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Space Hardware

Tour of the Closet Sized Living Quarters On ISS 76

Posted by CmdrTaco from the efficient-use-of-space-get-it?? dept.
Phoghat writes "Who knew it could take almost seven minutes to get a tour of the teeny-tiny crew quarters on board the International Space Station? But Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly provides an engaging peek inside his personal living space, and an inside look at life aboard the ISS."
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Tour of the Closet Sized Living Quarters On ISS More

Tour of the Closet Sized Living Quarters On ISS

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    • > If they can read books, why not do this as well?

      Because they'd rather read books? PR is the NASA PR department's job. Why would an astronaut want to use up her limited personal time promoting herself? More money from endorsements? Fear of being cut from the team due to not having enough fans?

  • I love and hate all these videos. It gives me hope that perhaps one day we will truly travel the stars, and yet at the same time it reminds me how horribly primitive we are in our efforts to do so. I always imagine a space station to have well more space. Think the cheesy space station from the first fantastic four movie. Still maybe one day we will really have the motivation to travel the stars.
    • Mass is the currency of space travel, and more space = more mass (for structural integrity). Unfortunately it doesn't look like this is going to be changing anytime soon, so it's doubtful we'll be seeing space stations with tons of unused space anytime soon, if ever. There's no problem with dreaming about it though.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by eln ( 21727 )
      Until we can figure out artificial gravity, I would think you would want to have as little space as possible between you and the walls, since the only real way to maneuver is to push off of something. This would lead to a design with a lot of small rooms connected by narrow corridors, such as you see in the ISS.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by kybur ( 1002682 )
        artificial gravity is easy. Just keep the ship accellerating forward, or spinning around a convenient axis. The former case, of the accellerating frame should be indistiguishable from being in a uniform gravitational field.
        • but real world objects don't have "uniform gravitational fields". Distinguishing your accelerating frame from being on a planet with 1 g is trivial. The force on a planet appears to come from nearly a point, the center of mass. The force on a planet obeys the inverse square law above the surface. Spinning around a convenient axis on a radius of hundreds of meters or less will have even more tell-tales that a human inner ear will notice.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by kybur ( 1002682 )

            If your inner ear can distinguish the difference between a uniform field, aka an accelerating spaceship, and the curved field of a point source 6300000 meters away, I'll eat my hat.

            I agree that the spinning case would probably feel a little wierd to most people. That's why I only suggested the first case as being indistinguishable.

            Of course you could devise an experiment to tell the difference between the first case and earth, but the parent of the thread is talking about artificial gravity!!! I guara

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )

      Primitive?

      His space is more than enough for it's needs. In fact humans can live very comfortably in small spaces. I know people that are incredibly happy raising their 2 kids and 2 adults family in a 2 bedroom 640sq foot apartment. They are quite civilized and less primitive than most people that have McMansion homes.

      More space = a waste of space. Only badly designed things have lots of open space in them. Until we get a unlimited self renewing power supply that can lift 900,000,000 metric tons for z

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by syousef ( 465911 )

        Sounds to me like you're jealous of people that have more space. More space means you're capable of more things. There's room for hobbies, there's room for storage of things you use less frequently. YOU may consider that a waste, but it's not your space to govern and rule.

        I use my "McMansion" space to house all sorts of things that enrich my family's life. Telescopes. Musical instruments. Shelves of books. Remote control planes. Sleeping quarters for 2 dogs. A home theatre. Computers. Spare stuff that I lik

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Engine ( 86689 )

          I really don't give a fuck what you think about how I use that space or whether you think it's wasted.

          I think someone hit a nerve.

          I rather have a small apartment and use money for traveling or working less instead of paying to store seldom used stuff.

      • Microgravity makes it easier to make use of volume as well. I was surprised he had so much space. I expected a coffin shaped volume or a sleeping bag attached to the wall of a corridor.

    • I think when we get to the point where say a 1/3 size Babylon5 style station is possible could be a worthy goal... Even in a planetary orbit... Of course, we'd probably want to see if we can mine resources from the Moon, Mars or Venus, as that may work out as a better motivator for such a station...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hitmark ( 640295 )

        I may be shorter, but it needs to be at least a specific width to be usable. This because one would not want one part of the body to experience a different centrifugal force then another part (iirc).

        As for mining, a better option may be the asteroid belt (tho moon mining would be a bootstrap for that). This as there would be less energy spent escaping gravity all the time.

  • Tiny teen crew quarters? (Score:4)

    by Rob Kaper ( 5960 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @12:09PM (#34474554) Homepage

    Did anyone else read that or is it just me with a one track mind?

