1 00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:04,400 How do you keep score in a space race? There are a few obvious 2 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:08,720 milestones early on, first person in orbit, for spacewalk, first to the 3 00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:13,800 Moon. But after all those boxes are checked, where do we go Well, 4 00:00:13,919 --> 00:00:18,640 the natural next step was to start living in space and finding out just 5 00:00:18,719 --> 00:00:22,600 how long you could stay up there. That means space stations, and if 6 00:00:22,640 --> 00:00:26,839 we look at the evolution of human habitation in low Earth orbit, we can 7 00:00:26,879 --> 00:00:31,559 get a pretty good idea of who dominated the past and who will take over 8 00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:36,200 the future. The answers might surprise you. This is the space race. 9 00:00:36,640 --> 00:00:41,520 Did you know that the first space station ever deployed was a Soviet design from 10 00:00:41,679 --> 00:00:46,719 nineteen seventy one called Salu. It was actually a very impressive piece of hardware 11 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:51,520 at eighteen and a half metric tons, twenty meters in length, four meters 12 00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:56,840 in diameter, and ninety nine cubic meters in volume, so that's pretty big 13 00:00:57,159 --> 00:01:02,520 even by modern standards. Now, we don't talk about this one very often 14 00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:07,599 because there is a deeply tragic story attached to it. The first and only 15 00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:11,200 crew to ever visit the Salute one never lived to tell the tale. The 16 00:01:11,239 --> 00:01:17,599 three cosmonauts perished on the return trip when their Soyu's capsule depressurized, making them 17 00:01:17,640 --> 00:01:23,599 also the first and only humans to have died in space. The operation of 18 00:01:23,680 --> 00:01:27,840 Salute one was terminated shortly after the station was deorbited and burnt up in the 19 00:01:27,879 --> 00:01:33,840 atmosphere on October eleventh, nineteen seventy one. A year later, the Soviets 20 00:01:33,879 --> 00:01:38,640 tried again with a space station module called DOS two, but this one was 21 00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:42,079 lost due to an engine failure on the Proton rocket, and it never reached 22 00:01:42,159 --> 00:01:48,079 orbital velocity. The whole thing just fell into the ocean. One year after 23 00:01:48,120 --> 00:01:52,599 that, the Soviets made their third attempt with Salute two. This one did 24 00:01:52,680 --> 00:01:57,120 reach orbit, but quickly lost altitude control and depressurized, leaving it to tumble 25 00:01:57,159 --> 00:02:02,319 helplessly through space until its orbit decayed and the station burnt up in the atmosphere. 26 00:02:02,879 --> 00:02:07,560 Undeterred, the Soviet Union launched yet another space station module in nineteen seventy 27 00:02:07,599 --> 00:02:13,479 three. This was originally intended to be Saluted the third, but since a 28 00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:16,800 flight control aer prevented the station from reaching the correct orbital height, the Soviets 29 00:02:16,879 --> 00:02:22,280 quickly renamed the mission to Cosmos five to five seven and pretended like it was 30 00:02:22,319 --> 00:02:27,280 a regular satellite launch and not a failed space station deployment. A week later, 31 00:02:27,599 --> 00:02:31,039 the remains fell from space and burnt up in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, 32 00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:35,960 through all of this, NASA had been working on their own space station concept 33 00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:42,080 named Skylab. With the Apollo program officially brought to an end, NASA was 34 00:02:42,159 --> 00:02:47,479 left with one excess Saturn five rocket just kicking around. This incredibly humongous and 35 00:02:47,680 --> 00:02:53,520 incredibly powerful machine was purpose built to send heavy things to the Moon, but 36 00:02:53,599 --> 00:02:59,960 engineers decided that the Saturn five could be retrofit to deploy one final and truly 37 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:05,639 the epic payload into low Earth orbit a space station, and Skylab was one 38 00:03:05,759 --> 00:03:08,680 hell of a space station. NASA hollowed out the S four B module of 39 00:03:08,719 --> 00:03:14,520 the Saturn five, which would have traditionally served as a third propulsion stage for 40 00:03:14,599 --> 00:03:20,439 the translunar injection burn. The giant fuel tanks were converted into an orbital workshop 41 00:03:20,479 --> 00:03:25,000 with an incredible six point six meters in diameter and fourteen point seven meters in 42 00:03:25,120 --> 00:03:30,240 length. Then on top of that, NASA attached an airlock module and docking 43 00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:37,400 adapter where the Apollo Space Telescope observatory was mounted. Then an unused Apollo command 44 00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:40,919 and Service module was docked at the far end to provide power for the station. 