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Hi, I'm Jacob Keaton
this is #AskNASA.

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I'm here to answer your
questions about the

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International
Space Station.

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[Music]

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What is the International
Space Station?

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This is the International
Space Station.

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This is an orbiting
outpost that is humanities

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first permanent
home away from home.

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It was built over the
course of a decade by

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fifteen different
countries and five space

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agencies.

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Onboard the crew lives in
these cylindrical sections

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together they are about
the size of a five-bedroom

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house that houses
six people.

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This right here is the
Canadaarm which is a

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robotic arm that lives
outside its about fifty

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feet long, maybe
a little more.

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And it's capable of moving
all of these pieces of

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space station around like
a construction site.

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This is the Japanese laboratory
complex, right here.

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We've got a little astronaut
right there for scale.

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Each one of these boxes
is an external experiment

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that is exposed to
the vacuum of space.

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Over here we have
the European lab.

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None of these components
ever met on the ground.

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The first time they ever
touched each other was in

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space and they all worked
perfectly because our

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engineers and teams have
worked together so closely

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before we launched them.

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Moving back here is the
United States lab, thats

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where everything
meets and joins up.

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This is the airlock
right here, thats where

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astronauts do
spacewalks from.

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They put on their spacesuits
and they can go outside.

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These are the solar
arrays, there are eight of

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them and this is what
powers the space station.

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Its an entirely solar
powered vehicle.

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And thats the
International Space

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Station, our orbiting
home in space.

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Can I see the space
station from Earth?

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Yes you can.

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The space station's
actually the third

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brightest object in the
sky after the Sun and Moon.

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It orbits the Earth once
every ninety minutes, but

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it needs the Suns light to
shine on these arrays so

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that we can see it.

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If you have a pair of
binoculars you can

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actually make out pieces
of the space station from

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the ground, but you
dont need a telescope.

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A telescope zooms in too
much and it moves far too fast.

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NASA has a website called
SpotTheStation which tells

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you when to go look.

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You can walk outside and
it looks just like an

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airplane moving through
the sky except it doesn't

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flash and its
very, very bright.

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The space station weighs
about nine hundred

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thousand pounds and took
more that forty rocket

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launches to get
it into space.

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The space station runs
on Greenwich Mean Time

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because the space station
partnership spreads around

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the entire world so we had
to pick one time zone that

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everybody could
reference off of.

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The space station
does have Wi-Fi.

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A lot of the external
payloads communicate with

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the inside of the space
station via Wi-Fi.

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The space stations about
the size of a football

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field including the
endzones from end-to-end

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and from front-to-back
is about the size of a

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football field
to the sidelines.

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How fast does the
space station move?

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Space station travels
about seventeen thousand

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five hundred miles an
hour, which is whats

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called orbital velocity
for low Earth orbit.

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This means it circles the
Earth once every ninety

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minutes.

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That means the crew gets
to see sixteen sunrises

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and sixteen
sunsets every day.

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What do the astronauts on
space station work on?

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The crew on the space
station is there to do

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research into all kinds
of scientific disciplines

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from Earth science
to space science to

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microgravity research to
biology to just what it's

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like to live and
work in space.

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When the crew isn't
maintaining the space

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station, they are
exploring the effects of

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microgravity on their own
bodies as well as on the

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systems we will need to go
further into the universe.

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[Music]

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NASA's working with its
partners in commercial

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industry to transfer the
lessons of the space

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station on to them so they
can learn operate in low

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Earth orbit potentially
building more platforms

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there to conduct all
sorts of new and exciting

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research.

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NASA will be moving on to
build an outpost around

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the Moon called the
Gateway which is going to

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enable lunar exploration.

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[Music]

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How will the space station
help us go farther into space?

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The space station, as our
first permanent home in

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space has taught us what
we really need to live and

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work and be productive in
the space environment.

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The space station is about
three hours from home if

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we ever need to get home.

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As we go to the Moon under
the Artemis program the

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crews will be about
three days from home.

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After we learn how to work
and live on the Moon we

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are going to
go on to Mars.

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Mars can be anywhere from
six to nine months from home.

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The space station will
continue to be our base

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camp in low Earth orbit
as we continue under the

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Artemis program to the
Moon and on to Mars.

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Coolest thing about the
space station in my mind

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is the fact that fifteen
countries worked together

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to build this and more
than a hundred other

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countries have been
invited onboard to conduct

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all sorts of experiments.

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Its truly a global
enterprise and it shows

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how when we put our minds
to it we can really

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achieve something amazing.

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[Music]

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Do you have a
question for NASA?