«——【Preamble】】 ——»
The International Space Station, the project that rejected us, may sound lofty, but in fact, the astronauts who lived here complained, "It smells like a prison." ”
As we all know, when it sounded like a high-level project, the mainland always wanted to join but was strongly excluded by the United States, and after that, the International Space Station was successfully built, but the mainland astronauts did not have the opportunity to enter.
Later, the mainland built the Tiangong space station on its own, and through official media reports, we can see that our Tiangong space station is clean and tidy, so what does the international space station look like? Is it similar to our Tiangong space station or is it very different?
Maybe some readers and friends will think that there is no difference, but this is not the case, the International Space Station and our Tiangong space station are far behind, although it is still in space, but it has always needed to be patched, and now it has become a major problem for the United States and the countries involved in the construction.
«——【·Space Station·】——»
People have always had a beautiful imagination of the sky overhead, what is beyond the sky? What's on the Moon? Since ancient times, there has been a romantic myth of Chang'e running to the moon.
Since the progress and development of science and technology, people have begun to explore space, the first artificial satellite launched by the Soviet Union into space, the first puppy sent into space, the people who entered space, and the people who left footsteps on the moon by the United States, as well as our current Chang'e and Jade Rabbit cars, are all explorations of space.
So far, our exploration of space has only revealed a small corner, in the vast expanse of space, not to mention us humans, even the earth, is as small as a grain of rice, but it is precisely because of this that we are more eager to explore space.
The space station is a great achievement of mankind in space, the first successful launch was in 1971, launched by the Soviet Union at that time, called Salyut 1, and then the Soviet Union launched six more in a row.
At that time, the Soviet Union was really ahead of the world in terms of space exploration. Not to be outdone, the United States, which was then in a-for-tat confrontation with the Soviet Union, launched the Sky Test space station in 1973.
However, the space station built during the Cold War was indeed a bit far away from us, and at that time, the United States and the Soviet Union competed to develop space capabilities in order to compete for hegemony.
Recently, in addition to the Tiangong space station on the mainland, the most famous is undoubtedly the International Space Station announced in 1993, but the United States would rather cooperate with Russia than exclude us.
So, what exactly is the so-called "space station"? What does it look like inside? How do astronauts survive inside? At that time, which countries participated in the International Space Station?
The space station, in fact, can be understood as a small laboratory hanging in the low earth orbit of space, circling the earth together, it includes a docking module, a living module, an experimental module, an airlock module, an orbital module, a logistics service module and solar cells.
For example, a space station is like a USB converter with USB sticks of different functions.
The space station has high technical requirements, involving many fields, probably requiring thousands of cutting-edge technologies in different disciplines, and each component is extremely heavy, less than a dozen tons, which puts forward high requirements for the carrying capacity of the rocket.
It can be said that looking at the world, there are only a handful of countries that can independently build space stations, including continents, and the other two, the United States and Russia are probably also capable of building them.
Needless to say, Russia, after all, its predecessor was the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union launched countless space stations, and Russia, which inherited most of the Soviet legacy, can naturally also, as can be seen from the fact that the United States pulled Russia to build the International Space Station at that time.
«——【International Space Station·】——»
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest space platform in orbit and has modern scientific research equipment, a space laboratory that supports large-scale and multidisciplinary research, and a long-term stay of human beings in low-earth orbit.
Naturally, the United States and Russia, two countries with the ability to build space stations independently, are the first to participate in the construction of the International Space Station, followed by the 11 European Space Agency countries, as well as Japan, Brazil, and Canada.
However, in 2021, Russia announced plans to withdraw from the International Space Station cooperation and build its own space station in 2025, and in February 2022, the United States announced that it would destroy the International Space Station in 2031.
We are now only seven years away from 2031, and the exclusion of us from the ISS program by the United States has instead encouraged us to launch our own space station on our own, and because we have not cooperated with other countries, our space station is far cleaner than the ISS.
