ISS trivia
- Ahoy, there!
- Amateur radio
- Cleaning
- Code of Conduct
- Ikons
- Inflight movies
- Medical training
- Laundry
- Noise
- Cameras
- Ship’s Log
- Time zones
Various bits and pieces of information that I’ve collected about life on the ISS, which are too small for their own page each.
Ahoy, there!
Living on board a space station seems to be more similar to life on a ship or submarine than anything else, so nautical terms are appropriate!
- Starboard: right – прваый борт, pravyi bort
- Port: left – левый борт, levyi bort
- Stern/aft: the rear end of the ISS (Russian segment) – корма, korma
- Forward/bow – the front end (American segment) – носовой, nosovoi.
Amateur radio
Four ham radio antennae are mounted on Zvezda so there are back-ups if one fails. It also gives the crew the ability to talk on one ham radio band while receiving communications on another. From 2/2/04 On-Orbit Status:
The crew conducted voice tests with the “Sputnik-SM” ham radio station and the RSC-Energiya ground site (call sign R3K), with ground operators Yuri Ignatyevich Krylov and Boris Grigoryevich Stepanov of Radio Magazine. A further testing pass is scheduled for 2/7, but if today’s pass was successful, there is no need for the other one. [Today’s ground station was located in the editorial room of Radio Magazine, which is planning to publish a series of articles to mark the 15th anniversary of manned space flight ham radio. Pictures of the crew with their ham radio equipment will be published in the April issue of Radio Magazine to celebrate Space Exploration Day. Invited guests today included cosmonauts Moussa Manarov (U2MIR), Sergei Krikalyov (U5MIR), Yuri Usachev (RW3FU), Pavel Vinogradov (RV3BS), Mikhail Turin (RZ3FT), Valery Poliakov (U3MIR), and Valery Korzun (RZ3FK).]
And from 17/8/04 OOS:
In a TsUP/PAO event at 4:34 a.m. EDT, the crew sent down greetings for the 80th anniversary of the Russian magazine Radio, via Ku- & S-band. [Background: The 80th anniversary of the popular science journal Radio is on 8/24 (Tuesday). Throughout the entire history of Russian space exploration, beginning with the launch of Earth’s first satellite, Sputnik 1, the magazine has been connected with space. Radio became the first periodical to publish the information about the upcoming launch of the first satellite and the description of the equipment for monitoring its “beep-beep-beep”. The magazine helped the USSR Academy of Sciences to involve thousands of ham Radio enthusiasts in this effort, and their observations made a significant contribution to that stage of space exploration. In 1988, on the initiative and with direct participation of Radio editorial staff, the first amateur Radio was delivered onboard the Mir space station. Ham Radio operation eventually became part of cosmonaut and astronaut training. Later, this approach was carried over to the ISS. Radio editors regularly meet with cosmonauts and publish materials about the work of the crews onboard. Recent issues are part of the onboard library.]
Article: “Listening in to the Cosmonauts”, Christiaan M. van den Berg, ESA On Station #12, March 2003.
Cleaning
You can’t escape housework even in orbit, and Saturdays on the ISS are allocated to cleaning (this probably a novel experience to some of the married men up there ;-). Уборка, uborka focuses on removal of food waste products, cleaning of compartments with vacuum cleaner, wet cleaning of surfaces with disinfectants and cleaning of fan screens to avoid temperature rises.
Code of Conduct
After Dennis Tito’s somewhat controversial flight, a miffed NASA administrator Dan Goldin had this “Code of Conduct for the International Space Station Crew” apparently drawn up in a huff. How seriously this is taken remains to be seen… (One of my favorite sayings: “Rules were made to be broken”! :-P) The ultimate penalty for misbehaving ISS crew or visitors:
This subpart is a regulation within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. 799, and whoever wilfully violates, attempts to violate, or conspires to violate any provision of this subpart or any order or direction issued under this subpart may be cited for violating title 18 of the U.S. Code and could be fined or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both.
Oooh!
Ikons
As on Mir, a few images of what might be regarded as ikons have been posted on the walls of the Zvezda module. A close-up from an Expedition 10 photo shows photos of Konstantin Tsiolkovskii and Yurii Gagarin on the panel just above the aft hatchway leading to the docked Progress cargo ship. Just above these is a rather mournful-looking Madonna and Child painting. But to complete the “Holy Trinity” of the Russian space program, a photo of Sergei Korolyov is needed!!
