20 November: The International Space Station

On this date in 1998 the first component of the International Space Station was launched. The component in question was Zarya, meaning Dawn, which was launched by Russia from Kazakhstan. The Americans launched their component, Unity, two weeks later. Here are 10 things you might not know about the International Space Station (ISS).

1. Sixteen nations helped to build it: The USA, the UK, Russia, Canada, Japan,  Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. It took 136 space flights on seven different types of space craft to get it built. It's the most expensive object ever built at an estimated cost of over $120 billion.
2. Since November 2000, the ISS has been continuously occupied. The crew is six people. 230 people have spent time on it (this is NASA's figure at time of writing, so possibly more) from 18 different countries.
3. How big is it? The living quarters are slightly bigger than a six bedroom house. There are sleeping quarters for each of the six crew, two bathrooms and a gym (which is necessary because astronauts need to work out for two hours a day to mitigate muscle loss from living in weightless conditions). There's also working space. The total length is 357 feet, only 3 feet shorter than an American football field. The solar panels which power the station are 240 feet long, about the same length as an Airbus A380. In terms of area - an acre. It's the largest manned object humans have ever put in space - 4 times bigger than Russia's Mir Space Station and 5 times bigger than Skylab.
4. Oxygen for the station comes from a process called electrolysis, which involves using electrical current to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The power for this comes from the solar panels, of course. Food and other supplies are regularly delivered by cargo spacecraft such as the Progress M-21M. The water on the ISS isn't for the squeamish. The urine of both crew members and lab animals is recycled into the water supply.
5. The person who has spent the most time on the ISS is Peggy Whitson at 665 days. This was over three different missions. In 2017 she returned from a 288 day stint during which she performed four spacewalks.
6. The ISS travels at five miles a second, which means it orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes. That's 16 orbits per day.
7. Up to six spacecraft can connect to the station at any one time and it takes as little as six hours to get there from Earth.
8. It's possible to see the ISS from Earth on a clear night. In fact, it's the third brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus. It appears like a fast moving plane, and is shown on the Night Sky app for mobile phones. There's also a service run by NASA called Spot the Station which will send you a text telling you when the ISS is due to pass over your location.
9. There are 52 computers on board and eight miles of wiring.
10. All good things come to an end, and the ISS is no exception. The plan is to de-orbit it in 2024. The Russians are planning to re-use their components in a new space station.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

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