Citation Needed - The International Space Station

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies:��NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada).[7][8] The ownership and use of the space station is established by intergovernmental treaties and agreements.[9] The station serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which scientific research is conducted in astrobiology, astronomy, meteorology, physics, and other fields.[10][11][12] The ISS is suited for testing the spacecraft systems and equipment required for possible future long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

So then I get my foot in there to keep it wedged open, right? No, man, not right. Not right. Why would you think that would be a good answer? You guys sound identical to the manager that petting suit right now. This is a little ridiculous. Surprise! Whoa, dude! What's with all the electronics and stuff?

And all these working guys? It's for this week's episode. I know how much you like the ISIS space station. You know, the subject of this week's essay, and it took some doing, but once I told the guys they could use our studio, they all came right down to check it out. Oh, dude, that is so cool. Thank you. Yeah. Are these the guys in the hoods? Are they scientists? Yeah, I didn't even realize scientists dressed like that, but apparently they do yeah, they're all super friendly Yeah, is this dynamite?

No top it's probably like a space Propulsion thing for the ice space station as it's you know, sorry Eli it's a small correction It's it's just it's to call the international space station like calling it the ISS space station is it's like saying ATM machine Oh no no, I checked it's definitely ISIS space station. See it's on their stationery. It's all written out. Okay, okay fuck Eli brought terrorists into the studio again. Didn't he? He sure did Tom. Hi, I'll go I'll go over and reset the sign to zero days. Oh come on. They're not Actually, you know what now,

a lot of what they've been saying makes sense, because I was confused. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed! Podcast Reaches the subject, read a single article about Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet. That's how it works now. I'm Cecil and I'll be counting us down, but for this launch to work, I'll need a booster, a thruster, and a load. Tom, Noah, and Eli. You know, as the booster,

a lot relies on my O-rings, and I'm down for all challengers. Of Jesus. Oh, I like mine, though, because I make subtle corrections throughout the mission. Right, so like thrusters are like the pedants of space flight. He's good stuff. And mine is low to really Cecil. In the same year as my botched vasectomy. Too soon, too soon. Botched vasecta. Did you get somebody else pregnant?

What happened? Botched vasecta. Cecil doesn't know I have three balls. Cecil doesn't know. I don't think. Yeah. No. No. You know about your botched vasecta. Oh, well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, concept phenomenon or event we'll be talking about today. The International Space Station. Cool. And Noah, you traveled days to see a once-in-a-lifetime astronomy event obscured by clouds. That's not a lead. And I just wanted to say to make you mad before we read anything. It was one cloud. It was just one, it's the clear size cloud, all by itself, and otherwise cloudless fucking skies. That's terrible. Oh no, what was the international, what is, what was the international space station?

Yeah, it depends on when you're listening to this. I guess, okay. So there are actually two very distinct ways of answering that, depending on what you want to emphasize. Because the international space station, or ISS, There are actually two very distinct ways of answering that, depending on what you want to emphasize. Because the International Space Station, or ISS, is a 460 ton football-filled-sized marvel of cutting-edge technology that's whizzing around 250 miles above the earth at nearly five miles a second and was built to unprecedented international cooperation.

But it's also a rickety $150 billion space dinosaur that's older than Heath's car was built with dial-up technology cost over $3 billion a year to maintain and never really justified its existence despite being the single most expensive thing ever built. See, now I don't know whether you're talking about Branson or Bezos. I don't know. Oh, and fun fact, Cecil. Just last week Bezos blew origin dick rocket prematurely blue and popped its little mushroom head before delivering its payload, leaving everyone disappointed. Never happened to before. Yeah. I'm sorry, guys. It's just, you know, space stuff is useless

and expensive. He's kind of my thing on these essays? So how would you like it if I stole all of your stuff? Oh, I'm like, quick, quick, quick. History angles it. I was going to go to hell, bro. I'm going to go to hell. So I'm going to stop me, right? I don't do your guys' thing. I offered both, I offered Cecil's and your position.

