives on the ISS. “Some grumpiness may be inevitable,” he wrote. “The new residents are 330 miles up in the air and forced to stay for four months. They can’t step into their backyards to cool off. Life on the newly named space station, Alpha, is a free-floating… Characterized by objects and people flying around in a very small space.”The original living area had only three rooms. Later modules such as the Destiny Laboratory module and the Harmony module allowed for more spacious accommodations.
But no home lasts forever. After orbiting the Earth for more than 30 years, the ISS Scheduled to leave orbitThis means a controlled crash into the ocean, away from populated areas, could occur in 2031. By then, NASA hopes to lease space (the habitable kind) on a privately owned and maintained space station, such as Blue Origin. orbital leaf. Such a space station would be designed to accommodate public and private research as well as space travel. “The crew after us will have more room and their living conditions will be better,” Shepard said in a 2000 interview with Stover.
November 2000: Living in space
Three crew members are scheduled to begin life on the International Space Station this month. NASA astronaut William M. Shephard and two Russian cosmonauts, Yuri Gizenko and Sergei Krikalev, will launch on a Soyuz spacecraft from Baikonaur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on October 30. They will arrive and stay at the space station in two days. They stayed there for four months, and after a new crew arrived, they returned home aboard the U.S. Space Shuttle. Science Editor Dawn Stover spoke with Commander Shepard and Flight Engineer Krikalev before departure.
PS: Why go to the space station? Wouldn’t it be more exciting to live on the moon or Mars?
Shepard: We don’t have what it takes to do that. We don’t know how to do construction in space. We need big boosters and much more energy than we currently get from solar power.
PS: How do you feel about being one of the first residents of the new station?
Krikalev: I think I was lucky to be on this flight. Because this is the first example of how we make things in space.
PS: Are there any disadvantages to going first?
Shepherd: The crew after us will have more room and their living conditions will be better. Additionally, upstream and downstream voice traffic will be significantly restricted going forward. We only communicate with controllers during only 40 to 50 percent of the orbit.
PS: Do you think there will be any glitches during this first mission?
Krikalev: I think there are not just a few people, but dozens! First of all, we need to investigate how. [the station’s] The system works in all potential situations. 80% of our training is for “unusual” situations. Later crew members will have an easier time.
PS: What changes do you expect to see physically?
Shepard: Most people lose some weight and some bone and muscle mass. Some people are more prone to it than others. We have a new treadmill and other exercise equipment that has never been flown before. I hope that the data obtained will be different than before.