45 00:03:42,759 --> 00:03:47,479 Skylab was occupied for a combined total of one hundred and seventy one days 46 00:03:47,759 --> 00:03:53,800 across three crude missions from nineteen seventy three to nineteen seventy four, and it 47 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:58,919 easily holds up as one of the most amazing things ever launched into space. 48 00:03:59,479 --> 00:04:03,240 There were lands to eventually use the Space Shuttle to refurbish and reboost the station 49 00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:08,439 to a higher orbit, but unfortunately the Shuttle wasn't ready in time, and 50 00:04:08,520 --> 00:04:13,560 Skylab's orbit decayed to the point where it finally hit the atmosphere and disintegrated in 51 00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:17,199 nineteen seventy nine. Back in the Soviet Union, they were finally primed for 52 00:04:17,279 --> 00:04:23,639 success. The real Salu three achieved orbit in July nineteen seventy four and was 53 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:29,759 successfully visited by the crew of Soyuz fourteen. This station was notable for being 54 00:04:29,839 --> 00:04:34,040 the first spacecraft to include a gun. There was a twenty three millimeter aircraft 55 00:04:34,079 --> 00:04:39,199 cannon attached to the station, and the Soviets would be the first to ever 56 00:04:39,360 --> 00:04:44,720 test fire a conventional weapon in space. Anyway. From there, the Soviets 57 00:04:44,759 --> 00:04:48,720 had a pretty successful run with these single module space stations from Salu three up 58 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:54,600 to Salute seven. But for the Soviets this was only a warm up act. 59 00:04:55,120 --> 00:04:59,000 In nineteen eighty six, the world saw the deployment of the first ever 60 00:04:59,399 --> 00:05:02,920 modular space station, which the Soviets named Mir. You may be noticing a 61 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:08,160 trend here. While NASA did manage to deploy one very cool space station with 62 00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:12,920 Skylab, it was an incredibly short lived project and it marked the United States 63 00:05:13,040 --> 00:05:16,800 one and only independent space station. We can see pretty clearly here that the 64 00:05:16,839 --> 00:05:23,199 Soviets had essentially cornered the market on long term habitation in low Earth orbit. 65 00:05:23,639 --> 00:05:28,040 It took a decade to fully assemble the seven module Mir station, which would 66 00:05:28,120 --> 00:05:32,600 eventually reach a pressurized volume of three hundred and fifty cubic meters. Now, 67 00:05:32,759 --> 00:05:38,360 something interesting happened over the time period that the station Mir was being constructed. 68 00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:43,839 The Soviet Union collapsed. The fall of the Berlin Wall in nineteen eighty nine 69 00:05:43,879 --> 00:05:46,639 marked the beginning of the end for the Cold War, and now we enter 70 00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:53,360 the period of the Russian space program. This era would bring a new found 71 00:05:53,399 --> 00:05:59,000 cooperation between Western and Eastern superpowers. Now, instead of being engaged in a 72 00:05:59,079 --> 00:06:03,560 space race, the Russians and Americans were working together for the betterment of human 73 00:06:03,600 --> 00:06:09,639 space exploration. Very positive star trek vibes were starting to come out, and 74 00:06:09,759 --> 00:06:14,120 in nineteen ninety three, NASA's Space Shuttle fleet began regular missions to the Mere 75 00:06:14,199 --> 00:06:18,759 station. The Shuttle Atlantis even delivered the final docking module to Mirror in nineteen 76 00:06:18,839 --> 00:06:24,199 ninety five. Now as much as NASA was helping out the Russians with the 77 00:06:24,319 --> 00:06:29,319 use of their fancy space planes, the Americans were using this opportunity to learn 78 00:06:29,399 --> 00:06:34,040 as much as they possibly could about modular space stations and long term habitation in 79 00:06:34,120 --> 00:06:40,480 microgravity, a subject where the United States had fallen massively behind. It was 80 00:06:40,480 --> 00:06:46,360 in nineteen eighty four that President Ronald Reagan originally directed NASA to build an international 81 00:06:46,399 --> 00:06:50,160 space station within the next ten years, and obviously that never happened. So 82 00:06:50,519 --> 00:06:55,920 when we finally arrive at the International Space Station that we all know so well 83 00:06:55,959 --> 00:06:59,959 today, we can see that it shares a lot of resemblance with Russia's. 84 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:03,879 In fact, given everything that we've just learned, I don't think