In my eye. So the idea for a space station goes back to at least 1883 when a Russian aerospace engineer named Constantine Tsilkovsky wrote a book called Free Space, which included sketches for what he thought a space station might look like. It became a staple of science fiction as the genre emerged, and the idea of a permanently inhabited space station orbiting the Earth was a shared dream amongst pretty much all of the early pioneers of space technology. So much so in fact, it pretty much the minute the technology made that remotely possible, world's government started sinking billions of dollars into the idea without ever clearly

articulating what the point of having one would be. Yeah, that's pretty much my wife's argument against an in a home frozen custard machine. You're the exact same argument. Let it out, buddy. Let it out, buddy. Let it out. If sinking money into pointless things was a bad thing to do, how do you explain how any of us make our living? Oh, so I never said this was a bad thing.

Okay. Let me just bring the TSA Tom. So the first effort of a space station came, of course, from Russia. In 1971, the Soviet government launched Salute One. That was the first of eight stations in the Salute program. And this thing was tiny, right? It was a cylinder that was 66 feet, that's 20 meters or so long, with a maximum diameter of 13 feet or four meters.

Right. So like, it wouldn't quite fit on a standard flatbed trailer, but it would come really close. But it was successfully launched into orbit and a crew of three Cosminas did successfully dock with it and spent 23 days aboard it. This was the first time anyone ever docked with an orbiting object in space and it was a new record for the longest anyone ever spent in space. Unachievement that was someone undercut by the fact that the crew died on the way back down when a valve opened prematurely and as fixated as.

Yeah. As of this record, by the way, that marks the only time anyone ever died in space. You know, they actually would have been just fine, but the Russians were collecting space first, like this was Pokemon go and dying in orbit was just on the list. Hell of a check. We'll leave this on the list. It's a whole thing. Yeah.

Now, so after the accident, the US SR scrapped their next planned launch until they could redesign the Soyuz. That's the spacecraft that was meant to take people back and forth to the Salute One. Unfortunately, that redesign took so long that they couldn't get anybody back in time to do the routine maintenance. The station needed to survive. So they de-ordered it after six months and one crew. Yeah. And nobody even got a free taco. It was all around everybody. It's a different one. But yeah. So the, the, the US joined the space station game a couple of years later with Skylab. This is the only space station that was ever operated exclusively by the US. It was launched in the last flight of the Saturn V rocket. That's the one that

took the astronauts to the moon, except that unlike the Apollo missions, the big main fuel stage didn't disengage and fall back to the earth. Instead, it was boosted just a bit higher and then used as the main structure for the station itself. Now, unlike the Russian space station, this space station had a clearly defined reason to exist so that the Russians wouldn't have the only one. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, stupid Russians. They're unbelievably expensive. Pointless tube of disposable floating men. I'll show them.

I'll launch my own unbelievably expensive tube of disposable floating men. Yes. Yep. So Skylab lasted a little bit longer than Salute One. It suffered major damage though. When the micromedioride shield tour away from the main workshop area. And this unexpected departure, not only left it vulnerable to micromediorites, but it also carried one of the main solar panels with

it and jammed into another one. So the station was left running on a small fraction of the electric power it was supposed to have. Yeah. See, Greg Abbott was right. Renewable fuels are just too unpredictable. Whenever you talk about running on a small fraction of the electric power you're supposed to have, Greg Abbott is going to come up, yeah. So, but even worse though, those solar panels were also keeping the direct sunlight off the skin of the workshops. And without it, the crews were subjected to brutal internal temperatures, eventually NASA mitigated the problem by no shit, sending up a big-ass curtain that they could hang off the side of the station. Yeah, they just hooked the curtain

right up to the VW camper van hood on. Perfect. Got a unicorn on it and everything. Yeah, it's really good. Now ultimately though, Skylab was doomed from and everything. Yeah, that's what I'm pretty seeing. Yeah. That went really good. Now ultimately though, Skylab was doomed from the start. See to keep a space station in the orbit, it has to be periodically boosted and where salut and the ISS have the ability to do that all by their loans. Some Skylab didn't. The plan was to use the space shuttle to periodically nudge it back into place by talking

underneath it. The problem with that plan though was that the space shuttle didn't exist yet. What? Yeah. Right. Well, and unfortunately, it wasn't the one single thing in the history of space exploration that was finished on time. So it came time for them to give it its first orbital nudge.

