The ISS is likely the single most expensive object ever built.

 

The ISS is likely the single most expensive object ever built.

By 2010 the total cost had already reached $150 billion, with the US contributing $58.7 billion, $12 billion from Russia, $5 billion from Japan and Europe, and $2 billion from Canada.

The rest of the money went into ferrying components and astronauts to and from the ISS aboard various spacecraft, which doesn’t come cheap!

In mission control rooms around the world – in Houston, Moscow and Munich – a daily reality TV show is played out on giant screens. It is the dullest reality show you will ever watch. There is no conflict or peril, little tension and certainly no romance. The best you can hope for is a view of an astronaut’s backside floating past the camera.

This is the reality of day-to-day life on the International Space Station (ISS): astronauts living and working together to strict timelines – eating, sleeping, exercising, conducting scientific experiments and fixing the plumbing.