it's unfounded 85 00:07:03,879 --> 00:07:09,319 to look at the ISS more like a Mere version two point zero, because 86 00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:15,319 it's pretty clear where this design approach came from It's also worth noting that the 87 00:07:15,319 --> 00:07:18,879 first module of the ISS that was deployed in nineteen ninety eight was the Russian 88 00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:24,639 Control Module. The Russian side of the station is responsible for the power and 89 00:07:24,680 --> 00:07:29,399 propulsion of the ISS, and the first crew to reside on the ISS was 90 00:07:29,439 --> 00:07:33,680 one American and two Russians who all arrived there on a Soyuz rocket launched from 91 00:07:33,720 --> 00:07:39,040 the baikon Or Cosmodrome. Anyway, I find that all pretty interesting because growing 92 00:07:39,120 --> 00:07:42,199 up in North America, we were pretty much led to believe that NASA was 93 00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:46,319 really the leader in this whole International Space Station project, and it never really 94 00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:49,319 occurred to me until right now that the full two decades of research and development 95 00:07:49,360 --> 00:07:54,920 by the Soviets and Russians is what really laid the groundwork for the ISS, 96 00:07:55,120 --> 00:07:59,519 and it probably never would have even happened without that. So there's an interesting 97 00:07:59,519 --> 00:08:03,480 new perspect for you. The ISS is operated primarily by Ross, Cosmos and 98 00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:09,279 NASA. The Russian Service module is responsible for guidance, navigation, life support, 99 00:08:09,439 --> 00:08:16,279 power and propulsion of the entire station, so it's pretty important, while 100 00:08:16,319 --> 00:08:20,040 the NASA side of the station is for operations, logistics, and research. 101 00:08:20,600 --> 00:08:24,000 The other key players in the ISS are the European Space Agency and the japan 102 00:08:24,040 --> 00:08:30,839 Aerospace Exploration Agency, each having their own independent research modules, with the Japanese 103 00:08:30,879 --> 00:08:35,039 Kibo becoming the single largest ISS module. It took three Space Shuttle missions to 104 00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:41,000 get the entire lab into orbit. Following the completion of the ISS in the 105 00:08:41,039 --> 00:08:45,960 early two thousands, there has been only one modular space station deployed to Earth 106 00:08:46,080 --> 00:08:50,879 orbit, China's Tiangong the Heavenly Palace, with just three modules. The Tiangong 107 00:08:52,039 --> 00:08:56,240 is a much smaller scale station than the ISS, and even contains slightly less 108 00:08:56,279 --> 00:09:01,720 pressurized volume than Mirror, But the Tiangong is a significant leap forward in space 109 00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:07,759 station design and technology. If we look back from Salute to Skylab to Mirror 110 00:09:07,759 --> 00:09:13,279 to ISS, we're not exactly seeing a massive amount of progress or even evolution 111 00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:16,039 to the design. If anything, the Skylab really sticks out as being the 112 00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:20,679 nicest space station of the bunch, and that was literally fifty years ago. 113 00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:24,559 The Soviet design aesthetic that carried over all the way to the ISS has a 114 00:09:24,559 --> 00:09:30,120 lot more in common with a submarine than the starship Enterprise. It's cramped, 115 00:09:30,159 --> 00:09:33,320 it's cluttered, there are pipes and wires and god knows what else sticking out 116 00:09:33,360 --> 00:09:39,759 from all angles. Now we flip forward to China's Tiangong and the difference is 117 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:43,039 night and day. There are only about twenty years between ISS and Tangong, 118 00:09:43,120 --> 00:09:48,279 but it looks like a century worth of progress. Obviously, in the time 119 00:09:48,279 --> 00:09:50,679 between the year two thousand and the year twenty twenty one, a lot of 120 00:09:50,759 --> 00:09:56,480 major breakthroughs were made in the field of silicon microchips and transistors. All of 121 00:09:56,519 --> 00:10:01,720 our electronic devices got thinner and more powerful, so so naturally that transfers over 122 00:10:01,799 --> 00:10:05,159 to our space ships as well. Just look at the SpaceX crew Dragon interior 123 00:10:05,159 --> 00:10:09,360 compared to the Space Shuttle. But there is a little bit more going on 124 00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:15,480 here than just better microchips. The biggest selling point of the ISS was that 125 00:10:15,519 --> 00:10:18,759 it would be a fully modular space station, meaning it can be built out 126 00:10:18,879 --> 00:10:22,960 one piece at a time and you can just keep adding on more pieces as 127 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:28,519 you go along. And the ISS has a lot of pieces, sixteen pressurized 128 00:10:28,559 --> 00:10:31,600 modules in total, and each one of them had to be transported from the 129 00:10:31,639 --> 00:10:35,919 ground into orbit. This is why it took over a decade to fully assemble 130 00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:41,720 the International Space Station and NASA's rocket of choice at the time wasn't helping either. 