Someone in Expedition 1 put up an initial ikon:
Then someone in Expedition 2 changed it for a different one (second image), which is still up.
(Wikipedia: Ikons.)
Inflight movies
In his online Ship’s Logs, Expedition 1 commander Bill Shepherd briefly mentioned some of the DVD movies he and his crewmates, Sergei Krikalyov & Yurii Gidzenko, watched during their stay. All the movies he noted are standard American Hollywood ones.
| Movie | Bill’s comments |
|---|---|
| Air Force One | |
| Apocalypse Now | “Watched disk 1 of Apocalypse Now. Shep tried to explain why Robert Duvall is always wearing the black cavalry hat, but being a Navy guy, he’s not sure he understands it either.” |
| As Good As It Gets | |
| Austin Powers 2 | |
| The Big Lebowski | |
| Blues Brothers | |
| Carlito’s Way | “…watched Carlito’s Way with Russian subtitles. You have to watch some cops and robbers to see how much Russian there is that they never taught you in class.” |
| Catch-22 | |
| City of Angels | “We ate some dinner and watched the last part of City of Angels. Shep did his best to explain to Yuri and Sergei what the phrase ‘chick flick’ means.” |
| Contact | |
| Dr. Strangelove | |
| End of Days | “We watch the end of End of Days and regret that we did not roll it on New Year’s Eve.” |
| Frequency | “…strange movie, although not as strange as Usual Suspects which we saw last night.” “Movie tonight is the last ½ of Frequency – sort of a chick-flick, but it does get better at the end.” |
| Full Metal Jacket | “We watch Full Metal Jacket. This has some of the finest ‘drill sergeant’ scenes in moviedom. Good orientation for the next OCA pass with Houston.” |
| G.I. Jane | “We eat dinner and watch GI Jane. Lots of SEAL questions, and Shep explains why this is not exactly like the real SEAL training.” |
| The Green Mile | |
| History of Navy SEALS | “Tonight’s selection: History of Navy SEALS. We think this is very appropriate, as we will probably soon have a use for the quote: ‘the only easy day was yesterday.’ ” |
| Hurricane | |
| In-Laws | |
| L.A. Confidential | “We may have to watch this one several more times.” |
| Lethal Weapon (#1-4) | |
| Lion of the Desert | |
| Pulp Fiction | |
| The Rock | |
| Saving Private Ryan | |
| Sixth Sense | “Finished disk 2 of Sixth Sense – nobody liked it. Yuri said he picked it as he thought it was the sequel to Fifth Element. We let him off easy.” |
| Tombstone | |
| 2010: The Year We Make Contact | “Something strange about watching a movie about a space expedition when you’re actually on a space expedition.” |
| Used Cars | “We are definitely down to the movies you can’t even find at Blockbuster.” |
| The World Is Not Enough (James Bond movie) |
I don’t know what Russian movies are aboard; I think one might be White Sun of the Desert.
NASA Watch.com: “What A Surprise: Astronauts Are Normal”, 30 April 2008. Links to a PDF document (1.8 MB) with a list of films and books (mostly from the USA side) on the ISS.
Medical training
Some information on the medical training cosmonauts receive for an ISS stay, from Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №719:
31/7/2008/12:30 – ISS commander and military pilot Sergei Volkov was trained for a new profession as the head physician
Sergei Volkov – ISS-17 commander and Lieutenant Colonel of the Russian Federation VVS (Air Force) – has for some time been trained for a new profession as the head physician of the Station. The more so because today in orbit is medical day. The official representative of TsUP (Moscow Mission Control Center), Valerii Lyndin, said, “Today the physicians are evaluating the physical fitness level of the of Russian cosmonauts on the treadmill, and Volkov is still developing critical skills for the medical operations.”
“Exercises are conducted with the cosmonaut on working with the onboard American medical equipment of which there is a lot onboard the Station,” explained Irina Alferova, the head of the TsUP Medical Group. According to her, NASA assigns a specialist in each expedition to be responsible for medicine and train them to use onboard equipment and to render aid to associates aboard. If there is a doctor in the composition of the crew – as there was, for example, in ISS-15, where Oleg Kotov had medical qualifications – that question is solved. But if the ISS crew only comprises pilots and engineers, then one of them is selected, who will, during the entire flight, fulfill the function of head physician and will periodically refresh his skills by training with the medical equipment.