  • No wasted space (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PhxBlue ( 562201 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @12:10PM (#34474588) Homepage Journal
    Doesn't surprise me that it would take seven minutes, because while the living quarters might be small, the microgravity environment lets you use literally every square foot. On Earth, you can't use your floor and ceiling as shelves.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      On Earth, you can't use your floor and ceiling as shelves.

      So that's why I couldn't get that stuff to stay put on the ceiling! I was near the end of my patience yesterday with it.

      • One of these days someone will market viable velcro-like ceiling pads for sticking things up there. Students in small apartments sometimes do creative things like putting up hooks for hanging bicycles. Figure out how to park a car up there and you'll be rich. Not too many other options meanwhile. A fun but dangerous place for a mirror or a flat-screen? Spider-farming is safer.

        A sky-light to see the stars might be cool if it never broke or let the sun fry you.
        Sleeping under the stars in space could be a

    • Doesn't surprise me that it would take seven minutes, because while the living quarters might be small, the microgravity environment lets you use literally every square foot. On Earth, you can't use your floor and ceiling as shelves.

      Looks at floor... already done.

      Looks at ceiling... hmmm, I will have to get back to you on that one.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • i have one of these: http://www.homeorganizershops.com/PHL-1R.html [homeorganizershops.com]

        the rack is 16 sq ft but bulky stuff hangs over the edge so it probably frees up about 20 sq ft of garage floor space altogether. i took my time on installation (6 hours maybe) to make sure it was really solidly attached. i put some interlocking foam floor pads over the wire rack so smaller stuff doesn't fall through. i have one of the old hand crank ones, but you can get motorized these days.

  • futurama reference (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    kind on reminds me of benders appartment, minus the giant closet that is

  • Or as NYC residents call it (Score:3)

    by GodfatherofSoul ( 174979 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @12:29PM (#34474898)

    A one-bedroom studio apartment.

  • If you compare this to the quarters on a sub it's really roomy. If all you do is sleep, work on a computer, and read books you don't need lots of space. In fact, I'm taking up far less space than I have available to me to post this here, and that's after years of taking up far more space in my clothing than is necessary.

    • Hot-racking will be standard on the military version of the ISS. You only get the closet for 6 hours out of 24.

    • If you compare this to the quarters on a sub it's really roomy.

      A sub has to slide through the water. The ISS has plenty of space to expand in to, however mass is still an issue.

  • Ham radio on the ISS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by molo ( 94384 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @12:43PM (#34475152) Journal

    For more ISS geekery, check out this video. Col. Doug Wheelock operates the NA1SS ham radio station on board the ISS. Since they are using FM, all the different transmissions are interfering and he's having trouble picking callsigns out of the noise. It is impressive to hear all that traffic in a FM pileup. Contacts start around 11:30 mark. Before that is background and a tour of the station.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h73EYcyszf8 [youtube.com]

    -molo

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • In order to make the spoof, one must first have watched the show. People that spend their time sitting around watching Cribs probably don't end up on the ISS.

  • Windows! Windows! Windows! (Score:3)

    by NicknamesAreStupid ( 1040118 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @01:09PM (#34475588)
    He has a Microsoft Windows PC! A MacBook Air would be so much more fitting. Steve Jobs needs to get up there and straighten him out.
  • That is what they used on Skylab even though they had a shower but having to vacuum all those floating water droplets was time consuming. Interesting Scott had vertical orientation once in his bunker. From the book "A House In Space" by SF Cooper talked about room layout needs to be vertically defined top and bottom, some portions were not and were disorientating.

    I bet it a real shower and a real bath feels great after 6 months. And a real girl too.

  • Don't anyone tell him but the book he's reading is probably a fraud.
    BBC - Walking the talk? [bbc.co.uk]

    "From the start, a ferocious controversy has raged about whether anyone really could achieve this superhuman feat. Critics particularly questioned one chapter in the book where the walkers apparently see a pair of yetis."

  • When/where do they masturbate? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'm actually quite serious.

    Several months is a long time to go without getting off. There is documentation from some of the early space missions of the doctors advising regular masturbation for the crew. One of the crew members claims not to have, but other than that the record I am aware of is silent.

    I'm seriously curious on a practical level. There is the privacy issue of where but there is also the practical issue of not having ejaculate floating all around the cabin. Does this mean they spend extra

    • I thought he was being a bit too clear when he showed his hands outside the sleeping bag. Thats not how I would do it. In answer to your question he has his own room and he took his pictures down to film the video.

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