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Take a Virtual Tour of the International Space Station (Video)

Here's your chance to see what the inside of the ISS is actually like.

Not everyone will get the chance to explore space, but this virtual tour of the International Space Station (ISS) comes pretty close.

Google Arts & Culture is a treasure trove for the history, art, and science lover. This platform has been around for a few years, but since the coronavirus outbreak started it has become a must-see for anyone who wants to enrich themselves during lockdown.

Virtual tours of museums, national parks, and popular tourist attractions have certainly been excellent ways to educate and entertain yourself at home, but there’s another collection of online tours and exhibits that space and science lovers should definitely see — including a 360-degree tour of the ISS .

This virtual tour uses Google Street View to explore the space station as if you’re really inside it. Move through the narrow tunnels, see the massive amounts of equipment, and generally experience what it’s like to be a real astronaut.

In addition, there are lots of other ways to explore space on Google Arts & Culture. One fascinating online exhibit is dedicated to the moon landing (which is coming up on its 51st anniversary this year). Take a deeper dive into the Apollo space program by exploring the hundreds of photos from the Apollo 11 mission, as well as stories on the Columbia Memorial Space Center and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

Google Arts & Culture also has an amazing fact sheet that details 10 “out-of-this-world” facts about the International Space Station (ISS), which is perfect to help kids supplement their online learning experience while most schools are closed. Plus, there is a collection of eight truly stunning photographs from space that will make you appreciate our little blue planet even more.

There are also dozens of specific online exhibits to choose from, such as an exhibit focused on women in space, an exploration of aviation history, and a collection of videos that are all about space exploration.

For more information, take the virtual tour, or see an online space exhibit, visit the Space Exploration page on Google Arts & Culture.

New Virtual Tour Lets You Explore the International Space Station

Very few people get to fly to low Earth orbit, let alone live there. But now, the rest of us can enjoy a simulation of the experience, thanks to a new virtual tour of the International Space Station (ISS) created by the European Space Agency. 

Available in six languages — English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch — the narrated video takes the viewer on an end-to-end journey through the station, inside and out. Americans may particularly enjoy a close look at the Russian side of the space station, which is rarely featured in NASA photos. 

Space buffs will recognize some file footage, but the full edited movie provides the illusion of being weightless inside the ISS and flying closely outside it. A 3D version of the video is available on YouTube , and is best viewed, of course, through stereoscopic 3D glasses. 

A short segment showing cosmonauts eating a meal gives a real sense of what it looks and feels like to eat in space. The narrator notes that there are no showers on board the space station, and that sponge baths are the rule. 

Ultimately, the virtual tour provides a sense of the enormous scale of the station's real estate. Although the living quarters are limited — in fact, they're even more cramped than a submarine — the station itself is nearly large enough to get lost in. At nearly four times as large as the Russian space station Mir , it's the biggest thing humans have ever built in space. 

You can Follow Jesse Empsak  @Mad_Science_Guy .  Follow us  @Spacedotcom ,  Facebook  or  Google+ .  Originally published on  Space.com .

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Jesse Emspak is a freelance journalist who has contributed to several publications, including Space.com, Scientific American, New Scientist, Smithsonian.com and Undark. He focuses on physics and cool technologies but has been known to write about the odder stories of human health and science as it relates to culture. Jesse has a Master of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley School of Journalism, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Rochester. Jesse spent years covering finance and cut his teeth at local newspapers, working local politics and police beats. Jesse likes to stay active and holds a fourth degree black belt in Karate, which just means he now knows how much he has to learn and the importance of good teaching.

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You Can Now Tour the International Space Station From the Comfort of Your Home

You can now travel to space without decades of hard work and training..

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Chances are the coronavirus outbreak has curtailed any ambitious summer vacation plans you may have had. But as far as Google is concerned, that doesn’t need to be the case. In fact, the internet giant wants to take you to space.

Google Arts & Culture now offers a full, 360-degree virtual tour of the International Space Station, and it’s accessible to anyone with internet access. Making use of the company’s Street View technology, the tour lets you explore every single nook and cranny of the 21-year-old space station without the decades of hard work and preparation that would normally require.

A look inside the International Space Station  Google Arts & Culture

While you won’t get to experience the feel of floating through the space station, Google’s digital exhibition feels like the next best thing. You can travel down any of ISS’s long and winding tunnels and look around all of its equipment-packed rooms. You can even check out the crew quarters and see some of the astronauts’ personal items.

In addition to the tour, Google has also whipped up a fun and educational ISS-themed informational program. Aimed specifically at younger virtual space tourists, the show attempts to illustrates what life on the station is like. It covers everything from what and how the visiting astronauts eat to the effect that zero-gravity takes on their bodies while they orbit the Earth.

Google Arts & Culture

If your virtual trip to the ISS has only managed to stoke your appetite for more space content, Google has you covered. The station tour is just one of several digital exhibitions Arts & Culture has on its Space Exploration page. Other exhibitions of interest include a closer look at the moon landing , a tribute to women who have gone to space , as well as scores of high-definition video content shot from space. Of course, if your virtual traveling interests are more earthbound, there’s still plenty of content for you to check out on Arts & Culture, too. The company also has countless virtual tours of tourist attractions, national parks and museums around the world.

Bryan Hood is a digital staff writer at Robb Report. Before joining the magazine, he worked for the New York Post, Artinfo and New York magazine, where he covered everything from celebrity gossip to…

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Let this astronaut show you around the International Space Station

Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen made a ‘keepsake’ tour video before returning to Earth.

