Take a Personal Tour of the ISS

By Nancy Atkinson - January 26, 2009 at 6:30 AM UTC | Space Exploration
iss-crew-18.jpg

[/caption] Enjoy a personal video tour of the International Space Station with Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke. The station is big -- it

really is

getting to be a big place -- so the tour is in four parts. But its worth the time to watch the entire series to see all the modules, the crew quarters, and all the different devices and racks on board. Fincke does a great job giving the "straight skinny," as he says, and shows all the nooks and crannies of the ISS. He warns that you'll see a station in the middle of being renovated, so there's a little clutter, but its fun to see a kind of "day in the life" on board the ISS. Fincke even lets you fly along with him through the Kibo lab, and opens the window shutter (which is very cool!) so you can see the beautiful view of Earth from space. I thought it was fun to see that when the astronauts exercise, they watch movies, just as I like to do. Teachers, this video tour would be a great way to show your students what living on board the ISS is really like. Enjoy -- its great! This was recoreded in HD, so click on the option to watch in High Quality (the red arrow on the bottom right of the screen). Here's part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com