131 00:10:41,080 --> 00:10:45,879 The Space Shuttle had two significant flaws that made it a bad rocket for 132 00:10:45,919 --> 00:10:50,120 deploying a space station. Thing Number one, it was really dangerous to fly, 133 00:10:50,360 --> 00:10:54,799 and in two thousand and three, the Shuttle Columbia broke up on reentry, 134 00:10:54,879 --> 00:10:58,879 killing the entire crew and grounding the Shuttle fleet until NASA figured out what 135 00:10:58,919 --> 00:11:03,840 went wrong. This was extremely bad timing for the construction of ISS, because 136 00:11:03,879 --> 00:11:07,320 the workhorse rocket that was intended to do most of the heavy lifting was now 137 00:11:07,399 --> 00:11:13,080 out of service right in the middle of the construction project. And even when 138 00:11:13,159 --> 00:11:16,200 Shuttle service resumed, it never got back to the launch frequency of the nineteen 139 00:11:16,279 --> 00:11:22,559 nineties. And the second thing, the Shuttle just was not very effective at 140 00:11:22,559 --> 00:11:26,879 putting heavy things into space. The Shuttle was technically rated for twenty seven metric 141 00:11:26,919 --> 00:11:31,960 tons to low Earth orbit, but the actual payload capacity to ISS altitude was 142 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:37,879 more like sixteen metric tons. This presents a significant limitation on a large scale 143 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:45,000 orbital construction project. The spacious interior of the Skylab module was made possible by 144 00:11:45,039 --> 00:11:48,879 the incredible power of the Saturn five, a rocket that could lift one hundred 145 00:11:48,960 --> 00:11:54,519 and fifty metric tons into low Earth orbit. So the difference in headroom between 146 00:11:54,600 --> 00:12:01,279 Skylab and ISS is directly attributable to the difference in available lifting. Even the 147 00:12:01,279 --> 00:12:05,840 Tiangong station modules, which technically would have fit inside the Shuttle cargo bay, 148 00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:09,840 would have been too heavy for the space plane to handle. Those are around 149 00:12:09,919 --> 00:12:13,919 twenty three metric tons, give or take, so the Tiangong does not suffer 150 00:12:13,960 --> 00:12:16,960 from a lot of bottlenecks and size limitations that we find on the ISS. 151 00:12:18,039 --> 00:12:22,360 There's much more open and continuous space, and this is a clear indicator for 152 00:12:22,440 --> 00:12:26,399 space stations that will come in the future. They are only going to get 153 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:33,000 bigger thanks to significant advancements in heavy lift rocket technology. The SpaceX Starship is 154 00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:37,200 the most obvious example of this. With somewhere between one hundred and two hundred 155 00:12:37,240 --> 00:12:43,159 metric tons of payload capacity to low Earth orbit and a nine meter diameter cargo 156 00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:48,399 faring, the Starship could deploy something even bigger than Skylab in one single launch, 157 00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:52,519 and the Starship is designed to operate as a fully reusable and high volume 158 00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:58,720 rocket system, so unlike the very limited quantity of Saturn five boosters, Starship 159 00:12:58,759 --> 00:13:03,320 can deploy a lot of these gigantic space station modules, as many as we 160 00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:07,879 can build really SpaceX can launch them, so now we suddenly have the capability 161 00:13:07,039 --> 00:13:13,919 to build the equivalent of skyscrapers in space. And there are other really big 162 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:16,960 rockets coming like the Blue Origin New Glenn booster, which is already attached to 163 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:22,960 the Orbital Reef space Station project, which will combine massive seven meter diameter core 164 00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:28,399 modules with inflatable habitats from Sierra Space to very quickly offer up three times the 165 00:13:28,399 --> 00:13:33,679 pressurized volume of the ISS. So the future is looking pretty amazing for human 166 00:13:33,720 --> 00:13:37,799 habitation in space. We're moving quickly from the harsh military esthetic of a submarine 167 00:13:39,080 --> 00:13:41,879 to something that was previously only imaginable in science fiction.