Skip to footer

Around the world in 90 minutes: ISS completes 100,000th orbit

Since its launch in 1998, scientists have conducted some 1,900 experiments aboard the International Space Station.

|
NASA/AP
The International Space Station.

Nearly 18 years since its launch, the International Space Station (ISS) has made its 100,000th orbit around the Earth.

The space station has now traveled over 2.6 billion miles, nearly the distance from Earth to Neptune. That's equivalent to ten round trips from Mars to Earth.

"This is a significant milestone and is a tribute to this international partnership, made up of the European Space Agency, of Russia, Canada, Japan, and the United States," NASA astronaut Jeff Williams said in a video tribute recorded aboard the orbiting lab ahead of the landmark orbit.

The craft travels at a speed of 18,000 miles per hour and takes about 90 minutes to complete one orbit, meaning that astronauts living on board experience 16 sunrises and sunsets per day.

Though launched in 1998, the first astronauts, one American and two Russians, did not enter the space station until 2000. Since then, more than 220 people have lived or visited there, including 189 men, according to NASA.

The ISS serves as a stepping stone to future human exploration of further destinations. NASA and its partners have conducted 1,900 experiments aboard the space station to date.

Last April the scientists attached an inflatable room to the station. As The Christian Science Monitor reported, the astronauts began testing Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, “a 3,086-pound pod made of layers of fabric and Kevlar-like material that one day might be able to house astronauts during deep-space missions, and possibly even space tourists on sightseeing trips.”

Scientists are currently attempting to grow fruits and vegetables in space, mostly to provide food for humans interested in space exploration. It currently costs about $10,000 to send one pound of food from Earth to the space station.

There are now six people aboard the ISS: Mr. Williams and Tim Kopra from NASA; Russian cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko, Oleg Skripochka, and Alexey Ovchinin, and the first British astronaut, Tim Peake. Mr. Kopra recently replaced Scott Kelly as the ISS commander when the latter stepped down after spending a year in space.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Around the world in 90 minutes: ISS completes 100,000th orbit
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0517/Around-the-world-in-90-minutes-ISS-completes-100-000th-orbit
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe