Cosmonautics Day is coming on April 12th. And of course, it would be wrong to ignore this holiday. Moreover, this year the date will be special, 50 years since the first human flight into space. It was on April 12, 1961 that Yuri Gagarin accomplished his historical feat.

Well, man cannot survive in space without grandiose superstructures. This is exactly what the International space station(English: International Space Station).

The dimensions of the ISS are small; length - 51 meters, width including trusses - 109 meters, height - 20 meters, weight - 417.3 tons. But I think everyone understands that the uniqueness of this superstructure is not in its size, but in the technologies used to operate the station in outer space. The ISS orbital altitude is 337-351 km above the earth. The orbital speed is 27,700 km/h. This allows the station to complete a full revolution around our planet in 92 minutes. That is, every day, astronauts on the ISS experience 16 sunrises and sunsets, 16 times night follows day. Currently, the ISS crew consists of 6 people, and in general, during its entire operation, the station received 297 visitors (196 different people). The start of operation of the International Space Station is considered to be November 20, 1998. And on at the moment(04/09/2011) the station has been in orbit for 4523 days. During this time it has evolved quite a lot. I suggest you verify this by looking at the photo.

ISS, 1999.

ISS, 2000.

ISS, 2002.

ISS, 2005.

ISS, 2006.

ISS, 2009.

ISS, March 2011.

Below is a diagram of the station, from which you can find out the names of the modules and also see the docking locations of the ISS with other spacecraft.

The ISS is an international project. 23 countries participate in it: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Great Britain, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Canada, Luxembourg (!!!), the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, USA, Finland, France, Czech Republic , Switzerland, Sweden, Japan. After all, no state alone can financially manage the construction and maintenance of the functionality of the International Space Station. It is not possible to calculate exact or even approximate costs for the construction and operation of the ISS. The official figure has already exceeded 100 billion US dollars, and if we add all the side costs, we get about 150 billion US dollars. The International Space Station is already doing this. the most expensive project throughout the history of mankind. And based on the latest agreements between Russia, the USA and Japan (Europe, Brazil and Canada are still in thought) that the life of the ISS has been extended at least until 2020 (and a further extension is possible), the total costs of maintaining the station will increase even more.

But I suggest we take a break from the numbers. After all, in addition to scientific value The ISS has other advantages. Namely, the opportunity to appreciate the pristine beauty of our planet from the height of orbit. And it is not at all necessary to go into outer space for this.

Because the station has its own observation deck, a glazed module “Dome”.

At what speed does a rocket fly into space?

1. abstract science - creates illusions in the viewer
2. If in low-Earth orbit, then 8 km per second.
   If outside, then 11 km per second. Something like this.
3. 33000 km/h
4. Accurate - at a speed of 7.9 km/seconds, when leaving, it (the rocket) will rotate around the earth, if at a speed of 11 km/seconds, then this is already a parabola, i.e. it will eat a little further, there is a possibility that it may not return
5. 3-5km/s, take into account the speed of rotation of the earth around the sun
6. The spacecraft speed record (240 thousand km/h) was set by the American-German solar probe Helios-B, launched on January 15, 1976.

   The highest speed at which man has ever traveled (39,897 km/h) was achieved by the main module of Apollo 10 at an altitude of 121.9 km from the surface of the Earth when the expedition returned on May 26, 1969. On board the spacecraft were the crew commander, US Air Force Colonel (now Brigadier General) Thomas Patten Stafford (b. Weatherford, Oklahoma, USA, September 17, 1930), Captain 3rd Class, US Navy Eugene Andrew Cernan (b. Chicago, Illinois, USA, March 14, 1934 g.) and captain 3rd rank of the US Navy (now captain 1st rank retired) John Watte Young (b. in San Francisco, California, USA, September 24, 1930).

   Of the women, the highest speed (28,115 km/h) was achieved by junior lieutenant of the USSR Air Force (now lieutenant colonel engineer, pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR) Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (born March 6, 1937) on the Soviet spaceship Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963.

