How We Built the ISS - Part 2

0:00 In 2003, the ISS hit a sudden

0:02 and catastrophic halt in its decade-long construction process.

0:06 The space shuttle Columbia disaster sent

0:08 shockwaves through the space launch industry.

0:10 The space shuttle was the only vehicle capable of hauling

0:13 the massive building blocks of the ISS into [music] orbit.

0:17 With a cavernous 18-m cargo bay and powerful engines,

0:20 it could carry entire station modules weighing more than 20 tons at a time.

0:25 The station's assembly froze mid-construction.

0:28 Its growth paused in silence above the Earth for 2 and 1/2 years.

0:33 Without Russia and the Soyuz, the ISS would have been lost.

0:37 Thankfully, that did not come to pass,

0:39 and the space shuttle would soon return to orbit with some new improvements.

0:43 This is how the ISS defied catastrophe and how a fractured alliance of nations

0:48 and a grounded fleet still managed to keep humanity's most remote outpost alive.

0:53 This is the insane engineering of the ISS.

0:56 Part two.

1:00 While engineers on the ground were scrambling looking for clues

1:03 to try to find the culprit of the Columbia disaster,

1:06 NASA had to look up to the skies as well.

1:09 The ISS was not meant to fly uncrewed.

1:12 The three astronauts on the ISS had to wait 2

1:15 months before the next Soyuz arrived to rotate the team.

1:19 Three returned home, two stayed behind to keep the station alive,

1:23 the safest minimum crew size.

1:25 Now, it was time for the ISS to go into power saving mode.

1:29 Experiments were cut,

1:31 and the lonely crew kept the station running for as long as possible.

1:34 With the cargo capacity decimated, water and food were prioritized.

1:39 These were the station's lifeline, the Russian Progress resupply ships.

1:43 The day after Columbia, one launched with food, water, and essentials.

1:47 2 months later, the next cargo ship would arrive.

1:50 Normally, once a new Progress arrived,

1:53 the old one would be released and sent back to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

1:57 This time, instead of discarding the previous Progress ship,

2:00 they kept it docked.

2:01 Every bit of extra space could be used for food,

2:04 water, and spare parts critical for the station's survival plan.

2:08 Parallel to figuring out how astronauts were going to live aboard the ship,

2:11 it was imperative to get the shuttle back in operation and safely.

2:15 On the ground, they ramped up launch monitoring.

2:18 NASA deployed high-speed tracking cameras around the launchpad,

2:21 and they installed onboard sensors to detect foam impacts in real-time.

2:26 During the very first mission after Columbia, STS-114,

2:30 16 pieces of foam came off the external tank during launch.

2:34 One of them was quite large, around 91 by 30 cm.

2:38 Before Columbia, there was no way of knowing

2:40 how much foam impacts affected the heat shield.

2:43 So, a new system was set up to inspect the thermal

2:45 protection system of the shuttle once it was in orbit.

2:49 This is the orbiter boom sensor system.

2:52 It is a long 15-m boom that could be attached to the shuttle's Canada arm,

2:56 outfitted with lasers and high-resolution cameras.

2:58 The idea was to let astronauts scan the shuttle's heat shield

3:01 tiles and reinforce carbon-carbon panels on the wings and nose cap.

3:06 This is footage from the boom sensor

3:08 aboard the first shuttle flight after Columbia.

3:11 Discovery also performed the very first rendezvous

3:14 pitch maneuver before docking with the ISS,

3:17 essentially a backflip that allowed the ISS to take hundreds

3:21 of photos of the underside to inspect [music] for damage.

3:24 That same mission included three spacewalks, one to replace the old gyroscope,

3:28 and the other two being newly developed safety procedures.

3:32 Dangling from the end of the Canada arm 2,

3:34 an astronaut was tasked with inspecting [music] the space shuttle,

3:37 and they actually physically removed two gap fillers

3:40 that had started to protrude from Discovery's [music] underside.

3:43 Had those fillers remained,

3:44 they could have created dangerous hotspots during reentry.

3:48 The next spacewalk was designed to test new on-orbit repair techniques.