The space shuttle was still years away from its first flight. Only four three person crews would ever inhabit the $2.2 billion station. And in 1979, it returned to the earth in a very much uncontrolled reentry. Jesus Christ. Yeah, debris showered Western Australia. And there was quite a bit of debris. The fact that it didn't hit any people or destroy any structures was just a happy coincidence. As a stand, the worst thing that came from it was a $400 fine that the municipal government in Australia issued a tenass for littering in this instance. Yeah, I don't know.

It seems like it would take a fair bit of convincing for those three member crews to hang out and is steadily descending scuba tank miles above the earth with the reassurance of, don't worry, it'll stay there as long as we invent a way for it to stay there. Less is like a shitty dad picking them up late from school. So I had to wait till my blood alcohol level was low enough to blow and the things start to cry. Get in.

Get in. It's two for two at two to two's days. All right. So meanwhile, by the way, Russians have to sell you six with a couple more stations in the works. And unlike the NASA station, which was at least publicly all about scientific discoveries and pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, the Russians had both civilian and military stations in operation.

So very much an area where the US.S. is lagging behind and who should assume office the year after that embarrassing NASA crash into Australia, but the coldest of cold warriors Ronald Wilson Reagan, who's full name, by the way, is an anagram for insane Anglo warlord. I just learned that the other day, I love that more than anything. So anyway, Reagan announced his plans to build a new and better space station during his 1984 state of the Union address. In a moment remembered for the historic wrongness of its premise, goals and execution, Reagan predicted that crude space travel would be a major economic driver in the near future and test NASA with building a space station within the next 10 years.

The fact that that in like 1984 was the impetus for the ISS tells you how thoroughly NASA missed that deadline. Reagan only did this because he thought it was like a complicated pulley system. The space station could just reel up the NASDAQ. He didn't actually put a lot of thought into coming back to Earth because he just figured the astronauts would trickle down. That's... Well, last station worked.

But yeah, okay. So the first appropriation bills that funded, what would eventually be known as the International Space Station, came shortly after that speech for a station that was named with trademark American pomposity, space station freedom. But the American project took on an international flavor pretty quickly within a year of its announcement, the European Space Agency announced that they'd be building a module that would attach to that station. And a year after that, the Japanese Space Agency, Jackson announced the same.

Okay, well, maybe if we had named our guys the astronauts, other countries wouldn't just assume we'd open our hatches and let them dock in us just for showing up. Are you kidding? Everyone at NASA was like, guys, be cool. This is the closest anyone in this building will ever get to being popular to say yes. Let everyone docker on. All right. So free extra ice cream.

So meanwhile though, while America and his buddies are sipping hot cocoa and drawing up plans for their awesome space for it, Russia has moved on from orbiting shipping containers to the mirror space station. Now, that's only unimpressive today because we have the ISS to compare it to mirror was the first space station to be like built at sea, so to speak, with a number of different modules launched separately and then assembled and orbit over time, right? So until then, space stations were limited in size to what you could realistically strap to a rocket.

Also unlike previous stations, it was continuously crooked. Okay, so with the previous ones, a crew would go up, they'd do their thing for a few weeks and then they'd come back and leave the craft empty until the next crew showed up. But with mirror, crew one doesn't leave until crew two shows up. In all, Mirror would be occupied for about 12 and a half of the 15 years that it spent in orbit. Oh, can you imagine how much that thing must have fucking smelled, right?

15 years just collecting everyone's farts and BO, and then if you open the window, suddenly you're the bad guy. Oh almost included an entire paragraph in this essay about that. Yes, every fart is saved in the ISS. I mean, like, you can't vent it. Yeah. So the first module for mirror is launched in 1986. A couple years after that, the country that built it fell apart. With the follow of the Soviet Union, there was a significant thaw in US-Russian relations and the space station freedom was still on the drawing board. So eventually NASA admitted that Russians were way better at building space stations than us of the eight successful stations that had operated into that point, seven of them

were Russian. And asked if maybe they, the newly impoverished nation nation that they were wanted to go in on a space station. So in September of 1993, then vice president Al Gore and Russian prime minister Victor Cherimirdrin, however the hell is name is pronounced, held a joint press conference where they announced that they'd be merging the plans follow up to mirror with the perpetually planned space station freedom in a joint effort that they dubbed the International Space Station. Well, we actually reached out to the Russians to see if they could help us get to the topic