7. 8 km/sec to overcome the Earth's gravity
8. in a black hole you can accelerate to sublight speed
9. Nonsense, thoughtlessly learned from school.
   8 or more precisely 7.9 km/s is the first cosmic speed - speed horizontal movement body directly above the surface of the Earth, in which the body does not fall, but remains a satellite of the Earth with a circular orbit at this very height, i.e. above the surface of the Earth (and this does not take into account air resistance). Thus, PKS is an abstract quantity that connects the parameters of a cosmic body: radius and acceleration free fall on the surface of the body, and has no practical significance. At an altitude of 1000 km, the speed of circular orbital motion will be different.

   The rocket increases speed gradually. For example, the Soyuz launch vehicle has a speed of 1.8 km/s 117.6 s after launch at an altitude of 47.0 km, and 3.9 km/s at 286.4 s after the flight at an altitude of 171.4 km. After about 8.8 min. after launch at an altitude of 198.8 km, the spacecraft speed is 7.8 km/s.
   And the launch of the orbital vehicle into low-Earth orbit from the upper point of flight of the launch vehicle is carried out by active maneuvering of the spacecraft itself. And its speed depends on the orbital parameters.

10. This is all nonsense. It is not the speed that plays an important role, but the thrust force of the rocket. At an altitude of 35 km, full acceleration begins to PKS (first cosmic speed) up to 450 km altitude, gradually giving a course to the direction of the Earth's rotation. In this way, the altitude and traction force are maintained while overcoming the dense atmosphere. In a nutshell - there is no need to accelerate horizontal and vertical speeds at the same time; a significant deviation in the horizontal direction occurs at 70% of the desired height.
11. on what
    a spaceship flies at altitude.

Illustration copyright Thinkstock

The current speed record in space has stood for 46 years. The correspondent wondered when he would be beaten.

We humans are obsessed with speed. So, only in the last few months it became known that students in Germany set a speed record for an electric car, and the US Air Force plans to improve hypersonic aircraft so that they reach speeds five times the speed of sound, i.e. over 6100 km/h.

Such planes will not have a crew, but not because people cannot move at such high speeds. In fact, people have already moved at speeds that are several times faster than the speed of sound.

However, is there a limit beyond which our rapidly rushing bodies will no longer be able to withstand the overload?

The current speed record is shared equally by three astronauts who participated in the Apollo 10 space mission - Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan.

In 1969, when astronauts circled the Moon and returned back, the capsule they were in reached a speed that on Earth would be 39.897 km/h.

“I think that a hundred years ago we could hardly imagine that a person could move in space at a speed of almost 40 thousand kilometers per hour,” says Jim Bray of the aerospace concern Lockheed Martin.

Bray is the director of the habitable module project for the Orion spacecraft, which is being developed by the US Space Agency NASA.

According to the developers, the Orion spacecraft - multi-purpose and partially reusable - should launch astronauts into low Earth orbit. It is very possible that with its help it will be possible to break the speed record set for a person 46 years ago.

The new super-heavy rocket, part of the Space Launch System, is scheduled to make its first manned flight in 2021. This will be a flyby of an asteroid located in lunar orbit.

The average person can withstand about five Gs of force before passing out.

Then months-long expeditions to Mars should follow. Now, according to the designers, the usual maximum speed of Orion should be approximately 32 thousand km/h. However, the speed achieved by Apollo 10 can be surpassed even if the basic configuration of the Orion spacecraft is maintained.

"Orion is designed to fly to a variety of targets throughout its lifespan," says Bray. "It could be much faster than what we're currently planning."

But even Orion will not represent the peak of human speed potential. “There is essentially no limit to the speed at which we can travel other than the speed of light,” says Bray.

The speed of light is one billion km/hour. Is there any hope that we will be able to bridge the gap between 40 thousand km/h and these values?