3:52 Samples of heat shields with simulated

3:54 damage restored inside Discovery's payload bay.

3:57 Spacewalkers were tasked with injecting sticky

3:59 sealant into the cracks using hand tools.

4:02 Shallow scratches were filled with a liquid

4:04 wash that soaked in and restored heat resistance,

4:07 while deeper gouges were filled with a thick paste that hardened in orbit.

4:11 All these samples were returned to Earth to confirm their effectiveness.

4:15 The spacewalks proved that even if the shuttle was damaged,

4:18 astronauts could inspect and repair the heat shield in space.

4:22 By September 2006, the shuttle was finally cleared to restart building the ISS,

4:27 and it was in desperate need of more power.

4:30 The portside solar panels came up first.

4:33 Half of the P6 panels were retracted to make the station

4:36 symmetric and to avoid collisions as the new solar panel spun around.

4:40 Next came the starboard side.

4:42 The solar arrays on the ISS are stored

4:44 in folded blankets inside rectangular boxes mounted on the truss.

4:48 Each wing consists of two blankets of solar cells attached to a central mast.

4:53 A motor drives the mast outwards, and as the mast extends,

4:56 it pulls the folded solar cell blankets out with it.

5:00 Guide wires run through reinforced holes along the blanket

5:03 to keep the structure aligned and under tension.

5:06 Each truss also carries its own ammonia cooling

5:08 loop and radiators to keep the panels from overheating.

5:12 Then came STS-120 [music] in October 2007,

5:15 a mission carrying the second node of the system, Harmony.

5:19 Harmony was initially attached here to the starboard side of Unity,

5:23 so it would be out of the way while the P6 solar array was relocated.

5:27 Canada arm 2 reached out and grabbed

5:29 the truss segment here just above the station,

5:32 but it couldn't carry it all the way to the far end of the ISS,

5:35 so the arm passed it to the shuttle's Canada arm.

5:38 From there, Canada arm 2 moved along

5:40 the mobile base system to the station's edge,

5:43 took the truss back, and guided it into alignment.

5:46 Then, two astronauts stepped outside to bolt it into place.

5:50 One of them was Dr.

5:51 Scott Parazynski.

5:53 We'd been out the very tip of the space [music] station.

5:55 We had, you know, working with Dan Tani

5:57 and Stephanie Wilson who were driving the robotic arm,

6:00 we were able to bring the P6 truss

6:03 [music] in in close proximity to the P5 truss,

6:07 and we were able to bolt the thing together.

6:09 We made it the electrical connectors.

6:11 We thought that the the most challenging

6:13 part of the the mission had been accomplished.

6:17 We were starting to celebrate, but we were wrong.

6:19 This is when it really got exciting.

6:22 So, as we got out of our spacesuits [music]

6:24 and floated into the laboratory module,

6:26 we saw everyone hunkered around this small CCTV monitor [music] trying

6:32 to see what was going on, and we couldn't really see the details,

6:35 but it looked like there'd been [music] a rip in the in the solar panel.

6:39 And this was at a position [music] where

6:42 the the solar panel was only partway deployed,

6:45 and we couldn't retract it [music] at this point, we couldn't extend it.

6:48 This is what the situation looked like.

6:50 One of the solar panels did extend,

6:52 but the other side only extended 80% of the way.

6:56 From the window of the ISS, they could see a small hole in the solar panels,

7:00 but they couldn't really tell what had happened.

7:02 The first obstacle was distance.

7:04 The torn array was located far from the normal reach of the Canada arm 2.

7:09 The only option was to attach an astronaut to the long

7:12 boom used to inspect the bottom of the shuttle, and this carried a lot of risk.

7:17 First off, solar panels in space don't need to hold their own weight,

7:21 so unlike panels here on Earth,

7:22 the panels on the ISS are a lot wobblier than you might imagine.

7:27 Yeah, these aren't your your your mom's and dad's

7:30 solar panels that we have aboard the the ISS.

7:33 They're they're quite unique.

7:34 They are [music] on mounted on thin film,

7:37 so they're basically circuit boards that are hinged sort

7:40 of like leveler blinds that you might have at home,

7:43 but they're very very flexible.