before the first break, but their only advice was to stop Stalin. And that little amperpo of nothing. Thank you, Eli. Shit. Well, if nothing, thank you, Eli. Thank you, shit. Well, thanks. Thank you, Eli. Thank you. Come on. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ All right, gentlemen, this is a big moment, meeting of the Russians and Americans

for the first time in space. Let's be on our best behavior. Sir, yes, sir. Greetings. And may I be the first to... Wow, wow, wow, look at this. Americans give bottler here to take my space. So here's the invention. I was not. I bring soup where I put it. Jesus, keep that away from the air vents. No, tap soup till dinner. No Top soup till dinner. Okay, okay, please be understand. They do not know about soup till dinner gentlemen Jen, so man I have to admit I'm more than a little shocked at this behavior this this is a meeting of super powers

Not a pot luck Now can we please get to the business we all traveled to space in the hopes of accomplishing? Oh, he's right, you're a gay. I am ashamed for myself. Okay. I go get turn-ups, you get blue jeans, we start trading right away. You have Wrangler, I like Wrangler. Okay. For the break, we were about to perfect strangers our way into a space station.

Let's get back into it. The sitcom that never was. So yeah, so in 1984, Reagan challenged NASA to build a new space station within 10 years, uh, that he started the government of funding at every goddamn opportunity, which is at least part of the reason why we didn't even start building the first components for the damn thing until his 10 year deadline was pretty much over. Oh, typical nerd excuses. Oh, we need more funding. Stop accusing us of faking the moon landing. Where's your company? Where's your gumption?

So the ISS is basically put together Lego style, right? Different modules are built in different barefoot and hurts like that. I imagine it will. I had to right? But no, I mean, that different modules are built in different facilities in different countries. Then they're launched into space and fitted into the larger structure through a combination of space walks and robotics. Now the first US components included the integrated trust structure that acted as the

station's initial skeleton and the solar array that acts as its main power supply, as well as two modules named Destiny and Unity. Now Destiny serves as the main US science lab and the aptly named Unity is the node with that connects the US and Russian sections of the space station and includes the communal dining area. Weird rules in the dining room, you have to eat figs and see you cross the international I appreciate it. We'll be back next week. Don't waste this. A module named Destiny. I'm sorry, it was a module covered in glitter and maybe only going to be in town for a limited time. Thank you.

Top. Also, what the hell is NASA going to do when they run out of inspiring words? Right? Are we 50 years away from the Starship warm toast? Right. Yeah, that's a real problem. That's a real problem down there. Okay. So now, when I refer to the US and Russian sections, by the way, you should picture this like an 80s sitcom cliche, where like two warring roommates draw a line down the middle of the apartment.

Okay. While it represents unprecedented cooperation between the two countries, the ISS was always a marriage of convenience, and thus it was always a marriage that included separate beds. That's actually one of the main reasons there's so much concern now over the sanctions against Russia and how they're going to affect the project. The station literally can't keep itself in orbit if there isn't somebody on the Russian side defy or those thrusters. And by the way, you can bet your ass putting a threat and to crash the whole goddamn thing in a snit over Ukraine. Okay. Well, if I know my 80 sitcoms and believe me, I do, all we need is to team up in a big

space race against the mean kids from across town. And everything will go back to normal. Putin's on China side, though. Now, the very first module to launch for the thing was the Russian module, the Zarya. It was launched in November of 1998. Basically, it was like a mini self-contained space station that provided the initial power, storage, propulsion, and guidance while all the other shit was built around it. Now, at this point, it's basically the ISS's shed, but it was like the whole thing when it started.

This is a lot more in it. Why did we have to bring this thing? Doesn't man he sends out here? Oh, this told digger what? So the second Russian module was the Zvezda, which provides the station's initial life support systems. That was launched in July of 2000. It was only after that one was attached that the first cruise could move in.