Surprisingly, speed as a vector quantity indicating the speed of movement and direction of movement is not a problem for people in physical sense, while it is relatively constant and directed in one direction.

Consequently, people - theoretically - can move in space only slightly slower than the "speed limit of the universe", i.e. speed of light.

Illustration copyright NASA Image caption How will a person feel in a ship flying at near-light speed?

But even if we overcome the significant technological hurdles associated with high-speed spacecraft, our fragile, mostly water bodies will face new dangers associated with the effects of high speed.

Only imaginary dangers may arise if people are able to move faster than the speed of light thanks to the use of loopholes in modern physics or through discoveries that break the mold.

How to withstand overload

However, if we intend to travel at speeds in excess of 40 thousand km/h, we will have to reach it and then slow down, slowly and with patience.

Rapid acceleration and equally rapid deceleration pose a mortal danger to the human body. This is evidenced by the severity of injuries resulting from car accidents, in which the speed drops from several tens of kilometers per hour to zero.

What is the reason for this? In that property of the Universe, which is called inertia or the ability of a physical body with mass to resist changes in its state of rest or motion in the absence or compensation of external influences.

This idea is formulated in Newton's first law, which states: "Every body continues to be maintained in its state of rest or uniform and rectilinear motion until and unless it is compelled by applied forces to change that state."

We humans are able to endure enormous overloads without serious injury, although only for a few moments.

“Staying at rest and moving at a constant speed is normal for the human body,” explains Bray. “We should rather be concerned about the state of a person at the moment of acceleration.”

About a century ago, the development of rugged aircraft that could maneuver at speed led pilots to report strange symptoms caused by changes in speed and direction of flight. These symptoms included temporary loss of vision and a feeling of either heaviness or weightlessness.

The reason is g-forces, measured in units of G, which is the ratio of linear acceleration to the acceleration of gravity on the surface of the Earth under the influence of attraction or gravity. These units reflect the effect of gravity acceleration on the mass of, for example, a human body.

An overload of 1 G is equal to the weight of a body that is in the gravitational field of the Earth and is attracted to the center of the planet at a speed of 9.8 m/sec (at sea level).

G-forces experienced vertically from head to toe or vice versa are truly bad news for pilots and passengers.

At negative overloads, i.e. slowing down, blood rushes from the toes to the head, a feeling of oversaturation arises, as when doing a handstand.

Illustration copyright SPL Image caption In order to understand how many Gs astronauts can withstand, they are trained in a centrifuge

"Red veil" (the feeling a person experiences when blood rushes to the head) occurs when the blood-swollen, translucent lower eyelids rise and cover the pupils of the eyes.

And, conversely, during acceleration or positive g-forces, blood flows from the head to the feet, the eyes and brain begin to lack oxygen as blood accumulates in the lower extremities.

At first, vision becomes foggy, i.e. loss of color vision occurs and what is called a “gray veil” rolls over, then complete loss of vision or “black veil” occurs, but the person remains conscious.

Excessive overload leads to complete loss of consciousness. This condition is called overload syncope. Many pilots died because a “black veil” fell over their eyes and they crashed.

The average person can withstand about five Gs of force before losing consciousness.

Pilots, wearing special anti-g suits and trained to tense and relax their torso muscles in a special way to keep the blood flowing from the head, are able to control the plane at about nine Gs.

Upon reaching a stable cruising speed of 26,000 km/h in orbit, astronauts experience speed no more than passengers on commercial flights

“For short periods of time, the human body can withstand much greater g-forces than nine Gs,” says Jeff Swiatek, executive director of the Aerospace Medical Association, based in Alexandria, Va. “But the ability to withstand high g-forces over long periods of time is very few".

We humans are able to endure enormous overloads without serious injury, although only for a few moments.