7:44 And in fact, if you were to [music] to push

7:47 on the solar panel in its partially deployed state,

7:51 it would float away from you very gracefully like a sail,

7:55 but then ultimately, it would work its way back.

7:58 And in fact, that was one of the the major concerns that they

8:00 had for sending a spacewalker out there

8:02 because this solar panel was likely damaged,

8:06 and so there were concerns that there could be arcing of electricity,

8:10 high voltage, high current from the solar panel into my [music] spacesuit.

8:14 And of course, my spacesuit has a Kevlar outer,

8:18 but there are metal wrist disconnects and other

8:20 metal parts of my spacesuit that could

8:23 allow for [music] electricity to conduct

8:25 into the 100% oxygen environment of my spacesuit, [music]

8:28 which would be very flammable.

8:29 It'd be a very bad day for me.

8:31 So, engineers [music] very graciously you know, thought about my my safety.

8:37 So, we ended up wrapping the metal parts of our spacesuits,

8:41 for both Doug and myself, with Kapton tape so that there would be no,

8:46 you know, risk of conductance of electricity into the our spacesuits.

8:51 And then, we weren't able to have any direct contact with the solar panel.

8:55 So, I actually had a I actually I've got one over here.

9:00 Yeah.

9:01 Well, this is kind of interesting.

9:03 Um this is uh hockey stick, very similar to what I used in space.

9:09 So, this is not the real one, uh but it's made of the same materials.

9:13 It's got a a tether loop on the tail of it,

9:15 but I would use this tool to stick it in front of me such

9:18 that the solar panel would pass harmlessly above my head and beneath my feet.

9:22 From the images and from talking to the astronauts,

9:25 the team on the ground had already

9:26 figured out the problem and a potential solution.

9:29 The guide wire running along the solar panels [music] had been damaged.

9:33 So, Scott needed to get out there, cut the guide wire,

9:36 and reconnect them with a MacGyvered

9:37 repair using materials available on the ISS.

9:41 And then, I have here actually one of the engineered cuff links that was

9:48 used [music] on uh 1G mock-ups of the solar panel uh here in Houston.

9:54 So, this is uh actually what it looked like.

9:56 This is one of the shorter ones.

9:58 And we had a couple of much longer ones as well that I installed.

10:01 [music] This allowed me to poke this through a hole in the solar

10:05 panel on one end one side of [music] the damage and then

10:08 this this one ended up going on the other side and then

10:11 the load path could be absorbed by this piece [music] of wire.

10:15 But the cool thing the really cool thing

10:17 and this is one of my prized possessions.

10:19 This is given to me by the engineer who invented this this repair.

10:24 And this is actually two pieces of cardboard from a Domino's pizza box.

10:28 They were working around the clock.

10:30 They worked for like 72 hours straight.

10:32 But uh this engineer had this idea for these cufflinks

10:36 and he he cut a Domino's pizza box

10:40 tied it together with a couple pieces of string

10:42 and he he threw it on the table and said,

10:44 "Here, what do you think about this?" And and that became

10:47 the the solution to save the solar panel.

10:51 That's crazy.

10:53 The I I guess my question is like do the do the people

10:57 on the ground have like a full inventory list of what's up on the ISS?

11:02 Like how do they know what you can actually build?

11:05 Yeah.

11:06 Yeah, well they they they knew exactly that we

11:08 had this 12-gauge wire aboard the the space station.

11:11 This is aluminum shim stock that's been covered

11:14 in tape you know so it wouldn't conduct.

11:17 There's a you know this is a [music] threaded fastener that we had in in stores.

11:22 So they they know exactly what we had aboard

11:26 the space shuttle and space station inventory and and that became

11:30 you know the uh uh the shopping list you know you know you need to go to such

11:35 and such a location aboard the the space station

11:37 and and get out the reel of 12-gauge wire

11:40 and and then they created a procedure around

11:43 that to to allow for the assembly of these [music] things.

11:46 And they had to be measured incredibly precisely.

11:49 So this couldn't be too too thick or it wouldn't go through the solar panel.

11:53 It couldn't be too long uh or it wouldn't wouldn't pass through.

