Learn more 7 curiosities about the International Space Station

The engineering required to put three guys on a rocket and shoot the moon was a timid step from the impossible, but NASA did it. Two years later, astronauts were playing golf on lunar soil. Since then, space technology has developed and today even a colony on Mars is planned.

On top of that, today's astronauts rely on the International Space Station (ISS) for mission support and low-gravity experiments - remembering that there is no zero gravity, just the effect, because the Station is in a state "constant fall" caused by the centripetal force to which it is subjected.

This is just one of many aspects of the International Space Station. You already had the opportunity to see here at Mega Curioso some facts about everyday life in this environment. Now you can check some more below.

1 - The Station is big

It is difficult to measure in space photographs the size of certain celestial objects or bodies. For comparison, for example, if the earth were the size of a basketball, the moon would be the size of a tennis ball. The International Space Station is about 110 meters long, about the size of the Maracanã stadium field.

2 - Your computers are also attacked by viruses.

It's not just "earthly" computers that deal with this kind of problem. Station computers have been infected with viruses more than once. The first reported was the famous W32.Gammima.AG, which Symantec said is a virus that has spread by copying itself to removable media. It also steals passwords from various online games.

3 - But now they run Linux

Last year, EEI abandoned Windows and Scientific Linux in favor of Linux Debian 6 for its portable computer network. Keith Chuvala, who runs NASA's Computer Space Operations at the time, said, "We migrated the core functions of Windows to Linux because we needed a stable and more secure operating system. So if we need to fix, tweak or adapt, we can ". To ensure stability, they plan to run an always earlier version of the latest operating system.

4 - Heavy traffic on ERA

If you think that life at the Station is just floating around in low-severity environments, you're very wrong. The Station has much higher traffic than you might expect. On June 9, the Progress M-21M departed from the station, while the next week the Cygnus CRS Orb-2 was scheduled to arrive, being its second refueling mission since the successful coupling test last year.

And the movement does not stop. There are currently three "anchored" ships out there: the Soyuz TMA-12M, the Progress M-23M and the Soyuz TMA-13M. SpaceX has a resupply mission scheduled for August and a new team will arrive in September. You can check the date frame of this in and out of ships here at this link.

5 - You can accompany her

In addition to being able to see the International Space Station with the naked eye (it looks like a slow moving plane), NASA has a service called Spot the Station, which allows you to sign up for text messages telling you when to search for the station. in the sky and which direction to look. Cool, isn't it? Also, when the team is on duty, you can watch a live internal video broadcast of the Station via this other link.

6 - Astronauts there contribute a lot to science

The ISS is a research laboratory in orbit. Ongoing experiments there include, among many others, building better space robots, studying the effects of space on sperm, finding out how our circadian rhythms are affected by the absence of a 24-hour cycle of light and dark, testing the best way to grow plants in a microgravity environment and how to build a faster space internet. Enough work for the astronauts!

7 - The Station will not exist forever

Yes, it is true, it is not in the plans that the Station will be up there much longer. But it is still not entirely certain that it will be taken out of orbit by 2020, as originally planned. Engineering tests suggest that the Zarya module (the first and oldest of the station) and Unity node (the first North American component) will be good for at least 2028, meaning the station may be viable longer.