Microgravity: living on the International Space Station

Welcome to this free badged open course on Microgravity! This course will be covering questions such as, how does the International Space Station (ISS) orbit the Earth? Is circular motion involved? What about the forces? Are they pushing or pulling the ISS to the Earth? What would happen if these forces suddenly disappeared? How does a rocket overcome the Earth’s gravity? How has human endeavour in space impacted on other aspects of our lives? As well as GPS and studying the stars, it has also helped us to study the ageing process! The ISS helps us to study Biology, Chemistry, Quantum Physics and even banking and security! There will be interviews with several scientists along the way. But what about the cost of the ISS? Do you think that it is justified? Finally, could you be an astronaut or a scientist?! Transcript This OpenLearn science course was produced with the kind support of Dangoor Education, the educational arm of The Exilarch's Foundation. This course is accredited by the CPD Standards Office. It can be used to provide evidence of continuing professional development and on successful completion of the course you will be awarded 24 CPD points. Evidence of your CPD achievement is provided on the free Statement of Participation awarded on completion.Anyone wishing to provide evidence of their enrolment on this course is able to do so by sharing their Activity Record on their OpenLearn Profile, which is available before completion of the course and earning of the Statement of Participation. Enrolling on the course will give you the opportunity to earn an Open University digital badge. Badges are not accredited by The Open University but they're a great way to demonstrate your interest in the subject and commitment to your career, and to provide evidence of continuing professional development.Once you are signed in, you can manage your digital badges online from My OpenLearn. In addition, you can download and print your OpenLearn statement of participation - which also displays your Open University badge.The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-course survey 67. Once you complete the course we would also value your feedback and suggestions for future improvement, in our optional end-of-course survey 68. Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.

• Introduction and guidance
• Introduction and guidance
• What is a badged course?
• How to get a badge
• Acknowledgements
• Week1Week 1 Microgravity and the International Space Station
• Introduction
• 1 Microgravity and the ‘vomit comet’
• 2 The International Space Station
• 3 How astronauts get up there
• 3.1 How to launch a rocket
• 3.2 Location of launch sites
• 4 How the ISS stays up there
• 4.1 Practical experiment 1
• 5 Is there any gravity on the ISS?
• 6 This week’s quiz
• 7 Summary
• References
• Acknowledgements
• Week2Week 2 Ageing and microgravity environments
• Introduction
• 1 An introduction to ageing
• 2 Ageing forecasts by country
• 3 Bed rest and ageing
• 4 Reducing the effects of ageing in a microgravity environment
• 5 Research on astronauts and the ageing process
• 6 Measuring your heart and respiration rates
• 6.1 Practical experiment 2
• 7 Comparing the heart rates of animals and human beings
• 8 Preparing for the bread mold experiment
• 9 This week’s quiz
• 10 Summary
• Acknowledgements
• Week3Week 3 The quantum world
• Introduction
• 1 Research areas and orders of magnitude
• 2 An introduction to quantum science
• 3 Diffraction of waves
• 4 Sodium D-lines and the hydrogen atom
• 5 Quantum energy levels
• 6 The double-slit experiment
• 7 LASER cooling: researching quantum effects
• 8 Gravity, timing and metrology
• 9 Communication and security
• 10 This week’s quiz
• 11 Summary
• References
• Acknowledgements
• Week4Week 4 Researching online sources
• Introduction
• 1 Do weird physics effects also occur in nature?
• 2 Microgravity research and its impact
• 2.1 Disciplines in space research
• 2.2 PROMPT criteria
• 3 Travelling to Mars
• 4 This week’s quiz
• 5 Summary
• Acknowledgements
• Week5Week 5 Bacteria and fungi
• Introduction
• 1 Microbes, bacteria and fungi
• 2 Your bread mold experiment and yeast
• 3 ‘Space bugs’
• 4 Random positioning machines
• 5 Can microbes survive elsewhere in the Universe?
• 6 The habitability of planets
• 7 This week’s quiz
• 8 Summary
• References
• Acknowledgements
• Week6Week 6 Microgravity environments on Earth
• Introduction
• 1 Felix Baumgartner’s record freefall jump
• 2 Using drop towers to simulate microgravity
• 3 Practical experiment 3
• 4 Forming planets: an introduction
• 5 Forming planets: using models
• 6 This week’s quiz
• 7 Summary
• References
• Acknowledgements
• Week7Week 7 Space exploration and science
• Introduction
• 1 How much does the ISS cost?
• 2 How much does space exploration cost NASA?
• 3 How much does space exploration cost the USA?
• 4 How much do space missions cost the world?
• 5 Space research and its impact on social issues and problems
• 6 Is there a difference between ‘good science’ and ‘bad science’?
• 7 This week’s quiz
• 8 Summary
• References
• Acknowledgements
• Week8Week 8 To the ISS, Moon and Mars!
• Introduction
• 1 The astronaut challenge
• 2 Astronauts: do you have what it takes?
• 3 Human exploration
• 4 Current and future microgravity research
• 5 This week’s quiz
• 6 Summary
• Take the next step
• Tell us what you think
• References
• Acknowledgements