11:56 The length of it had to be measured exactly to to spec.

12:01 So with the cufflinks made and Scott's wrists wrapped

12:04 in insulating tape it was time for the mission.

12:07 He left the ISS through the Quest airlock

12:09 and spacewalked his way to the edge of the ISS.

12:12 Here is where he would be picked up.

12:15 Yeah, so I I I was picked up you know on the truss of the International Space

12:20 Station using this as you mentioned the Canada

12:23 arm two and the orbital boom sensor inspection boom.

12:28 [music]

12:27 And then I had a 45-minute commute and it was a it was a wild ride because

12:31 you know it's a very ungainly robotic arm

12:34 system that was at risk of hitting other solar

12:38 panels hitting the other parts of the space

12:41 station and of course [music] they didn't want me

12:43 to get anywhere close to the the proximal solar

12:48 panels that we had to kind of work around.

12:51 [music] So it was a very complex maneuver that Stephanie had to fly me on.

12:55 And I I remember vividly we're all together.

12:58 This is a day before the spacewalk

13:00 hunkered together in the the air joint airlock.

13:04 My crew with Pam and Paolo Stephanie and Dan and George

13:10 and and uh Doug as well as the ISS crew

13:15 and we're they had created this animation of this extraordinary long

13:20 arc and how the the whole arm was going to be reoriented.

13:24 If a pin could drop in space you would have you would have heard it.

13:27 It was there was just all of our jaws were dropped.

13:30 We couldn't believe that we were about to go do something [music]

13:35 as wild as this but miraculously the you know

13:38 the plan that they came up with was a home run.

13:42 From his helmet camera you can see the mission unfold.

13:45 Once he got into position he got straight to work.

13:48 He cut the guide wire and started it to sew in the cufflinks.

13:51 One by one Scott installed five cufflinks into the solar

13:54 panel in a tense 7-hour mission outside the station.

13:58 But it worked.

13:59 The array extended fully restored to full functionality.

14:03 This repair remains one of the most complex spacewalks ever performed

14:07 and to this day the solar panel on P6 has those cufflinks Scott installed.

14:12 So did we ever actually figure out what caused

14:15 the damage to the guide wire in the first place?

14:18 I can't find it right now but they actually gave it to me.

14:20 It was really really cool.

14:22 What after I uh cut out the piece of frayed guide wire we

14:26 have a a trash can uh it's a just a tiny little pouch.

14:29 So I was able to store that bring

14:32 it uh back inside and ultimately back to Earth.

14:35 It was sent to a laboratory and they did analysis on it and determined

14:40 that [music] there was a tungsten which is a uh clearly a man-made

14:47 object had come in contact with this steel braid cable and had uh

14:53 clipped probably two of uh uh seven uh steel braids or steel strands.

15:01 So it's it's amazing you can actually you know do

15:03 the this that kind of sophisticated analysis on a tiny little piece of uh

15:09 [music] steel braid cable.

15:10 But it was clearly as a result of a man-made

15:12 object striking this guide wire in a unique way.

15:18 This is what makes building in space so unforgiving.

15:22 [music] All it takes is a fragment a tiny shard from an old

15:24 satellite racing around the Earth at thousands of kilometers an hour.

15:28 By pure chance it struck the ISS.

15:30 The damage was small but the risk was enormous.

15:33 After this successful repair Harmony was relocated

15:36 to the forward end of the Destiny lab.

15:38 The pressurized mating adapter two was then reattached to Harmony's

15:42 front end to serve at the new shuttle docking [music] port.

15:45 So what would have happened if you didn't fix the solar panels?

15:49 Yeah, there's a lot of conjecture there and I

15:52 don't know what mission managers would have ultimately decided

15:57 but I you know there was talk of us

15:59 having to go out and and jettison the solar panel.

16:02 That was the [music] the next thing that we would have had to have

16:04 done to make it safe for us to to undock.