So normally when we're talking about the ISS's birthday, people will cite either the 1998 date when the first module went into orbit or the 2000 date when the first crew arrived. Right. Like how Mormons don't think you have a soul till you're nine or whatever. Yeah. Right. Now, of course, characterizing the whole thing as a US Russian venture isn't exactly accurate. Right. The European Space Agency also contributed several

modules, most notably the Columbus Laboratory, which was designed in Germany and built in Italy. And the single largest module on the station was built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency or JAXA. It's called the Kibo or the Japanese Experimental Module. And like the Columbus, it serves primarily as a laboratory, but that's not like there isn't a Japanese and European wing of the station. The Japanese and European modules are just fitted to the US side. Okay, am I the only one picturing a bunch of space scientists just bumping around a spaceship full of floating Bunsen burners and beakers and shudders? See, I was picturing what it must have been like when the Germans saw what the Italians did with their designs.

See, I was picturing what it must have been like when the Germans saw what the Italians did with their designs. Ah, Comrade Newleenie, thank you so much for giving us this tour of the newly built Space Station Module. I hear you have a name for it. Of course, we do. We're going to call it the Decalambus. Like Christopher Columbus? The genocidal ship captain most notable for the misdiscovery of new worlds.

That's it. A one. I see. Also, your letter said you'd made some special modifications to the design. Of course, no offense, but your team, they left a lot unfinished. For instance, there was no place to put the pizza oven, but don't worry. We turn the engine inside out and now we can have a nice fresh pizza pies. Okay.

Eli, are you sure the sketch isn't racist? Nope, we are still good. Italians, fair game. I am going to kill you both. Both you. Now, because of the piecemeal way that it was constructed, it's hard to say when the ISS was finished, right? Like the newest major module was added as recently as 2021, and there are still a couple of power modules that are set to launch for it. And for that reason, it's

hard to say how old it is. Oh, the spaceship of syphilis. I really hope you mean these years. I do not. So different parts are radically different ages. Fuck, I feel you space station. The back is always the oldest of all. Yeah. So, but the oldest parts of this thing are just shy of the quarter century, Mark. Okay. These parts include shit like the scaffolding that holds it all together and the node where all the major parts connect.

Right. So for all intents and purposes, it's a 20 plus year old space station. Yeah, there is no way Leo DiCaprio would do that chance. Not a chance. Oh, Leonardo DiCaprio, uh, anagram of periodic anal odor. That ties into it. There you go.

So in its present configuration, there are 39 total modules, 16 of which are pressurized, meaning that they're part of the spaceships interior space, right? And I'm sure you've all heard before that the ISS is about the size of a football field, but since that's including solar panels and shit, I don't think that gives people a very good sense of the practical size. So in terms of interior space, it's about as spacious as like a six bedroom house, right? You could play a pretty mean game of hide and seek inside that motherfucker.

You're just wandering around the ISS. I think China is sus. No, of course, as I'm sure most of the listeners know, the crew members aboard the ISS aren't wait list because they're so far from the earth, but rather because they're in orbit, right? The gravity where the ISS spends its time is actually about 90% as strong as it is here on the surface of the Earth. So like, it's enough of a difference that you'd probably notice it, but not so much that

you'd float around. The reason the astronauts float is that they're traveling at free-follow speeds inside an environment that's falling at that same speed. That speed, of course, is fast as all fuck. Okay, 17,500 miles per hour or 28,000 kilometers an hour, meaning that the ISS travels so fast that it orbits the planet every 90 minutes. Like at that speed, it would take the thing a single day to travel to the goddamn moon and back. Right? Now, if you really want to get a sense of how fast this is, you can actually watch it zip by it.

It's bright enough in the night sky to give Venus a run for its money. And there are plenty of free apps that will tell you where it is and when it's going to be zippened by your particular night sky. They're just falling the whole time. So basically every astronaut really is Buzz Lightyear, just falling with style.

Yeah, actually. Sorry, no, he's not here. So he asked me to do this or or you could see NASA running a laser pointer across the firmament to make you think you see a space station. All right. All right. So as of the latest data, I could find a total of 251 people from 20 different countries have visited the station. And that number includes no fewer than seven space tourists. And actually, I think that count is low. But from all the accounts that I've found, the tourists had a miserable time and their

grapes were sour anyway. See, since the space shuttle program was shuttered, the cruise flying back and forth, always have to go in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. And Russia is generally speaking a bit hard up for money. So whenever there was a spare seat that they didn't need for a crew member, they would sell it for $40 million. Do you remember the public? Yeah, right. But they, of course, they would like make the person go through a probably won't die up their level medical exam.