The short-term endurance record was set by US Air Force Captain Eli Beeding Jr. at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. In 1958, when braking on a special sled with a rocket engine, after accelerating to 55 km/h in 0.1 second, he experienced an overload of 82.3 G.

This result was recorded by an accelerometer attached to his chest. Beeding also suffered a "black cloud" over his eyes, but escaped with only bruises during this remarkable display of human endurance. True, after the race he spent three days in the hospital.

And now into space

Astronauts, depending on the means of transportation, also experienced fairly high overloads - from three to five G - during takeoffs and when returning to the dense layers of the atmosphere, respectively.

These overloads are tolerated relatively easily, thanks to the clever idea of ​​​​fastening space travelers to seats in a lying position facing the direction of flight.

Once they reach a stable cruising speed of 26,000 km/h in orbit, astronauts feel no more speed than passengers on commercial flights.

If overloads do not pose a problem for long expeditions on the Orion spacecraft, then with small space rocks - micrometeorites - everything is more complicated.

Illustration copyright NASA Image caption To protect against micrometeorites, Orion will need some kind of space armor

These particles, the size of a grain of rice, can reach impressive yet destructive speeds of up to 300 thousand km/h. To ensure the integrity of the ship and the safety of its crew, Orion is equipped with an external protective layer, the thickness of which varies from 18 to 30 cm.

In addition, additional shielding shields are provided, and ingenious placement of equipment inside the ship is also used.

“In order not to lose flight systems that are vital to the entire spacecraft, we must accurately calculate the angles of approach of micrometeorites,” says Jim Bray.

Rest assured: micrometeorites are not the only obstacle to space missions, during which high speeds of human flight in vacuum will play an increasingly important role.

During the expedition to Mars, other practical problems will have to be solved, for example, supplying the crew with food and counteracting increased danger cancer diseases due to the effects of cosmic radiation on the human body.

Reducing travel time will reduce the severity of such problems, so speed of travel will become increasingly desirable.

Next generation spaceflight

This need for speed will throw new obstacles in the way of space travelers.

NASA's new spacecraft, which threaten to break Apollo 10's speed record, will still rely on time-tested chemical rocket propulsion systems used since the first space flights. But these systems have severe speed limitations due to the release of small amounts of energy per unit of fuel.

The most preferred, although elusive, source of energy for a fast spacecraft is antimatter, the counterpart and antipode of ordinary matter

Therefore, in order to significantly increase the speed of flight for people going to Mars and beyond, scientists recognize that completely new approaches are needed.

“The systems we have today are quite capable of getting us there,” says Bray, “but we would all like to witness a revolution in engines.”

Eric Davis, a senior research physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Austin, Texas, and a six-year participant in NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program research project, completed in 2002, identified the three most promising means, from the point of view of traditional physics, that can help humanity achieve speeds reasonably sufficient for interplanetary travel.

In short, we are talking about the phenomena of energy release during the splitting of matter, thermonuclear fusion and annihilation of antimatter.

The first method involves fission of atoms and is used in commercial nuclear reactors.

The second, thermonuclear fusion, involves creating heavier atoms from simpler atoms—the kind of reaction that powers the Sun. This is a technology that fascinates, but is difficult to grasp; it's "always 50 years away" - and that's how it always will be, as the industry's old motto goes.

"These are very advanced technologies," says Davis, "but they are based on traditional physics and have been firmly established since the dawn of the Atomic Age." According to optimistic estimates, propulsion systems based on the concepts of atomic fission and thermonuclear fusion, in theory, are capable of accelerating a ship to 10% of the speed of light, i.e. up to a very respectable 100 million km/h.

Illustration copyright US Air Force Image caption Flying at supersonic speed is no longer a problem for humans. Another thing is the speed of light, or at least close to it...

The most preferred, although difficult to achieve, source of energy for a fast spacecraft is antimatter, the counterpart and antipode of ordinary matter.

When two types of matter come into contact, they destroy each other, resulting in the release of pure energy.