16:07 The concern was you know there's quite a bit of momentum exerted when

16:11 the the uh the shuttle undocks and then there jet thrusters that are

16:15 fired and and those might have you know somehow [music] interacted

16:19 with the the ripped noodle solar panel out there and uh ripped it apart so

16:25 [music] um it's likely that we would have gone out on another spacewalk

16:28 thrown it away and and on a subsequent flight probably launched another

16:34 solar panel for the main reason that the space station program [music]

16:39 was really critical to the the power generation of that solar panel.

16:43 Um there European and Japanese modules that were just about to be launched.

16:48 It wouldn't have really been possible

16:49 to support them without that additional power.

16:53 Europe and Japan wanted their own

16:55 facilities where their astronauts could run experiments [music]

16:58 test new technologies and bring home results for their own space agencies.

17:02 STS-122 in February 2008 brought the answer [music]

17:06 the European Columbus laboratory carried into orbit aboard Atlantis.

17:11 Columbus was attached here to the starboard side of Harmony.

17:15 Two spacewalks connected it fully.

17:18 [music] With this single module Europe gained a permanent orbital research hub.

17:21 But scientific research wasn't Europe's goal alone.

17:24 Japan had its own ambitions and its own module Kibo.

17:27 The core pressurized module of the Kibo complex arrived in May 2008 on STS-124.

17:33 It is the largest module on the ISS

17:36 and is installed on the port side of Harmony.

17:38 Earlier flights had already delivered the logistics

17:40 module and the Japanese robotic arm.

17:43 With this final piece and after several spacewalks and robotic operations

17:47 Japan's vision of a complete research facility in orbit became real.

17:51 With the science labs needing extra power it was finally time to bring up

17:55 the last of the large solar panels bringing

17:57 the station to full power by March 2009.

18:01 But the solar panels on the ISS are not fixed in one position.

18:04 The station orbits Earth every 90 minutes

18:07 and its angle to the sun changes constantly.

18:10 Huge rotary joints rotate entire truss segments making a full

18:13 turn every orbit to keep the panels facing the sun.

18:17 The sun's angle also changes as Earth orbits around the sun.

18:21 Beta gimbal joints make vertical adjustments like this.

18:24 The daily adjustment is about 4° but over a year the panels can move up to 70°.

18:30 This is where the 51° orbit began to cause problems.

18:33 The panels were designed for the US only Freedom station

18:36 with a 28° orbit where every pass took it regularly into Earth shadow.

18:42 But the 51° orbit of the ISS means at certain times

18:45 of year the station stays in constant sunlight for long stretches.

18:50 In those periods the low angle of the sun causes one

18:53 set of arrays to cast shadows on the others cutting power.

18:57 Even worse parts of the same array can be in shadow while

19:00 other sections and their supporting beams take the full heat of the sun.

19:04 These beams that give structure to the wobbly solar panels are vulnerable.

19:08 Even 20 minutes of uneven shadowing can make sections heat and expand

19:11 at different rates twisting the mast and risking damage to the entire array.

19:16 Solar panel arrangement is an optimization problem.

19:19 While NASA came up with their solution they opened up a $30,000 prize to whoever

19:24 could create program that would optimize

19:26 the solar panels position while preventing problematic shadowing.

19:30 This is what they came up with.

19:31 A smooth turn of solar panels with slight delays to avoid these shadows.

19:35 This is what the station looked like by July 2009.

19:39 The station had come a long way but more was coming up.

19:42 One key capability was still missing exposure to open space.

19:46 In July 2009 STS-127 delivered Kibo's exposed facility

19:51 installed using both the Japanese arm and Canadarm 2.

19:55 Mounted outside the Kibo module, it finally let researchers expose materials,

19:59 equipment, and living organisms directly to the vacuum of space.

20:03 As operations grew more complex and long-term [music] stays became routine,

20:06 astronauts needed better life support and living quarters.

20:10 STS-130 answered that call in February

20:12 2010 [music] with the delivery of Tranquility.

20:15 It was mounted to the port side of Unity.

20:18 Tranquility brought new [music] air vitalization,

20:21 water recycling, and exercise equipment.

20:23 But, it also came with something else, just for fun, the Cupola,

20:27 an incredible panoramic viewing module that made

20:29 life on board the ISS much more enjoyable.

20:33 But, installation didn't always go smoothly.