Several times during the flight, training is conducted aboard to deal with a non-standard medical situation, which includes the additional training of crew for the use of equipment for the rendering of first aid. The NASA specialists assign to the cosmonauts a specific situation – for example, to remove a mote from the eye of an associate or to dress a wound – and they perform the function of physicians, using the multifunctional medical equipment existing onboard the ISS. “Through the Russian program we do not carry out such training, since we consider that our cosmonauts without this are wonderfully prepared and can render each other practical assistance,” emphasized Alferova.
“Before the flight, all Russian cosmonauts during the year pass a special course on medicine and obtain knowledge and habits, which correspond to a unfinished higher medical education.” Onboard the ISS there is all that is necessary for the rendering of first aid. Cosmonauts can give each other an electrocardiogram, take a blood analysis, or perform intravenous infusion. On the sudden stopping of heart of one of the crew members, their partner can use a defibrilator, which is located on the Station in a special medical case. There is on the ISS dentistry equipment, which includes the necessary tool for the treatment and the removal of teeth. “Truthfully, in the entire time of the operation of the Station, the dental tools have so far been not required, since before the flight the cosmonauts treat their teeth with a special composition of fluorine.”
Laundry
Ken Bowersox demonstrated in one of the Expedition 6 videos how to wash favorite items of clothing: the clothes are first put into a plastic bag, into which is squirted water and soap. After several minutes of squeezing and prodding, the clothes are taken out and rinsed with more water in a separate bag. Russian wet/dry towels are used to squeeze as much water out as possible, then the clothes are secured behind bungee cords in Zarya to dry, which they do after around three hours. All evaporated water is reclaimed by the SRV-K2M condensate water processor that separates it into gas and liquid, then purifies and recycles the evaporate as potable water.
Noise
Noise levels in the Russian segment have long been a concern. (The Mir Space Station also had noise issues.) In many of the in-flight photos you’ll notice that the crew are wearing earplugs. James Oberg describes the problem of noisy ISS modules in his article “Orbital Shouting”:
“Our primary concern is the Russian service module,” says Michael E. Engle, the acoustics integration manager for the ISS. Under severe financial constraints, the Russians did not give a high priority to the sound issue. (The Mir space station was also known to be noisy.) In the service module, Engle remarks, “the continuous noise levels there are in the 70- to 72-decibel [dB] range” – akin to standing next to a freeway. By comparison, U.S. Navy standards limit continuous exposure to shipboard noise above 60 dB. Astronauts have been limited to working less than two hours at a time in the Russian module. Noise tapers off from the service module through the Russian FGB module to the U.S. lab module at the other end, where levels have been measured between 55 and 62 dB. The U.S. end may be “the only relatively quiet work place,” an internal NASA report noted. But noise levels are creeping up there, too: in April the arrival of one device “about doubled the acoustic energy,” the repo rt stated.
Engle says that crew members’ hearing loss was the top concern: “They are not in any danger of permanent hearing loss” – just [!] a temporary reduction. Of four U.S. astronauts who have served on long-term missions, according to Engle, one lost some hearing but recovered. Another issue is diminished communications: on the second long-term mission to the ISS, crew members “recalled saying ‘What?’ a lot to each other,” Engle recounts. One American complained that the hazard alarms didn’t seem loud enough against the background noise.
The worst offenders are the thermal system pumps, air conditioner compressor and Vozdukh valves (perhaps the latter device should have been named the “Banshee”!).
From Star-Crossed Orbits (2002) by James Oberg:
[Expedition 1] made no secret of their concerns over the noise levels, and in their in-house postflight debriefings in March 2001 (which NASA kept secret), they got very specific in their criticisms.
When asked to rate the importance of decreasing the noise level in the SM on a scale of 1 to 10, station commander Bill Shepherd gave it a 6, adding that it was “just a tad worse than ‘what we have is livable.’ ” He went on: “We need a strategy to fix the noise levels. We need to target the big noisemakers specifically. These were the thermal system pumps, the air conditioner compressor, and the Vozdukh valves.” The noise, according to Shepherd, “interfered with communications,” although the crew could still hear the alarm tones. “Unpleasant” was how Shepherd rated the noise, but he said it was “fixable”.
“Vozdukh affected our sleep,” Expedition 1 cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov told a postflight debriefing meeting. “The worst thing about it is that it is not continuous. Every ten minutes there is a loud noise. In the Mir it was located in a different module. I always said having it in the SM compartment was not a good idea.” But that’s where the designers, who apparently weren’t interested in the experience of actual crew members, put it anyway.
