Brain Post: 10 International Space Station Facts & a Video of Northern Lights from Space

Miles Clark | | Post Tag for BrainsBrains


Video of the Earth at night from the ISS with Northern Lights.

The International Space Station (ISS) was launched on October 31st, 2000 at a cost you won’t believe.  If you’ve seen it fly by overhead, you know how fast it moves.  It’s hard to believe.

10 INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION FACTS:

1.  The ISS the biggest space ship ever built, the biggest space station ever, and was assembled in space

The International space station and some planet
The International space station and some planet

2.  The ISS orbits the Earth 16 times per day, every 90 minutes at 17,250 mph

3.  The ISS is the single most expensive thing ever created at a cost somewhere near $100 billion.  For some scope, the next Hubble telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope will cost $5 billion.

"Hold my beer and watch this!"
“Hold my beer and watch this!”

4.  Someone has been living in the ISS continuously since it’s launch over 12 years ago.  It was launched on October 31st, 2000.  

5.  The ISS is the largest man made satellite orbiting Earth and can be seen with the naked eye.  

Size is everything
Size is everything.

6.  43,000 cubic feet of living and working space – the equivalent of two Boeing 747’s

7.   acre solar panels The 75 to 90 kilowatts of power for the ISS is supplied by an acre of solar panels.

Eruption of cleveland volcano in Alaska from ISS
Eruption of cleveland volcano in Alaska from ISS

8. Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev has logged 803 total days in space—about two years, two and a half months—more than anyone else in history. He lived on Mir, was part of the first ISS crew, and flew on two space shuttle flights in his long career. Krikalev was in orbit on Mir when the Soviet Union dissolved in late 1991; he had left Earth a Soviet cosmonaut and returned to Earth as a Russian.

Russian cosmonaut at the ISS
Russian cosmonaut at the ISS

 9.  On November 28th, 2010 the ISS’s odometer read more than 1.5 billion statute miles (the equivalent of eight round trips to the Sun), over the course of 57,361 orbits around the Earth. 

10.  Nope, we don’t know if anyone has ever had sex in the ISS.  But we’re hoping the Russians have.  

Check out where the ISS is right now:  Current ISS Location

Tracy Caldwell making the ISS look sexy
Tracy Caldwell making the ISS look sexy

Related Articles

6 thoughts on “Brain Post: 10 International Space Station Facts & a Video of Northern Lights from Space

  1. How much longer is the ISS to operate? that’s the most interesting fact and how will we replace it?

Got an opinion? Let us know...