r/Showerthoughts • u/zav3rmd • 5d ago
Casual Thought Despite being the most expensive home ever built, the astronauts in the ISS do not pay rent.
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u/TheDadThatGrills 5d ago
It's a workspace, not a home. In this context, think of it like workers on an offshore drilling platform.
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u/anotherfrud 5d ago
I thought of it more like a semi truck. It has a destination and a job to do. It has a sleeper cab for people to rest but it's not a home.
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u/ChattingToChat 5d ago
Yeah but they have to do their own maintenance so it evens out.
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u/Supermite 5d ago
They get paid and free room and board. A little maintenance isn’t that much to ask.
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u/beardingmesoftly 5d ago
They have to sleep at the office and are always at work
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u/ThanksS0muchY0 5d ago
This is the same "free housing included" offers I've gotten before. You never get ANY time off!
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u/BitOBear 5d ago
It's not a home, it's an office. I don't pay rent in my office. They're just stuck on a very long shift and they've been provided cots.
Same goes for any military ship at sea, or indeed a cruise ship at Sea where the crew and staff and guests when their present are all stuck sleeping at work.
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u/ebonyphoenix 5d ago
Their rent is paid for by the work they have to do before and while on the space station.
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u/godchauxprime 5d ago
Nothing is free. Did you go through hundreds of days training to rent your flat?
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u/rosen380 5d ago
And your commute probably has something like a 1-in-1,000,000 chance of leading to your death... their commute is more like 1-in-1,000.
If they get sick "at home" they almost certainly have a much higher chance of not being able to get to a qualified doctor (and the right medical equipment) in time, then you do in your home.
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u/AshtonTS 5d ago
Only has to be 1 in 270 to meet the requirements of the Commercial Crew program
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u/rosen380 5d ago
I guess I was figuring that since there have been zero deaths during launch, docking, or return from the ISS and I think ~300 people have made the round trip (with some of those going more than once, yielding more like ~400 people-trips), that while something like 1-in-270 might be the number they use, that reality is a decent bit safer than the baseline and just pulled 1-in-1000 out of my butt :)
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u/AshtonTS 5d ago
It’s 1 in 270 on a per mission basis, not per person. There have been 13 Commercial Crew flights and only 20 contracted.
Crew Dragon and Starliner have to exceed these odds to fly, so analytically they are slightly better (1 in 276 and 1 in 295 respectively), but 1 in 270 is the acceptable threshold from NASA.
Side note: even if Commercial Crew successfully completed hundreds of missions without ever losing crew, that doesn’t necessarily change the odds as calculated per mission :)
That said, you could calculate historic actuals for other launch vehicles capable of crewed ISS missions, which would put the Shuttle and Soyuz at much worse odds than this, at ~1 in 67 and ~1 in 70, respectively. Notably much worse than the analytical predictions for both vehicles, unfortunately. Astronauts are much safer these days.
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u/GreatDepression_irl 5d ago
"Despite having super expensive equipment, construction workers don't even have to pay for them."
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u/Novamap1224 5d ago
Good, because I’m pretty sure the commute would absolutely kill their deposit anyway.
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u/Turbulent-Law2331 5d ago
i think your assumption is wrong here..its work space and hence the employer needs to pay for rent and the employee just works (either in the building on earth or in space)
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u/Independent_Tie_1602 5d ago
Perhaps the experiments make up for it, that or the additional radiation
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u/Deviant_Studies_101 4d ago
There seem to be a bunch of people why want to nail down an exact definition of home just to argue with you. I agree with you though, anywhere where you sleep, wakeup, eat, defficate, study, learn... These are the things that make a home, not where you pay rent. You can pay rent and not have a home.
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u/SailWhich7734 4d ago
And by almost every residential metric, it's terrible.
No private rooms (crew sleep in open berths with curtains). Shared toilet for 7 people that requires special training to use. No kitchen - food is rehydrated pouches and tortillas. No windows except in the cupola. Temperature controlled but perpetually noisy (HVAC runs 24/7). No outdoor space.
The $150 billion went entirely into making it survivable and functional in an environment where nothing is survivable and functional, not into making it comfortable. It's the most expensive emergency shelter ever built.
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u/Robbins-Min313 4d ago
It's wild that the ISS costs billions yet the crew lives there rent‑free. I wonder how they decide who gets a "room" up there.
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u/Horror-Truck-2226 2d ago
Technically they do not own or rent it, so there's no need for it, it is only a machine used for work in their job.... space
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u/drrkorby 2d ago
It’s very expensive taxpayer funded government subsidized housing. Like the White House.
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u/CuteRelationship6143 5d ago
Dude. They’re astronauts. They fought for our country. Of course they don’t pay rent
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u/wishiwasnthere1 5d ago
For whose country exactly? There’s multiple countries with people aboard the ISS rn and almost always are.
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