91
votes
What led NASA et al. to decide the ISS should be a zero-g station when the massive negative health and quality of life impacts of zero-g were known?
Reliability.
Any rotating station needs non-rotating components: solar panels need to face the Sun, radiators need to be shadowed, docking points need to be non-moving, and so on. Making a rotating ...
- 15.9k
70
votes
Why Mars instead of a space station?
The biggest advantage of Mars is there are resources available on that planet. Run out of oxygen? Make your own! Same with water. Set up refining, and you can make your own metal. Large windows are ...
- 122k
55
votes
Why does there appear to be a 180-degree stereo microphone array outside the ISS?
That is a UHF antenna. It was well placed on the Lab to get in the way of robotics ops during space station assembly.
This is a picture of a different UHF antenna unit (this one is on the P1 truss ...
- 189k
54
votes
What led NASA et al. to decide the ISS should be a zero-g station when the massive negative health and quality of life impacts of zero-g were known?
I'll add one or two more items to Mark's excellent list.
Stability - large rotating platforms (and they have to be large to produce useful artificial gravity) are subject to all sorts of precession.
...
- 2,177
48
votes
Accepted
Do space stations have anything that big spacecraft (such as the Space Shuttle and SpaceX Starship) don't have?
Space stations are huge, especially by comparison with the capsules that service them.
As a point of comparison, the internal, pressurized volume of a Crew Dragon capsule, where the crew is seated for ...
- 1,694
46
votes
Why Mars instead of a space station?
The big problem is that space is empty. To build the space station, people need to haul every single gram there. Every single atom on a space station needs to be shipped there at cost--whether it's ...
- 21.7k
41
votes
What led NASA et al. to decide the ISS should be a zero-g station when the massive negative health and quality of life impacts of zero-g were known?
It's a good question, followed by many relevant responses so far. I'll focus on the physiology aspects.
Research had been conducted for decades prior to ISS launch on creating artificial gravity ...
- 413
37
votes
Is a midspace space station between Earth and Mars practical?
You're right: this has issues. You can insert a station into a circular orbit halfway between Earth and Mars, but because this has an orbital period also in between those of Earth and Mars, your ...
- 130k
37
votes
Accepted
What happens to astronaut sweat on the ISS?
They keep the ISS at a pretty comfortable temperature and humidity level, so there's not much sweat accumulation except when they're working out. For that, they use towels.
The sweat that they do ...
- 17.4k
31
votes
What led NASA et al. to decide the ISS should be a zero-g station when the massive negative health and quality of life impacts of zero-g were known?
There was a proposal to add an experimental rotating habitat: Nautilus-X. One of those wonderfully tortured backronyms: Non-Atmospheric Universal Transport Intended for Lengthy United States ...
- 8,136
29
votes
Accepted
How best to maneuver inside a large room within a space station using only arm and leg motion?
It turns out that yes, there are things you can do, but they depend on things other than the astronaut's body, and they will take a long time.
Physics tells us that an object's translational momentum ...
- 18.4k
28
votes
Accepted
Astronauts make a lot of CH₄ and some H₂ as well; do space capsules and space stations have systems to remove these?
For the ISS, the relevant bit of kit would be the Trace Contaminant Control System, which is part of the Air Revitalisation System.
A Trace Contaminant Control System ensures that over 200 various ...
- 8,188
27
votes
Why Mars instead of a space station?
Radiation
I think this is actually the biggest concern, IMO. Astronauts aboard the ISS have a measurably increased risk of cancer due to their higher radiation exposure. Putting enough shielding on ...
- 1,413
24
votes
How best to maneuver inside a large room within a space station using only arm and leg motion?
Fortunately, it turns out humans come with a nitrogen/CO₂ thruster built in...
Assuming the room is filled with air, I reckon the best method is to use your breath. What you should do is, point your ...
- 3,771
24
votes
Does the speed of ISS slow down at the time of a spacewalk or does it become stationary?
Let's look at Newton's first law:
Law I: Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force ...
