The £86bn superstructure that had to make major change after just one complaint | Weird | News
The International Space Station (ISS) is one of the great successes of human endeavour and cooperation, a structure built by a group of nations pushing the boundaries of human existence.
Opened in November 2000, the ISS has, for the past 25 plus years, been a symbol of what humanity can do when it works together.
However, just like all machines, it can be improved and enhanced and, along the way, said improvements and enhancements have been made; but not all improvements have been mechanical.
For the past couple of years, the £80bn plus ISS has been playing host to the world’s most advanced coffee machine.
Known as the ISSPresso, the device was designed to produce coffee in zero gravity for astronauts working on the space station.
Produced by Lavazza Coffee and Argotec, the 20kg ISSPresso machine was designed to withstand 400 bar of pressure and pump high quality espresso into a plastic pouch.
According to the Guardian, one of the leading campaigners behind the machine was Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, who complained about the quality of the coffee onboard the £109Bn space station after just one week on board.
What followed was a caffeine based challenge that saw the ISSpresso machine developed and installed onto the space station, and culminated with Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti becoming the first person to drink an espresso on-board the ISS in 2015.
After two years of service, the machine was sent back to Earth via a SpaceX mission, but it’s impact has been long felt since then as another marker of what humans can do when they work together.
In a statement marking the station’s 25th anniversary, NASA highlighted the impact of the ISS is being a statement of international cooperation.
They said: “At least 290 individuals representing 26 countries, and the five international partners have visited the orbiting laboratory during its 25 years of continuous human presence.
“These missions contribute to scientific, outreach, and commercial activities. They also help demonstrate the demand for future commercial space stations and are an important component of NASA’s strategy for enabling a robust and competitive commercial economy in low Earth orbit.”
As for the ISS itself; there are growing questions over what will replace it when it comes to the end of its operating period in 2030.
