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I recently read an article in The Atlantic titled 5,200 Days in Space that is incredible. We use words like “awesome” and “amazing” pretty cavalierly most of the time. The fact that there have been human beings continually living in outer space for almost fifteen YEARS is awesome and amazing.

It is mind-boggling to think that the United States is spending about $8,000,000.00 per day to help maintain the International Space Station (ISS).

And some of the details are really just hard to fathom, like this tidbit about the way the station was built:

[T]he station’s exterior elements have a remarkable engineering feature: although the station is made up of more than 100 components, with a surface area spanning almost three acres, most bolts the astronauts work with are a single size. That way astronauts almost never have to worry about changing sockets. Imagine constructing a whole building that way.

If you have a few minutes to spare, it’s a fascinating and well-written article.