20:35 Initially, the Cupola was attached to Tranquility

20:38 like this, not in its final location.

20:41 Once in space, the plan was for astronauts to attach

20:43 a thermal cover [music] over the Cupola and position it here.

20:47 But, astronauts were having a hard time placing the thermal cover.

20:50 The tolerances were much tighter than expected.

20:53 Bolts weren't included in the 3D models

20:55 of the Cupola to save memory on the file,

20:58 which meant the digital mock-ups didn't show

21:00 how little room actually existed [music] for installation.

21:03 To make it worse, the team realized that the Cupola

21:06 had been the only module mated with another module on Earth.

21:09 So, the extra gravity made the bolts [music] even tighter than expected,

21:13 which caused several bolts of the common

21:15 birthing system to jam during relocation.

21:18 This led to [music] tense last-minute calculations and meetings

21:21 to ensure the Cupola would fit without structural damage.

21:25 With all of those setbacks out of the way,

21:26 [music] the Cupola was finally moved to its

21:28 final location here on the nadir port of Tranquility.

21:31 [music] The Cupola's seven windows give astronauts an incredible

21:34 view while keeping them safe from the harsh environment outside.

21:39 [music] Each window is composed of an inner scratch pane,

21:41 two thick pressurized panes, and on the outside, a debris [music] pane shield.

21:45 When not in use, the windows are protected by manually operated shutters

21:49 that the crew open and [music] close with a simple hand crank.

21:52 This is a mechanical connection.

21:54 The shaft that turns the shutters runs straight through to the vacuum of space.

21:58 Only two O-rings stand between the interior atmosphere and the void outside.

22:03 Then came STS-135, the final space shuttle mission.

22:07 It brought up the Raffaello module, packed with spare parts,

22:09 [music] tools, and supplies to sustain the station in a post-shuttle world.

22:14 After the shuttle's retirement,

22:15 expansion continued [music] through Russia's launch services.

22:19 In July 2012, they launched the Mini Research Module 1, Rassvet.

22:22 [music] Attached to the nadir port of the Zarya module,

22:26 it provided cargo storage and internal [music] workspace.

22:29 But, relying on Russia was not in the United States' best interest.

22:33 This was the beginning of a new era.

22:35 The commercial space launch industry [music] was about to rapidly expand.

22:38 In January 2014, the Cygnus CRS-1 mission delivered a large

22:43 batch of supplies and experiments aboard an Orbital Sciences vehicle.

22:47 Around the same time, SpaceX Dragon missions also became a regular

22:51 part of ISS resupply and hardware delivery.

22:55 By 2015, the station had become fully operational.

22:58 It had multiple research labs, robotic systems,

23:00 [music] observation windows, and docking ports.

23:04 This technically marked the end of the original

23:05 [music] construction phase for the ISS, but more was coming.

23:10 The old shuttle era androgynous docking system had done its job for decades,

23:14 but it was big, heavy, and designed only for the space shuttle.

23:18 With new commercial spacecraft on the horizon,

23:20 [music] NASA needed something universal.

23:22 That change came with the International Docking Adapter.

23:25 It uses a modern androgynous system, but instead of a mechanical slam,

23:30 the adapter uses a soft capture system.

23:33 As a spacecraft approaches,

23:34 guidance sensors and small alignment petals gently draw it in.

23:38 Once contact is made, active latches close slowly and pull

23:41 the vehicles together for a tight, hard seal.

23:44 The process is fully automated, far smoother, and safer for both vehicles.

23:49 Technically, the adapter is smaller.

23:51 The docking tunnel is 0.8 m wide,

23:54 but the adapter's overall mass and complexity are much lower.

23:57 It's also equipped for power, data, and fluid transfer between vehicles,

24:01 something the old androgynous shuttle system couldn't do directly.

24:05 The first adapter was launched in 2015 aboard a SpaceX [music] Dragon capsule,

24:09 but never made it, lost in a launch failure just minutes after lift-off.

24:14 A year later, the second adapter reached orbit

24:17 packed inside the unpressurized trunk of a SpaceX Dragon.