But if they passed that, they could go up. through a probably won't die up their level medical exam. But if they passed that, they could go up. Incidentally, NASA and the ESA were pissed when Russia started doing this. And even initially refused to train the first space tourists that were slated to go up. Okay. If a rich person signs up for this, they should be forced to take all their money with them. So something goes wrong. They burst and their riches fall down on us like Sonic stash a ring. That's how it should look. You know what? That would get people watching the launches again.

See, so this is a good idea. So now business to the station, very in length, obviously, but the non tourist trips typically last about six months. The record holders are cosmonaut, pewter Dub, and astronaut Mark T. Van Tye, who spent 355 days of board it together. Though, this time doesn't even crack the top three for the longest any person has stayed aboard any space station. The mirror has that record several times.

Normally, there are three to six people aboard, but it's held as many as 13 on multiple occasions. There are seven sleep stations and different modules, which are about as roomies or average telephone booth. Basically, they're human-sized soundproof compartments with low light. So astronauts have the choice of strapping themselves to a wall or just float sleeping, but by all accounts, nobody sleeps particularly well there. When they've got more than seven people aboard, they have to start using sleep compartments on the spaceships that those people arrived on to accommodate the overflow. Maybe the geniuses of unfathomable intellect to figure out space travel could figure out

sleeping quarters a little better than burning them. Maybe like a day. Spending afternoon fellows. They worked it out. Of course, one of the hardest questions to answer about the ISS is what exactly it does here. Right. So like when early visionaries like Arthur C. Clark and Verder von Braun first envisioned

space stations, they saw a staging grounds for interplanetary missions and hubs of space commerce. And even though the ISS was initially billed as a staging ground for future missions to the moon and the Mars, it's obviously never actually functioned as one. And it's certainly never been used as a hub for fucking space commerce unless you want to count the aforementioned space tourists. Yeah, but to be fair, Werner Braun also had some very specific rules about the skull shapes he wanted on those stations.

So why the hell spend $150 billion building a space station and another $3 billion a year maintaining it. Well, if you ask NASA or any of the other space agencies involved, it's for running experiments and microgravity and learning more about the risks of long-term human spaceflight. And by and large, they probably even believe themselves when they're saying that, right? But the real answer is because it's a fucking space station, right, for reals. Like I'm not saying valuable science hasn't been done and isn't currently being done aboard the ISS, but it is $150 billion worth of science being done there. I'm coming on.

That's a lot fucking harder to argue. I mean, we could have built 15 James Webb telescope size projects for that money, right? And another one every three years for the money to maintain it. The reality is that we have a space station because that's really fucking cool. And a bunch of nerds were able to sell it to various congresses and parliaments without admitting that that was the real reason. We could get so much more done if we branded it right. Hey, Congress, think of universal healthcare like all space couch for.

Yeah. Also not to play against brand here, but seeing as governments have tricked us into largely funding police and military occupations of their own countries with more than half of our taxes, I feel like they owed not killing one. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Not killing to get one. No, of course, the ISS can't last forever.

After all, as people whose idioms aren't bound by the realities of physics often say, what goes up must come down. And eventually the ISS will outlive its usefulness. I feel like you can make a pretty good argument that it already has. It was originally slated to be decommissioned in 2024. NASA says they want to keep it operational through 2030, but Russia's way less committed to that timeline. What's more, Russia also wants to transfer several of their decommissioned modules to a different space station that they plan on building.

