Wednesday marked the 15th anniversary of the first International Space Station (ISS) Russian Zarya module model being sent into orbit around the earth. Currently the largest structure in space ever built by human hands, construction contributions came from the United States, Russia, the European Space Agency, Canada and Japan among others. Here are the top ten most interesting facts one should know about the estimated $100 billion costing ISS.
Size
The length and width of an American Football Field at 109 ft, the ISS is larger than a six bedroom house. It's pretty hefty too at 924,739 lb which translates to 320 automobiles.
Living on the ISS
There are approximately seven tons of supplies to support a crew of three for about six months. Assembly and maintenance has lead to 174 spacewalks to date. The average time a crew spends on board at the station is six months though a U.S. astronaut and Russian cosmonaut are planning to attempt a one-year mission in 2015.
Research
The ISS's zero-gravity environment allowed for over 1,500 scientific experiments in fields ranging from biology, human physiology, oncology, physical and materials science. More tangible benefits include research on advanced robotic surgery, making clean drinking water for people living far away from water treatment facilities and remote medical diagnostics. Along with housing research for the next generation of cancer fighting drugs, the space station's cosmic ray detector could confirm the existence of dark matter.
Robotic Resupply Mission
Two American companies fly robotic resupply missions to the space station. SpaceX has flown two official cargo missions to the space station while Orbital Sciences Corp. has flown one mission using its Cygnus spacecraft through a NASA contract.
Could determine if humans could survive on Mars
Researchers hope the ISS' greatest potential for scientific study is determining if humans can truly live outside of Earth's atmosphere for long periods. This means learning about low-gravity environment affects on things like vision, cardiovascular function, bone density, muscle loss, cosmic radiation and mental stress.
Expedition 38
Named after the 38 trip to the ISS, Expedition 38 is currently occupied by six crew members. That consist of Japanses astronaut Koichi Wakata; Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov, Mikhail Tyurin and Sergey Ryazanskiy; and NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins. Expedition 38 involves a variety of experiments and preparations to deploy a quartet of miniature satellites.
Olympics
The 2014 Winter Olympic torch stopped by the ISS when two Russian cosmonauts took a two-hour spacewalk, making it the first time the torch was taken outside the spaceship. Before then, the torch had been on board twice.
Global Program
Visited by more than 200 people from 15 nations, the ISS is a huge international effort. This includes NASA (U.S.), Roscosmos (Russia), CSA ASC (Canada), ESA (Europe) and JAXA (Japan).
Travel
More than 155 spaceflights have been taken by five kinds of launch vehicles. The time it takes for the space station to make a complete orbit of the earth is 90 minutes.
Tourism
Those who want to skip the long and grueling process of getting on the ISS can go for the Dennis Tito approach. Becoming the first person ever to fly to the station as a self-funded space tourist, the multimillionaire entrepreneur paid $20 million for a flight and eight day stay in the station.