24:20 Once at the station, the Canadarm 2 pulled it out and carefully positioned

24:24 it on the front end of pressurized mating adapter 2,

24:28 attached to the Harmony module.

24:30 The third built adapter arrived in 2019 aboard another Dragon.

24:34 Together, the two ports, one facing forward and one [music] facing zenith,

24:38 now serve as the main gateways for Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner.

24:42 For the first time since the shuttle era,

24:44 America had a way to bring its astronauts to the station

24:47 on its own vehicles using a docking system designed for the future.

24:51 It was now time to start experimenting with new ideas.

24:55 Back in the 1960s, NASA had explored

24:57 inflatable living spaces under a project called TransHab,

25:01 meant for deep space [music] missions.

25:03 When the program ended,

25:04 Bigelow Aerospace acquired the NASA patents and revived [music] the concept,

25:08 developing it into a commercial line of expandable space modules.

25:12 Launched on April 8th, [music] 2016, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module,

25:17 BEAM, rode to orbit folded inside the Dragon's capsule's trunk.

25:21 Once docked, the Canadarm [music] 2

25:23 reached in, pulled the compact cylinder free,

25:25 and attached it to the aft port of Tranquility.

25:28 At first, BEAM was only 2 m long and 2 and 1/2 m wide, a small folded package.

25:34 Once expanded, it grew to about 4 m [music] in length and 3 m in diameter.

25:38 Unlike the rest of the station's metal modules,

25:41 BEAM was made of layers of fabric, Vectran, Kevlar, and other high-strength

25:45 materials designed to protect against radiation,

25:47 micrometeorites, and temperature swings.

25:50 Inside, a flexible bladder held air and gave the module its shape once inflated.

25:55 What was meant to be a 2-year test kept [music] going, and today,

25:58 BEAM is still attached to the ISS, used for storage and data collection.

26:03 More importantly, it proved that soft-sided habitats could [music] work,

26:06 paving the way for future space stations,

26:09 lunar bases, and missions beyond Earth orbit.

26:12 As an engineer, the battle between Windows

26:14 and macOS isn't always just an issue of preference.

26:17 [music] It's an issue of productivity.

26:18 Most engineers use Windows,

26:20 and that's because there are countless engineering programs

26:23 [music] that just don't have a macOS build.

26:25 SolidWorks, one of the most popular design softwares, is Windows-only.

26:29 That's annoying if you prefer macOS for certain tasks.

26:32 [music] When I'm traveling, I much prefer my Mac.

26:35 It's reliable and it's light, and it works really well with my phone.

26:39 I can take a video on this and just AirDrop it straight to my laptop.

26:43 I've always wanted that kind of connectivity between my Mac and my PC,

26:47 and when the sponsor of this video reached out, I found out you could,

26:51 because I literally just installed this program to write this ad,

26:55 and I was sold within 5 seconds.

26:58 It took me 5 minutes to install on my PC and Mac,

27:01 and now I can use my PC's keyboard and mouse on my Mac.

27:05 Look, my mouse cursor even transfers over from my Mac.

27:08 That's incredible.

27:09 And there are so many ways I could use this.

27:11 I wouldn't even need to be near my second screen.

27:14 Synergy is a software that lets you control all

27:16 your nearby computers [music] with one keyboard and one mouse.

27:19 No dongles, no hardware boxes, no cables, and no cloud service.

27:23 Just install it, sign in, and all of your machines

27:26 discover each other automatically over your local network.

27:30 Then you drag them into a layout,

27:31 choose which one is the primary, and that's it.

27:34 When your mouse hits one edge of the screen,

27:36 Synergy instantly hands control to the next computer,

27:39 like all your machines have merged into one seamless setup.

27:42 And because it has a universal clipboard,

27:44 you can copy and paste text and images between [music] Windows,

27:47 Mac, and Linux like they're all running on the same operating system.

27:51 And all of this happens on your local network.

27:54 Nothing gets sent to the cloud.

27:55 Honestly, I'm so glad they reached out to sponsor,

27:58 because it's how I found out about them.

27:59 And I'm honestly excited to share this software, too.

28:02 If you want to try it yourself,

28:03 visit our link or use the discount code Real Engineering and get 50% off.