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Originally posted by aboutface
And does anyone know about the temperature in the space station? Does it get cold inside when it is in the dark?
Originally posted by aboutface
Thanks for the eye opener tour. I don't know much about the space station, so it was informative and interesting. Endless stuff, tubes, plastic, small spaces,corridors and stations. The stuff of claustrophobic nightmares for some people and adventure for others. I wonder what the whole thing looks like from the outside at the moment?
I can imagine her loose hair falling all over the place, and that leads me to wonder what kind of filtration system is in there for things like loose hair?
And does anyone know about the temperature in the space station? Does it get cold inside when it is in the dark?
Originally posted by GaryN
Good video, but way too claustrophobic for me. One thing I notice is that they can not look out to see the Sun or Moon or stars. I've been told the only portholes with a view of deep space are always covered up, as the glass is thin and delicate and may get hit by micrometeorites. That sounds bogus to me, and I'd say a spaceward looking porthole made of some of the super tough glass I'm sure NASA has would be stronger and more resilient than the hull itself. Maybe the ISS was never intended for astronomy, but jeez, just a peek of the heavens doesn't seem like too much to ask.edit on 9-12-2012 by GaryN because: spelling correctionedit on 9-12-2012 by GaryN because: (no reason given)
"Pettit recently took some lovely pictures of star fields in the southern hemisphere: the Large Magellanic Cloud (a nearby galaxy that orbits our own Milky Way galaxy), the Coal Sack Nebula (an inky-black interstellar cloud), and the Southern Cross.
"These pictures show how wonderfully stable the space station is," says Pettit. "When the camera is mounted to the window, the ISS itself serves as a tripod. Any movement would cause streaks in the star images." But the station's Control Moment Gyros maintain attitude with rock-solid precision. "I don't believe that the ISS was designed for astronomy," adds Pettit, "but it functions very well as a platform for astrophotography."
One of the curious things about sky watching from orbit is the appearance of stars. "They don't twinkle," says Pettit. Twinkling is caused by irregularities in Earth's atmosphere that refract starlight to and fro. But in orbit there is no atmosphere. Stars are remarkably steady and piercing."