Liftoff!
Some Assembly Required

"If we do it (build a space station), we can not only preserve the peace but we can take a long step toward uniting mankind."

-Wernher von Braun

The International Space Station (ISS) is the first permanently inhabited orbiting scientific center built by members of the international community as a team. Some of the questions this lesson will help you to answer include: What types of science is done on board an orbiting laboratory?  What kinds of discoveries made on the ISS could help life here on Earth? How are the various countries working together to build it?  Who will get to inhabit it?  How long will each crew remain on board the station?

Why live and work in low-Earth orbit? You might as well ask why humans climb mountains, brave deserts and jungles, and explore the oceans and to ends of the Earth. We go where no one has gone before!  It is our nature to explore, to discover new things, new places, and new principles.

The ISS is a research laboratory unparalleled by anything on Earth. After two decades of science on board the space shuttle, scientists now have an advanced orbiting outpost. This is the major difference between space stations of the past and the ISS. Not only is the technology more advanced, but researchers can run experiments for longer durations. "When you're up there 24 hours a day, Seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, you can get a lot done," says NASA Chief Scientist Kathy Olsen. "You don't have to try to cram everything into a two- or three-day window, or have to spread your research over a number of flights."

Missions conducted on Skylab, the Space Shuttle, Mir, and robotic platforms have provided important but limited opportunities to understand nature in microgravity. The ISS allows researchers to expand their experiments and our horizons of knowledge.

The ISS houses an international community. A very human experiment is taking place on the ISS, learning how to live and work in space as part of an international crew!

"Whether the research improves our industrial processes, increases fundamental knowledge, helps us to look after our health, or enables us to take the next steps in the exploration and development of space, research on board the ISS will bring many benefits for life on Earth and in space," says former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin.

In this lesson, you will explore the previous Russian and American space stations, their goals and accomplishments, and analyze some alternate designs for the ISS.  You will learn about the major components of the space station and their functions. You will review which pieces of the ISS are in orbit and the basic assembly sequence. You will review the many activities EVA crews will have to perform during the construction of the ISS (over 150 of them!) and analyze the differences between the shuttle and ISS robotic arms.

For your assignment, you will get to design your own engineering innovation to aid the astronauts in the complex construction of the ISS. In addition, you will calculate how much oxygen is needed for a series of spacewalks.

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Next... We Are Not the First (pg. 2 of 6)