Technologies that make it possible to produce and store – so far extremely insignificant – amounts of antimatter exist today.

At the same time, the production of antimatter in useful quantities will require new special capabilities of the next generation, and engineering will have to enter a competitive race to create an appropriate spacecraft.

But, as Davis says, a lot great ideas is already being worked out on the drawing boards.

Spacecraft powered by antimatter energy would be able to accelerate for months or even years and reach greater percentages of the speed of light.

At the same time, overloads on board will remain acceptable for the ship's inhabitants.

At the same time, such fantastic new speeds will be fraught with other dangers for the human body.

Energy city

At speeds of several hundred million kilometers per hour, any speck of dust in space, from dispersed hydrogen atoms to micrometeorites, inevitably becomes a high-energy bullet capable of piercing the hull of a ship.

"When you move at very high speeds, that means that the particles coming towards you are moving at the same speeds," says Arthur Edelstein.

Together with his late father, William Edelstein, a professor of radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, he worked on scientific work, which looked at the effects of exposure (to people and technology) to cosmic hydrogen atoms during ultrafast space travel in space.

The hydrogen will begin to decompose into subatomic particles, which will penetrate into the ship and expose both crew and equipment to radiation.

The Alcubierre engine will propel you like a surfer riding a wave Eric Davis, Research Physicist

At 95% of the speed of light, exposure to such radiation would mean almost instant death.

The spaceship will heat up to melting temperatures that no imaginable material can resist, and the water contained in the crew members' bodies will immediately boil.

“These are all extremely vexing problems,” Edelstein observes with grim humor.

He and his father roughly calculated that to create a hypothetical magnetic shielding system that could protect the ship and its occupants from deadly hydrogen rain, the starship could travel at a speed not exceeding half the speed of light. Then the people on board have a chance to survive.

Mark Millis, a translational propulsion physicist and former director of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program, warns that this potential speed limit for spaceflight remains a problem for the distant future.

“Based on the physical knowledge accumulated to date, we can say that it will be extremely difficult to reach speeds above 10% of the speed of light,” says Millis. “We are not in danger yet. A simple analogy: why worry that we might drown if We haven't even gotten into the water yet."

Faster than light?

If we assume that we have, so to speak, learned to swim, will we then be able to master gliding through cosmic time - to develop this analogy further - and fly at superluminal speeds?

The hypothesis of an innate ability to survive in a superluminal environment, although dubious, is not without certain glimpses of educated enlightenment in the pitch darkness.

One such intriguing means of travel is based on technologies similar to those used in the "warp drive" or "warp drive" from the Star Trek series.

The principle of operation of this power plant, also known as the “Alcubierre engine” * (named after the Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre), is that it allows the ship to compress normal space-time in front of it, as described by Albert Einstein, and expand it behind myself.

Illustration copyright NASA Image caption The current speed record is held by three Apollo 10 astronauts - Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan.

Essentially, the ship moves in a certain volume of space-time, a kind of “curvature bubble” that moves faster than the speed of light.

Thus, the ship remains motionless in normal space-time in this "bubble", without being subject to deformation and avoiding violations of the universal speed of light limit.

“Instead of floating through the water of normal spacetime,” says Davis, “the Alcubierre drive will carry you like a surfer riding a surfboard along the crest of a wave.”

There is also a certain catch here. To implement this idea, an exotic form of matter is needed that has negative mass to compress and expand space-time.

“Physics doesn’t say anything against negative mass,” says Davis, “but there are no examples of it, and we’ve never seen it in nature.”

There is another catch. In a paper published in 2012, researchers from the University of Sydney suggested that the "warp bubble" would accumulate high-energy cosmic particles as it inevitably began to interact with the contents of the Universe.

Some particles will penetrate inside the bubble itself and pump the ship with radiation.

Trapped at sub-light speeds?

Are we really doomed to be stuck at sub-light speeds due to our delicate biology?!

