Thursday, July 15, 2010

I$$

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STS-125 Mission Specialist Ron Garan just twittered from his @Astro_Ron account this ISS gem in the Science & Space section of USAToday:

International Space Station Piece by piece
Piece by piece...

The feature is almost two years old, so I cannot believe I've never found it before – or that no one ever emailed me the link. (You find out pretty quickly as a blogger that friends, family, readers and complete strangers are rabidly delighted to send you anything and everything related to your chosen blog theme!)

ISS
At the time, the animated graphics (compliments of NASA) showed the International Space Station: 10 Years in the Making on the decade anniversary of the onset of construction, 200+ miles above the Earth's surface. Since then, of course, we and other participating nations have completed the "To Do" list to the right of the graphics.

It's truly amazing when you see the entire structure come together:

Intl Space Station Components
Wow.

Clicking on any of these causes the pertinent component of the ISS graphic to light up in red, whereby a text box appears with details. It's a great interactive tool to learn about, or teach your kids, all the different pieces in order of assembly!