«——【·13 people·】——»
The mainland's Tiangong space station can only accommodate six people, but the international space station can accommodate 13 people, but this is not because the mainland's Tiangong space station is not as good as the international space station.
You must know that the International Space Station is a project cooperated by many countries, and although the United States and Russia are the main ones, they cannot but leave a place for astronauts from other countries.
Therefore, the ISS can only open up a little more space, and in fact, not all astronauts on the ISS have beds, and some astronauts need to stand and sleep on the ticket.
Some astronauts have to survive in the airlock cabin, and our Tiangong space station, although it can only accommodate six people, ensures the comfort of six astronauts, so that each astronaut has his own private space, and is also equipped with 1 toilet.
As for the International Space Station, 13 people, there are not enough beds, not to mention the bathroom problem, limited space is the biggest problem of the International Space Station, it is conceivable that the environment of the International Space Station will never be cleaner than the Tiangong Space Station.
«——【Astronaut's Spitting·】——»
In fact, the health of the International Space Station has made the astronauts who live in it can't help but complain, and in 2017, American astronaut Kelly surprised reporters when he visited the prison, saying that the smell of the prison reminded him of the International Space Station, the smell of antiseptics, garbage and fox odor.
After all, the International Space Station could almost be said to be the most high-end space station at that time, and this space station has always been a representative of "tall", why is it so unbearable in Kelly's mouth?
You know, Kelly will not be talking nonsense when he says this, he has carried out four space missions, and once spent 340 days on the International Space Station.
U.S. astronauts have complained about the space station more than once, describing the ISS as a terrible huddle that they can't leave and have to work there.
Since the start of the International Space Station, 241 astronauts from 19 countries have worked here.
Astronauts are obviously not like they are on Earth on the ISS, where there is no gravity, everything is drifting, and astronauts have to drift and move, drifting and using drifted objects.
Drift also means that garbage will also drift, and how to clean up garbage in a comprehensive way is also a problem, a lot of garbage drifts and hides, making the space station full of garbage smell.
Of course, the designers also took these problems into account, there are many auxiliary facilities in the space station that can help the astronauts, but these things also occupy a space, the international space station has limited space, and there are many astronauts, so these things further squeeze the astronauts' activity area.
This makes the life of astronauts on the International Space Station inevitably constrained, except for the huge machines in the space station, the remaining area that astronauts can move around is only about 388 cubic meters, which seems not small, but it is these 388 square meters, which needs to accommodate up to 13 people.
Second, the maintenance cost of the ISS is also very high, not to mention the replacement of equipment, and many equipment on the ISS are slow to be replaced.
There are also a lot of operating equipment and exposed wires around the space module, and the astronauts have to carefully bypass them when moving, so as not to accidentally touch the equipment and cause the equipment to malfunction.
Although the space station is equipped with a comprehensive system to allow astronauts to live comfortably in space, the ISS is still not a comfortable environment.
Limited space, long-term confinement, and the need to accommodate many people in their daily lives make the space station inevitably full of odors, and the smell of household waste and excrement is very obvious, but the astronauts have to put up with it.
After all, even if the closed space station can circulate air, it can't expel the smell in time, not to mention that the astronauts have to exercise in the space station every day in order to maintain their health, and the smell of sweat is very obvious.
There is also laundry, the clothes in the space station cannot be washed, and the smell of clothes that have been worn for a long time and soaked in sweat can be imagined.
In addition, there are skin cells and dander shed from the astronauts in the space station, and these small debris are also drifting in the space station and are pervasive, and the environment in which the astronauts live can be said to be not much different from the garbage dump.
In addition to these, astronauts have also complained about the noise of the space station, and the sound of equipment running makes it difficult for them to get a good night's sleep.
It can be said that the environment of the International Space Station is very bad.
Resources:
Former NASA astronaut revealed: The International Space Station smells like a prison - reference news
International Space Station - China Manned Space Engineering Network