Smita Pani: [World Malayali Club] International Space Station Celebrated 15 years of continous human stay in space

Monday, 2 November 2015

[World Malayali Club] International Space Station Celebrated 15 years of continous human stay in space

Did you Know that :

1. The International Space Station was built in collaboration by 16 countries -- the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. A Russian Proton rocket flew the first piece, the Zarya module, up to orbit in 1998.

2. It weighs nearly 1 million pounds and is about the size of a football field. It has as much pressurized living and working space as a Boeing 747 passenger jet.

3. On November 2, 2000, a Russian Soyuz rocket docked at the International Space Station carrying Expedition 1, made up of NASA astronaut William Shepherd and Roscosmos cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. For 136 days, 17 hours and 9 minutes, they lived in the narrow quarters of the station as it zipped silently around Earth at 5 miles per second, 250 miles above its surface.

4. Continuous human habitation in space began 15 years ago, when three people stepped onto this orbiting laboratory

5. Even after Expedition 1 arrived in 2000 , more modules were added to the space station over the years

6. So far there were 44 Expeditions to the Space Station

7. Circling the Earth every 90 minutes, the inhabitants of the Space station can witness a spectacular sunrise or sunset every 45 minutes.

8. In 2007, the station welcomed a space tourist, Charles Simonyi, who accompanied Expedition 15. He was aboard for 12 days before returning to Earth with the crew of Expedition 14.

9.In February 2003, the Space shuttle Columbia, which transported a crew of

Seven,broke apart during re-entry, killing all seven on board including Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian-American astronaut.