How much of that is Putin's bluster and how much of it is a real plan is anybody's guess. But one way or the other, at the very least, most of this thing has to eventually be deorbited at some point. And that brings up the obvious question of what the fuck you do with a football field size spaceship that you don't need anymore, right? It's not like you can

fucking land the thing. Well, here in Chicago, a football field size thing nobody needs anymore is called a soldier's field. Okay. Honestly, can't we just like announce that it's in the name of getting back to normal and then they can just crash it into time square and people won't care. What do you want to live inside forever? Blah! So now the various bodies responsible for the station have considered a couple of options

for how to end the mission. And you'll be happy to hear that none of them are the Skylab style, drop it on Earth and hope it doesn't hit a people part variety. In NASA euphemisms, by the way, that's called natural orbital decay with random reentry. In normal English, it's called crashing. Now that's actually what happens to most orbital spacecraft when they outlive their usefulness, but that's because most of them are small enough that they can be pretty certain that they're going to bird up all the way on reentry.

That is not the case when you're talking about a six bedroom house with a football field to where the solar panels strap to it. NASA estimates that at least 16% of the station would survive reentry might sound like a small percentage, but we're talking about over a hundred and forty eight thousand pounds of debris here. Oh my God. Noah, please tell me the plan is to invent a new nudge based technology. Spoilers. So he's a one plan that involves deorbitating it, but periodically boosting it at the point of reentry such that it has enough time to burn all the way up. Yes. I feel like that was not your, well, yeah, exactly, but like, what if the Nudger parts burn up first, right?

That's not going to work out. Well, so another option is a controlled deorbit that aims for a specific spot in the ocean where it's unlikely to do any damage. The problem here is we've never done anything remotely like that and who the fuck knows if it would work. The Wikipedia article seems pretty confident they could do it using a modified progress spacecraft to help with a controlled deorbit. But again, who the fuck knows? Right? I'm sure there were a lot of people who are pretty sure we can safely deorbate Skylab as

well. Okay. Real quick. Noah, how is this thing not actually named the USS sort of damacles? And if you had a summer as you learn one sentence, no, it would be, if you're going to stick a million pounds of shit in the sky, you should probably figure out in advance how you're going to get a pack down. It is pre-planning. All right. You're ready for the quiz.

I am. All right. Noah, you mentioned to the most prominent plans for how to end the ISS mission, but what are some other less conventional plans? A, let Kim Jong-un nuke it and hope he calms down. B, loaded up with space hungry billionaires before we do A. Nice. Nice. Well, C, switch its funding to the education department at which point it will magically

disappear. All right. So the space debris is too bad with A and B. I'm going to have to go C. That's correct. All right. No, I think we can all agree that a perfect strangers TV show on a space station will be pretty amazing. What's another great idea for a space travel related TV show? A, the three stages B, stage three stage rocket. Okay, sack, I'm in the middle. C, the free fall guy, or D, better call soul. Oh, call soul. All right, we have to really see it written, but

it is definitely D, better call soul. Better call soul. Absolutely. All right, Noah, being an outer space for any length of time is by all accounts, full of discomfort and absurdity, which fact below best exemplifies this reality. Hey, the space condom tube things they invented for dudes to piss in only come in sizes large and extra large because astronauts are insecure about the size of their homes. B, when you shit in space, the turd doesn't fall. So you have to kind of scrape the shit off your ass into a space flow, be vacuum. See, farts in space are a real problem.

The gases are flammable and pose serious risks. Huge studies have been done by NASA scientists to feed astronauts a diet low in fart potential. D, if the thought of any of this makes you cry, the tears just sort of cling to your eye sockets mocking you. I, I, I, I, man, I'm supposed to get this wrong. So I'm going to go with C the farts are, they're, they're fine. They're fine. Yeah, they just, they really did modify their diet. In fact, the first diet that they proposed created more parts rather than left.

Well, even still you win, Noah. Oh, I did win. Okay. In the case it's E all of the above. Well, thank you for that last minute when Cecil's I'm going to reward you with an assay next week. Wonderful. Okay. All right. Well, for Eli, Tom and Noah, I'm Cecil. Thank you for hanging out with today.

We'll be back next week and by then I will be an expert on something else between now and then listen to podcasts. And if you'd like to help keep the show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod, or you could leave us a five star review every camp. Like get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citation pod dot com. Our podcast though, just not.

I guess it's fine. They'll get to one of them eventually. Yeah, that's fair probably. Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to mourn the death of one of the bravest spacefarers ever to take to the sky. A life tragically cut short too soon, here to perform the song for the dead

is his commanding officer.