The International Space Station is about to become habitable鈥攁nd
finally look a bit more like a real space station than an oversized
communications satellite. The Russian crew quarters module, Zvezda, which
blasted into space last week on a Proton rocket, will provide a low-Earth-orbit
home for cosmonauts and astronauts if it docks successfully on 26 July.
Although there are many national space agencies involved in the ISS
project, NASA has easily the best explanatory site
(http://spaceflight. nasa.gov/station).
It explains how the two modules already in orbit, the Russian
Zarya control module and the American Unity module connector, are supposed to
dock automatically with Zvezda. The first permanent crew is scheduled to arrive
in November, headed by astronaut Bill Shepherd, who hosts an interesting video
tour of Zvezda on this site. Shepherd explains the unusual necessities of life
in zero gravity. The walls are lined with handles so that floating astronauts
can guide themselves around, and in the crew quarters the walls are also padded
with insulation to keep noise down. The toilet comes with its own positive
airflow designed, as Shepherd puts it, to keep 鈥渁ll the waste going in the right
诲颈谤别肠迟颈辞苍鈥�.
There鈥檚 also a virtual tour of the future, completed station at
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/vtour/intro.html. It鈥檚 good fun鈥攊f you鈥檝e the
computer power to run it. You鈥檒l also find some neat artists鈥� impressions and
animations of manoeuvres like docking at
www.shuttlepresskit.com/ISS_OVR/assembly2_overview.htm.
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The European Space Agency鈥檚 English-language space-station site is a bit
staid in comparison and has obviously been translated鈥攊n a somewhat
stilted fashion鈥攆rom some other language. But if you have some red-green
3D spectacles to hand, there are 3D views of the ISS and ESA鈥檚 Columbus
laboratory module, due for launch in 2003, at
www.estec.esa.nl/spaceflight/3dimens.htm.
