Liftoff!
Some Assembly Required


U.S. Lab being retrieved from the cargo bay of the shuttle and docked to the node.

"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

As we prepare for the first permanent human habitation of the orbiting scientific center the International Space Station (ISS), the question that many Americans are asking is, why? Why are we building an orbiting laboratory and what kinds of science will be done there? When Wernher von Braun and other scientists imagined the first orbiting space stations, what were their plans? As the Russians built and lived in a progression of space stations, including the Mir, what were their goals? When we built Skylab and had American crews living in orbit what did we learn?

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

International Space Station with the U.S. Lab and first U.S. solar array
 As you learned in the last lesson, microgravity research is furthering our perceptions of science and how the universe works with every single experiment. Not only will we have a permanent platform for accomplishing these types of experiments in the ISS, but we will also have a permanent human-tended Earth observation station and an international partnership with 16 countries around the world.

Once it is fully outfitted and permanently staffed, the ISS will be a research laboratory unparalleled by anything on Earth. After two decades of science on board the space shuttle, scientists will now have a more advanced orbiting outpost. This is the major difference between space stations of the past and the new ISS. Not only is the technology more advanced, but researchers will be able to run experiments for longer durations. "When you're up there 24 hours a day, 7 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 2- or 3-day window, or have to spread your research over a number of flights."
Missions conducted on Skylab, the space shuttles, Mir, and robotic platforms have provided important but limited opportunities to understand nature in microgravity. The ISS will allow researchers to expand their experiments and, therefore, our horizons of knowledge.
The ISS will also be an international community. A human experiment is taking place on the ISS: learning how to live and work in space as part of an international crew. Collaboration among all of the international, industrial, and academic partners involved will ensure that the benefits from the research done on board will be felt around the world.

"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 NASA Administrator Dan Goldin. Astronauts will perform research that will range from fundamental scientific inquiry to advanced technology and commercial product development. In fact, the relationship between scientific research and product development is a very important aspect of the overall work that will be done on the ISS since understanding basic physical, chemical, and biological processes is a vital step in the development of new commercial products.

In this lesson, you will explore the previous Russian and American space stations and their goals and accomplishments, analyze alternate designs for the ISS, and learn about the major components of the space station and their functions. You will review which pieces of the ISS are currently in orbit and the basic assembly sequence through assembly complete. 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. You will also look at the 16 international partners and explore their contributions to the space station.

The chapters include:

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 EVAs and evaluate the cost of the ISS per country, per pound.


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