- 6,967
23
votes
Why does the material for space elevators have to be really strong?
Supplemental to the other answers; you are correct that the net force on the tether would be minimal, since the rotation of the counterweight would counteract the force of gravity. But, the ...
- 331
23
votes
What can the ISS do that a SpaceX Starship could not?
ISS has a lot of truss constructions to attach equipment, such as power plants or scientific apparatuses. Starship would need these as well.
ISS has many docks for visiting spacecrafts. Starship, ...
- 3,186
21
votes
Are there any photo(s) of International Space Station (ISS) captured from above its altitude?
Yes. Most craft, when docking with the ISS do a fly-around to survey the docking site. They can then frequently capture images of the ISS from the top view. Here is one from the Shuttle Atlantis taken ...
- 6,213
20
votes
Has a spacecraft ever docked with the same space station twice in one mission?
The first, experimental redocking was performed on Soyuz 29 (though by crew of Soyuz 31) with the Salyut 6 station.
Afterwards, the maneuver was repeated several times, usually between different ...
- 56k
20
votes
Just how much rope have different crewed missions been given?
Each shuttle mission had significant amounts of rope / cable / cordage aboard.
tl;dr
sky genies - 40 feet of rope per crewmember
RMS rope reel - 80 feet of rope
astrorope - 20 feet of rope per EVA ...
- 189k
20
votes
Accepted
Have space station occupants always had a return vehicle ready?
Yes, all human occupied space stations to date have had a return vehicle for every crew member.
To my knowledge (and general consensus), that includes Skylab, Salyut, Mir, Almaz and China's Tiangong.
...
- 80.5k
19
votes
Accepted
Have space station modules already been replaced?
It hasn't happened yet, but ISS docking module Pirs is scheduled to be deorbited and replaced by laboratory module Nauka.
Edit: It happened in July 2021 (see links)
- 2,267
19
votes
Do space stations have anything that big spacecraft (such as the Space Shuttle and SpaceX Starship) don't have?
Couldn't something dock to the shuttle to provide it with further energy supplies?
There was an Extended Duration Orbiter project for shuttle that included pallets in the payload bay carrying extra ...
- 189k
18
votes
Accepted
Cyanobacteria as Life Support?
Why this wouldn't work? It works for the Earth; the reason why it is not implemented in space is purely in the engineering limitations.
Cyanobacteria live in water, humans live in air.
Gravity is ...
- 2,529
18
votes
Accepted
Will there be another joint International Space Station (ISS) after the current is retired?
As far as I'm aware there are no plans to build another "ISS". Instead NASA and ESA are helping to fund various commercial space stations:
Axiom Orbital Segment
Orbital Reef
Starlab
Haven-1
- 2,595
17
votes
Have space station modules already been replaced?
The only module(s) that kinda sorta fits this are/were the MPLMs - the Multi Purpose Logistics Modules.
These modules were carried up by the Shuttle full of cargo, berthed to the ISS using robotics, ...
- 189k
17
votes
What led NASA et al. to decide the ISS should be a zero-g station when the massive negative health and quality of life impacts of zero-g were known?
O'Neil cylinders have a very large minimum radius of several kilometers for a reason, or several reasons in fact.
One can't just spin up a small station to simulate gravity and expect a person to be ...
- 379
16
votes
Tiangong-1 reentry impact place probabilities
Simply put, that's where it spends most of the time. I think the chart is a bit exaggerated, but a satellite will be at it's northern and southern extrema far more. The pattern follows roughly a ...
- 122k
16
votes
Accepted
Is there anything on the ISS that would be destroyed if that object were returned safetly to Earth?
Floating water (or other fluid) droplets cannot be returned to Earth without losing their form.
Photo credit NASA
- 189k
16
votes
What led NASA et al. to decide the ISS should be a zero-g station when the massive negative health and quality of life impacts of zero-g were known?
The other answers are good, but I think we miss something.
Imagine a spacewalk around a rotating space station. With the current technology, we do need regular spacewalks.
Everything dropped doesn't ...
- 2,529
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