Space station gets room, huge window to see Earth

I'm not sure if this is really space exploration, but please move the topic to the correct forum if this isn't the right one.

www.physorg.com...

Astronauts put the last big addition on the International Space Station early Friday, attaching a new room with an enormous bay window that promises to provide unprecedented panoramic views of Earth.

The room, named Tranquility, was hoisted into place by a giant robot arm as a pair of spacewalking astronauts floated nearby, excitedly watching everything take shape.

"We've got a whole bunch of camera views ... and every one of them looks spectacular," astronaut Stephen Robinson radioed from inside the shuttle-station complex.

I think it's interesting that this room is geared to make the 6 month stays more pleasant and NASA admits it:

The central window is a circle 31 inches across. The six surrounding windows are smaller and shaped like trapezoids.

NASA readily acknowledges the observation deck and its 360-degree views will improve the quality of life aboard the orbital outpost, where astronauts spend six months at a stretch.

And the article says that 31 inch window sets a new record for the largest window ever sent into space.

So was that a good investment of $400 million dollars to give the ISS astronauts a bigger window and an observation deck with 360 degree views? (I haven't researched what other functions if any that module has but it seems the view is the main focus of this article so if there are other functions besides the view and the exercise machines, I'm not sure what they are). And I can't help but wonder what the view looks like out that 31 inch window.

[edit on 12-2-2010 by Arbitrageur]

Sounds good, But is this not a grand view for those elite few to have VIP seats for a grand event?

I agree, it certainly sounds like a grand view.

However I'm not sure what you mean by a grand event? please elaborate.

Money well spent.

You see, disclosure is coming and it's not going to be pretty.

All of the world leaders will be taken into space, to the space station.

The Earth will be attacked by aliens.

The world leaders will have the ultimate place and "window" to view the destruction of Earth.



I know... and I'm sorry... but I thought that would just add a funny twist to this story.

reply to post by elevatedone


its funny , i said that before

Originally posted by elevatedone
Money well spent.

You see, disclosure is coming and it's not going to be pretty.

All of the world leaders will be taken into space, to the space station.

The Earth will be attacked by aliens.

The world leaders will have the ultimate place and "window" to view the destruction of Earth.



I know... and I'm sorry... but I thought that would just add a funny twist to this story.

Ah but you see that's precisely what the aliens want us to think, truth is they're going to destroy the ISS when all the leaders are in there and then we're all going to live happily traveling through the galaxy with the new technologies our alien buddies are going to gift us. =)

Originally posted by elevatedone
The Earth will be attacked by aliens.

The world leaders will have the ultimate place and "window" to view the destruction of Earth.

But I keep hearing all the aliens are friendly???

Nah I don't believe that either. First contact could just as easily be an "Independence day" scenario as a "Close encounters of the Third Kind" scenario, or maybe even a "V" scenario where we think they're friendly but they're not. We simply don't know how friendly they will or won't be, there may be some of each kind to deal with.

Though I keep reading on ATS about how we've already made first contact visually via the shuttle cameras picking up out of focus 5 mm ice particles that are actually really 2 mile wide spaceships!

And regarding the destruction of the Earth, I think we are perfectly capable of doing that ourselves without any help from the aliens, and no nukes needed. Just let the current population trends continue and Earth will experience on a larger scale what Easter Island experienced on a smaller scale, they overpopulated the island beyond its ability to sustain, used up all the natural resources and destroyed the ecosystem of the island, had food shortages, and there's evidence of cannibalism, which I guess can happen when there are food shortages.

But that will take a while, and they wouldn't see much from space. And it may not come to pass if nature does the destruction for us as happened 63 million years ago when a planet killer rock hit the earth and killed all the dinosaurs, can you imagine what that impact would have looked like from space? In fact I don't know if the ISS would survive the shock wave from that impact or not, but if it did they would see quite a spectacular, yet terrifying show out that big new ISS window if a giant rock hit the Earth.

And the ISS crew might survive for a while, like the people on Earth on the opposite side of the impact, on stored food reserves, but they would run out of food too just like on the surface. So the ISS is nice but what we really need is a sustainable colony off the Earth that can grow its own food, maybe on the moon or Mars.

Now you see what you get for mentioning the destruction of the Earth?

Originally posted by Arbitrageur...63 million years ago when a planet killer rock hit the earth and killed all the dinosaurs, can you imagine what that impact would have looked like from space? In fact I don't know if the ISS would survive the shock wave from that impact or not...

What shock wave? It's in a vacuum, remember? The greatest immediate physical danger to the station in such a circumstance is flying through the debris ejected out of the atmosphere. The impact velocity would average ~17,000 mph or more. A rock hitting at that speed is going to release as much kinetic energy as almost three times its mass in high explosive.

As for as the utility of the Tranquility module cupola, it should make use of the station's robot arm easier with that better view.