This is not so much about setting a new world (galactic?) speed record for humans, but about the prospect of transforming humanity into an interstellar society.

At half the speed of light - and this is the limit that, according to Edelstein's research, our body can withstand - a round trip to the nearest star would take more than 16 years.

(Time dilation effects, which would cause the crew of a starship to experience less time in their coordinate system than for the people remaining on Earth in their coordinate system, would not have dramatic consequences at half the speed of light.)

Mark Millis is hopeful. Considering that humanity has invented G-suits and micrometeor protection that allow humans to travel safely in the great blue distance and star-studded black of space, he is confident that we can find ways to survive whatever speed limits we reach in the future.

“The same technologies that can help us achieve incredible new travel speeds,” Millis reflects, “will provide us with new, as yet unknown capabilities for protecting crews.”

Translator's Notes:

*Miguel Alcubierre came up with the idea for his bubble in 1994. And in 1995, Russian theoretical physicist Sergei Krasnikov proposed the concept of a device for space travel faster than the speed of light. The idea was called the “Krasnikov pipe”.

This is an artificial curvature of space-time according to the principle of a so-called wormhole. Hypothetically, the ship would move in a straight line from Earth to a given star through curved space-time, passing through other dimensions.

According to Krasnikov's theory, the space traveler will return back at the same time when he set off.

Was launched in outer space in 1998. At the moment, for almost seven thousand days, day and night, the best minds of humanity have been working on a solution the most difficult mysteries in conditions of weightlessness.

Outer space

Every person who has seen this unique object at least once has asked a logical question: what is the altitude of the orbit of the international space station? But it’s impossible to answer it in monosyllables. The orbital altitude of the International Space Station ISS depends on many factors. Let's take a closer look at them.

The ISS's orbit around the Earth is decreasing due to the effects of a thin atmosphere. The speed decreases, and the altitude decreases accordingly. How to rush upward again? The altitude of the orbit can be changed using the engines of ships that dock to it.

Various heights

Over the entire duration of the space mission, several key values ​​were recorded. Back in February 2011, the ISS orbital altitude was 353 km. All calculations are made in relation to sea level. The altitude of the ISS orbit in June of the same year increased to three hundred and seventy-five kilometers. But this was far from the limit. Just two weeks later, NASA employees were happy to answer journalists’ question “What is the current altitude of the ISS orbit?” - three hundred eighty-five kilometers!

And this is not the limit

The altitude of the ISS orbit was still insufficient to resist natural friction. The engineers took a responsible and very risky step. The ISS orbital altitude was to be increased to four hundred kilometers. But this event happened a little later. The problem was that only ships lifted the ISS. Orbital altitude was limited for the shuttles. Only over time was the restriction lifted for the crew and the ISS. The orbital altitude since 2014 has exceeded 400 kilometers above sea level. The maximum average value was recorded in July and amounted to 417 km. In general, altitude adjustments are made constantly to fix the most optimal route.

History of creation

Back in 1984, the US government hatched plans to launch a large-scale scientific project in nearby space. It was quite difficult even for the Americans to carry out such a grandiose construction alone, and Canada and Japan were involved in the development.

In 1992, Russia was included in the campaign. In the early nineties, a large-scale project “Mir-2” was planned in Moscow. But economic problems prevented the grandiose plans from being realized. Gradually, the number of participating countries increased to fourteen.

Bureaucratic delays took more than three years. Only in 1995 was the design of the station adopted, and a year later - the configuration.

The twentieth of November 1998 was an outstanding day in the history of world astronautics - the first block was successfully delivered into orbit of our planet.

Assembly

The ISS is brilliant in its simplicity and functionality. The station consists of independent blocks that are connected to each other like a large construction set. It is impossible to calculate the exact cost of the object. Each new block is manufactured in a separate country and, of course, varies in price. In total, a huge number of such parts can be attached, so the station can be constantly updated.

