ISS construction timeline

Nice animated timeline of the construction of the International Space Station. (thx, struan)

The Expedition One crew, consisting of one

The Expedition One crew, consisting of one American and two Russian astronauts, spent 136 days in space aboard the International Space Station. Their logs include a record of the movies they watched while on their mission.

6 Feb 2001: We ate some dinner and watched the last part of "City of Angels". Shep did his best to explain to Yuri and Sergei what the phrase "chick flick" means.

24 Feb 2001 We put some chow and the DVD player in the Soyuz and close the hatch about 0530. It takes 2 orbits to get the first set of hooks off and the docking tunnel pressure checked. We get the "Austin Powers" sequel in while all this is taking place. (Maybe a Soyuz first here).

Update: The Expedition One crew also documented their many computer problems.

Sergei notices that the Russian PCS laptop has locked up. He tries to reboot, but the Sun application software won't load. Lots of messages on the screen noting data errors. Sergei thinks that it may be the hard drive. He boots up windows to see if the windows partition runs OK--it does. So at least some of the hardware is functional.

Maybe they need Macs?

When you're a Muslim in orbit, how

When you're a Muslim in orbit, how do you determine which way Mecca is and how often you need to pray? "The ISS is more than 200 miles from the Earth's surface and orbits the earth every ninety-two minutes, or roughly sixteen times a day. Do we have to worship eighty times a day (sixteen orbits a day multiplied by five prayer times)?"

Great photos of the Space Shuttle launch

Great photos of the Space Shuttle launch taken from the International Space Station. (via cyn-c)

Update: The photos weren't taken from the ISS but from a chase plane. (thx, greg)

Russia plans to drive a golf ball

Russia plans to drive a golf ball off of the ISS with a gold-plated, scandium alloy six-iron into a four-year, low-earth orbit....which may actually damage the space station if the ball is not "hit out of the station's orbital plane". I understand this event will be debuting at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.