from Hacker News

ISS Virtual Tour

by kapranoff on 9/3/15, 7:34 AM with 52 comments

• by sandyarmstrong on 9/3/15, 1:45 PM

  This is awesome. If you'd like a live video tour, I recently sat down with my 5 year old to watch a wonderful video from NASA [0].

  They talk about some of the facilities in a way that kids can understand, and there's something wondrous about seeing how they move around, regularly changing their orientations, etc.

  [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doN4t5NKW-k

• by torgoguys on 9/3/15, 3:27 PM

  Very cool!

  Wow, I never realized how cluttered the ISS was. Stuff all over! Lots of Thinkpads as already mentioned, but lots of lots of things: cameras, lens, etc. I surprised at the amount of duplication. (I do realize that redundancy is key when you can't just run to the store to replace something, but still...)

• by arethuza on 9/3/15, 10:12 AM

  I'm going to put the audio-book version of Seveneves on (just started listening to it for the second time this morning) and have a good browse around this.

• by aurelian15 on 9/3/15, 11:35 PM

  This entire tour is interesting and enjoyable! Just spent an entire evening -- almost three hours -- looking around and watching the videos. Many kudos to Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti for her very concise explanations and demonstrations.

  The panoramas are of very high quality (except for the inevitable dead pixels). It is nice to see all the Ethernet cables, electrical outlets, stopwatches, valves, tools or just the video projector connected via VGA to a notebook in Node 1, just before you fly into the Russian module. And yes, there is a striking contrast between the Russian and the US/European/Japanese modules.

  I especially recommend watching the time-lapse video shot by Alexander Gerst:

  http://wsn.spaceflight.esa.int/videos/F_2014/F_Blue_Dot/1417...

  Edit:

  Btw. executing the following code in the JS console

    "{" + pano.getCurrentNode() + "}\",\"" + pano.getPan() + "/" + pano.getTilt() + "/" + pano.getFov()
  

  gives you a string encoding the current position. You can restore that position by copy and pasting it into the "pano.openURL()" method. Examples:

    pano.openUrl("{node5}","216.49016925709486/38.116922404005344/47.440801242792304") // The IMAX...
    pano.openUrl("{node5}","288.6799234893748/17.169120787478608/17.33030268127927") // ...and its CF cards

• by jefurii on 9/3/15, 6:28 PM

  After a bit of digging, I foudn that the wall behind the cluster of Thinkpads in the Columbus module is made up of European Drawer Rack modules[0] which are basically 19in racks. NASA has its own International Standard Payload Rack (ISPR) module system[1]. It would be interesting to see some articles on the power and data infrastructure of the station.

  [0] http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Columbus...

  [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Payload...

• by gii2 on 9/3/15, 9:26 AM

  Did you noticed that there are only ThinkPads there? It is the only laptop certified to work on ISS.

• by robryk on 9/3/15, 4:35 PM

  It's interesting to see some differences between the US-and-everyone-else and Russian part. One that was most striking to me is cabling and piping between modules: on the Russian side, the pipes go through the hatches, which complicates closing the hatches but makes the cables and pipes easier to access/repair and makes it easier to install new ones. On the other side, there are no pipes or cables going through hatches.

  There's also a hatch in the deck of Unity that seems to have nothing on the other side (the one labelled Hab). Is it a place where a module will be added?

• by ourmandave on 9/3/15, 11:32 AM

  If you're an early riser this site will tell you when you can watch ISS fly over.

  http://iss.astroviewer.net/observation.php

• by drzaiusapelord on 9/3/15, 2:37 PM

  I love the disconnect between science fiction and reality. There's no beautiful Kubrick-esque set design here. The whole thing just looks like someone's garage, full of nick-nacks, tools, and little projects. It just a giant mancave, really. This is why I'm a little bored with LEO space exploration. I can't wait for the SLS to go live and try something that isn't this.

  That said, I would love to see a ISS-like structure on the moon, perhaps also serving as a dark-side radio telescope.

• by throw7 on 9/3/15, 6:16 PM

  Had to laugh about the tools on board... both a set of metric and english. :D And apparently the english set are used more often (not sure what to take away from that... heh)

• by return0 on 9/3/15, 1:31 PM

  Are the EXIT signs real or a cruel joke?

• by deneca on 9/3/15, 1:52 PM

  I would love to see a version of this for Google Cardboard

• by harywilke on 9/3/15, 1:23 PM

  Duct Tape spotted! Zarya module. look up! three hose fittings? covered in tape. I think i'd live in constant fear of bumping the wrong knob/pipe/lever while floating from one module to the next.

• by jefurii on 9/3/15, 6:17 PM

  I wish there was a way to link to things in this by "room", angle, and zoom level.

  I'm really curious what some of this stuff is, like that green box in the middle of that cluster of Thinkpads on the Columbus module, the blue box and other stuff "beneath" the oven. Power distribution modules? Computers in hardened cases?

• by Kiro on 9/3/15, 10:52 AM

  Aren't there any windows?

• by shpx on 9/6/15, 7:14 PM

  Any chance someone has the raw pictures? They serve them as small images and stitch them together in the browser.

• by nomercy400 on 9/3/15, 5:16 PM

  This is so good. A more than decent explanation of what's going on in such a restricted environment.

• by chmullig on 9/3/15, 1:35 PM

  Seems like their poor server is struggling with load.

• by ekianjo on 9/3/15, 3:21 PM

  The space station is full of Thinkpads :)