Yurii Usachyov, Jim Voss and Susan Helms made up the crew for the second expedition, which took over in March 2001. On the issue of noise, they agreed with their predecessors. In a progress report sent back to Houston, but not released to the public, they noted that “noise is still a problem, with the SM being the noisiest area (68 to 70 db)… If sound-suppression materials were made available, crews could continue to reduce sound levels by insulating noise-makers.”
Such materials were late installed in some areas, which reduced the noise a little.
Acoustic sound level tests are conducted once a month, as noted in the 27 May 2004 On-Orbit Report:
Earlier in the morning, FE/SO Fincke had set up the joint US/Russian sound level meter (SLM) in the cabin for subsequent acoustic survey ops for ~ 1.5 hrs. Later in the day, its recorded data were transferred to the medical equipment computer (MEC). (These acoustic measurements are obtained once per month at 41 locations in the Lab, Node, Airlock, FGB, SM and DC-1 modules. The SLM gives instantaneous noise levels and their frequency spectra, which are transferred to the MEC laptop via an RS232 cable and later downlinked with regular CHeCS [crew health care systems] data dump or via OCA.)
And from the 21 August 2004 OOR:
A new Russian evaluation of acoustic measurements made by the crew in the last few weeks points out the need for lowering the noise level in the RS and recommends that crewmembers should continue using protective devices when working in places where noisy equipment is located as well as during sleep periods (especially when doors to sleep compartments [kayutas] are left open).
Still having problems in 2006: “High Noise Levels On ISS Harmful For Astronauts Say Doctors”, SpaceDaily.com.
On-board cameras
These include an F-5 35 mm Nikon with 150-100 ISO film, 36 exposure roll, for interior shots, photos of Earth from Station windows, and spacewalks. A Kodak 460 DCS (Digital Camera System), with 520 mb storage/80 shots, is used for interior photos and photos of Earth. A Hasselblad 203 70 mm with 95 exposures is used for Earth observations (also on the Space Shuttle). Videos are shot with a Sony PD-100 DVCAM; there is also a Canon XL-1 camcorder.
Ship’s Log
Photo STS110-358-005 from the STS-110 mission shows someone displaying a couple of pages from the onboard Ship’s Log. This is the only photo I have seen of its contents, so I am not sure if it is a proper Ship’s Log (with daily entries about various events, mechanical problems, etc. – similar to the Ship’s log of an old sailing ship) or more of a Visitors’ Book, where each crew writes some waffle on a page or two. This is obviously a NASA initiative, and will probably end up in some museum somewhere. Here’s what the page displayed says:
16 APR. 2002: The STS-110/8A crew docked with Alpha on 10 April 2002. In our payload bay we carried the S0 Truss segment, the beginning of Phase 3 for ISS. Over the next 7 days, we would team up with Expedition 4 and perform 4 spacewalks to install and power-up S0. These spacewalks required extensive, complex SSRMS and SRMS [ISS & Shuttle robotic arms] operations and close co-ordination with the ground control team. We successfully drove the Mobile Transporter from one site to the next paving the way for future flights to add additional Truss segments to Alpha.
The highlights of our stay was the laughter, friendship, and warm hospitality that we received from our hosts, the Expedition 4 crew. Dan, Carl and Yury welcomed us with open arms and made us feel at home the entire week. They are true heros [sic] and we feel privileged to have had the opportunity to work alongside them and spend time with them.
As we depart for Earth, we will keep them and this incredible setup and laboratory in our prayers. We eagerly await their return to Earth! [Signed by the STS-110 crew]
Time zones
A table of the time zones relevant to the ISS (where the various Mission Control Centers are located).
| Location | Standard Time | Daylight Savings Time |
|---|---|---|
| Houston, Mission Control Center, Texas, USA |
|
|
| NASA Headquarters, Washington D.C., USA |
|
|
| Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA |
|
|
| International Space Station |
|
Not applicable |
| TsUP, ЦУП, Moscow Mission Control, Russia |
|
|
| Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan (launch site for Soyuz and Progress ships) |
|
Not applicable (Kazakhstan does not follow Daylight Savings – very sensible!) |
| Arkalyk, Kazakhstan (the town of Arkalyk, in north-central Kazakhstan, is in the designated Soyuz landing zone) |
|
Not applicable |