Validity period

Due to the fact that the station blocks and their contents can be changed and upgraded an unlimited number of times, the ISS can roam the expanses of near-Earth orbit for a long time.

The first alarm bell rang in 2011, when the space shuttle program was canceled due to its high cost.

But nothing terrible happened. Cargo was regularly delivered into space by other ships. In 2012, a private commercial shuttle even successfully docked to the ISS. Subsequently, a similar event occurred repeatedly.

Threats to the station can only be political. Periodically, officials different countries threaten to stop supporting the ISS. At first, support plans were scheduled until 2015, then until 2020. Today, there is approximately an agreement to maintain the station until 2027.

And while politicians argue among themselves, in 2016 the ISS made its 100,000th orbit around the planet, which was originally called “Anniversary.”

Electricity

Sitting in the dark is, of course, interesting, but sometimes it gets boring. On the ISS, every minute is worth its weight in gold, so engineers were deeply puzzled by the need to provide the crew with uninterrupted electrical power.

Many have been proposed different ideas, and in the end agreed on what was better solar panels nothing can happen in space.

When implementing the project, the Russian and American sides took different paths. Thus, the generation of electricity in the first country is carried out for a 28 volt system. The voltage in the American unit is 124 V.

During the day, the ISS makes many orbits around the Earth. One revolution is approximately an hour and a half, forty-five minutes of which pass in the shade. Of course, at this time generation from solar panels is impossible. The station is powered by nickel-hydrogen batteries. The service life of such a device is about seven years. The last time they were changed was back in 2009, so very soon the engineers will carry out the long-awaited replacement.

Device

As previously written, the ISS is a huge construction set, the parts of which are easily connected to each other.

As of March 2017, the station has fourteen elements. Russia delivered five blocks, named Zarya, Poisk, Zvezda, Rassvet and Pirs. The Americans gave their seven parts the following names: “Unity”, “Destiny”, “Tranquility”, “Quest”, “Leonardo”, “Dome” and “Harmony”. The countries of the European Union and Japan so far have one bloc each: Columbus and Kibo.

Units are constantly changing depending on the tasks assigned to the crew. Several more blocks are on the way, which will significantly enhance the research capabilities of the crew members. The most interesting, of course, are the laboratory modules. Some of them are completely sealed. Thus, they can explore absolutely everything, even alien living beings, without the risk of infection for the crew.

Other blocks are designed to generate the necessary environments for normal human life. Still others allow you to freely go into space and carry out research, observations or repairs.

Some blocks do not carry a research load and are used as storage facilities.

Ongoing research

Numerous studies are, in fact, why in the distant nineties politicians decided to send a constructor into space, the cost of which today is estimated at more than two hundred billion dollars. For this money you can buy a dozen countries and get a small sea as a gift.

So, the ISS has such unique opportunities, which no earthly laboratory has. The first is the presence of limitless vacuum. The second is the actual absence of gravity. Third, the most dangerous ones are not spoiled by refraction in the earth’s atmosphere.

Don’t feed researchers bread, but give them something to study! They happily carry out the duties assigned to them, even despite the mortal risk.

Scientists are most interested in biology. This area includes biotechnology and medical research.

Other scientists often forget about sleep when exploring the physical forces of extraterrestrial space. Materials, quantum physics- only part of the research. A favorite pastime, according to the revelations of many, is testing various liquids in zero gravity.

Experiments with vacuum, in general, can be carried out outside the blocks, right in outer space. Earthly scientists can only be jealous in a good way while watching experiments via video link.

Any person on Earth would give anything for one spacewalk. For station workers, this is almost a routine activity.

Conclusions

Despite the dissatisfied cries of many skeptics about the futility of the project, ISS scientists have made many most interesting discoveries, which allowed us to look differently at space as a whole and at our planet.

Every day these brave people receive a huge dose of radiation, and all for the sake of scientific research, which will give humanity unprecedented opportunities. One can only admire their efficiency, courage and determination.

The ISS is a fairly large object that can be seen from the surface of the Earth. There is even a whole website where you can enter the coordinates of your city and the system will tell you exactly what time you can try to see the station while sitting in a sun lounger right on your balcony.

Of course, the space station has many opponents, but there are many more fans. This means that the ISS will confidently stay in its orbit four hundred kilometers above sea level and will show avid skeptics more than once how wrong they were in their forecasts and predictions.

Korznikov cites calculations that at a speed of more than 0.1 C, the spacecraft will not have time to change the flight path and avoid a collision. He believes that at sub-light speeds the spacecraft will collapse before reaching its target. In his opinion, interstellar travel is possible only at significantly lower speeds (up to 0.01 C). From 1950-60 In the USA, a spacecraft with a nuclear pulse rocket engine was being developed to explore interplanetary space, Orion.

Interstellar flight is travel between stars by manned vehicles or automatic stations. According to the director of the Ames Research Center (NASA), Simon P. Worden, the engine design for flights in deep space can be developed within 15-20 years.

Let the flight there and the flight back consist of three phases: uniformly accelerated acceleration, flight at constant speed and uniformly accelerated deceleration. Let the spacecraft move half the way with unit acceleration, and let it slow down the second half with the same acceleration (). The ship then turns around and repeats the acceleration and deceleration stages.

Not all types of engines are suitable for interstellar flight. Calculations show that using the space system considered in this work, it is possible to reach the star Alpha Centauri... in about 10 years." As one of the options for solving the problem, it is proposed to use a rocket as a working substance elementary particles, moving at light or near-light speed.

What is the speed of modern spacecraft?

Exhaust particle speed is from 15 to 35 kilometers per second. Therefore, ideas arose to supply interstellar ships with energy from an external source. At the moment, this project is not feasible: the engine must have an exhaust speed of 0.073 s (specific impulse 2 million seconds), while its thrust must reach 1570 N (that is, 350 pounds).

Collision with interstellar dust will occur at near-light speeds and physical impact resemble micro-explosions. Science fiction works often mention methods of interstellar travel based on moving faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. The largest crew consisted of 8 astronauts (including 1 woman), who launched on October 30, 1985 on the Challenger reusable spacecraft.

The distance to the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is about 4,243 light years, that is, about 268 thousand times the distance from Earth to the Sun. Spaceship flights occupy a significant place in science fiction.

In this situation, the flight time in the earth's reference frame will be approximately 12 years, while according to the clock on the ship, 7.3 years will pass. Suitability various types engines for interstellar flights in particular was considered at a meeting of the British interplanetary society in 1973 by Dr. Tony Martin.

In the course of the work, projects were proposed for large and small starships (“generation ships”) capable of reaching the star Alpha Centauri in 1800 and 130 years, respectively. In 1971, in a report by G. Marx at a symposium in Byurakan, it was proposed to use X-ray lasers for interstellar flights. In 1985, R. Forward proposed the design of an interstellar probe accelerated by microwave energy.

Space speed limit

The main component of the mass of modern rockets is the mass of fuel required by the rocket for acceleration. If we can somehow use the environment surrounding the rocket as a working fluid and fuel, we can significantly reduce the mass of the rocket and thereby achieve high speeds.

In the 1960s, Bussard proposed the design of an interstellar direct-flow jet engine(MPRD). The interstellar medium consists mainly of hydrogen. In 1994, Geoffrey Landis proposed a project for an interstellar ion probe that would receive energy from laser beam at the station.

The rocket ship of the Daedalus project turned out to be so huge that it would have to be built in outer space. One of the disadvantages of interstellar ships is the need to carry a power grid with them, which increases mass and consequently reduces speed. So electric rocket engine has a characteristic speed of 100 km/s, which is too slow to fly to distant stars in an acceptable time.