By Andrew Paul | Published Apr 12, 2024 1:00 PM EDT

Andreas Mogensen returned to Earth in mid-March after a six-and-a-half month stint aboard the International Space Station . To mark his tenure as part of NASA’s Crew-7 mission, the Danish European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut has shared his souvenir from undock day—a guided video tour of the ISS.

It’s been a month now since I left the International @Space_Station . One of the very last things that I did on undock day, was film a tour of the Space Station. It is as much a keepsake for me as it is a way for me to share the wonder of the International Space Station with you.… pic.twitter.com/oFR0VXR06A — Andreas Mogensen (@Astro_Andreas) April 12, 2024

“It’s been a month now since I left the [ISS],” Mogensen posted to X early Friday morning. “… It is as much a keepsake for me as it is a way for me to share the wonder of the International Space Station with you. Whenever I will miss my time onboard ISS, and especially my crewmates, I will have this video to look at.”

Mogensen began his show-and-tell in the space station’s front end, above which a docked SpaceX Dragon craft awaited to take him home on March 12. On his left is the roughly 114-by-22-foot Columbus module—a science laboratory provided by the ESA back in 2008. Across from the lab is the smaller Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), nicknamed Kibō, which arrived not long after Columbus.

From there, Mogensen provides a first-person look at various other ISS facilities, including workstations, storage units, bathrooms, gym equipment, multiple docking nodes, and even the station kitchen. Of course, given the delicate environment, that module looks more like another lab than an actual place to cook meals—presumably because, well, no one is actually cooking anything up there.

But the most stunning area in the entire ISS is undoubtedly the cupola, which provides a 360-degree panoramic view of Earth, as well as a decent look at the space station’s overall size.

[Related: What a total eclipse looks like from the ISS .]

Speaking of which, Mogenen’s video also does a great job showcasing just how comparatively small the ISS really is, even after over 25 years of module and equipment additions. At 356-feet-long, it’s just one yard shy of the length of a football field, but any given module or transit space is only a few feet wide. Factor in the copious amounts of cargo, equipment, supplies, experiment materials, as well as the over 8-miles of cabling that wire its electrical systems, and it makes for pretty tight living conditions. Near the end of Mogensen’s tour, it only takes him a little over a minute to glide through most of the entire station back to his original starting point.

Of course, none of that undercuts one of humanity’s most monumental achievements in space exploration. Although the ISS is nearing the end of its tenure (it’s scheduled for decommission in 2031 ), Mogensen’s keepsake is a great document of what life is like aboard the habitat. But for those now looking for an even more detailed tour, there’s always NASA’s virtual walkthrough .

Andrew Paul is Popular Science's staff writer covering tech news. Previously, he was a regular contributor to The A.V. Club and Input, and has had recent work also featured by Rolling Stone, Fangoria, GQ, Slate, NBC, as well as McSweeney's Internet Tendency. He lives outside Indianapolis.

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Tour of the International Space Station

During their missions to the International Space Station, ESA astronauts Pedro Duque and André Kuipers each recorded a tour of the Station. The streaming videos can be replayed using Windows Media Player or QuickTime, simply click on one of the links below.

ISS tour with Pedro Duque (October 2003)

ISS tour André Kuipers (April 2004)

To view the videos you will need:

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International Space Station

The International Space Station’s role as a scientific laboratory and test bed for deep-space technology is crucial to humanity’s ability to improve life on Earth while pursuing opportunities in space.

Laboratory, Proving Ground, Home

The International Space Station (ISS) is a permanently crewed on-orbit laboratory that enables scientific research supporting innovation on Earth and future deep space exploration. From design to launch, 15 countries collaborated to assemble the world's only permanently crewed orbital facility, which can support up to seven astronauts and 300 to 400 experiments per crew increment, across an array of disciplines. The ISS is the cornerstone of human activity in low Earth orbit, a cooperative global effort to expand our knowledge and improve life on Earth while testing technology that will build a LEO economy and extend our reach to the moon, Mars and beyond.

Boeing officially turned over the U.S. on-orbit segment of the ISS to NASA in 2010 and continues to provide key engineering support services and continual capability enhancements, as well as processing for laboratory experiment racks. Due to its modular systems and the limited degradation of the space environment, technical assessments have shown the station could safely operate beyond 2030 if NASA and its international partners choose to do so.

Feature Stories

Commercial opportunities in low earth orbit.

ISS is hitting its stride as an incubator and business model in the commercial space ecosystem. Among the entities benefiting from ISS access is the Boeing-founded Genes in Space, a STEM contest that challenges students to design DNA analysis experiments for the ISS National Lab (managed by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, or CASIS). Winners’ experiments are launched to ISS to be performed by astronauts, with published results.

Genes in Space 2019 winners Finsam Samson and Yujie Wang designed an experiment to analyze the impact of microgravity on gene expression. Their work may enable medical interventions for astronauts while in space, and therapies for people with stress-related health conditions on Earth.

Boeing also partners with the ISS U.S. National Lab on the MassChallenge startup accelerator’s “Technology in Space” competition. Winning companies receive funding and the opportunity to have their research conducted on the station so they can advance them to market. Qlibrium of Boston had its patch-sized, wearable drug-delivery pump launched to ISS in 2020. The technology holds promise for improved medicine delivery on Earth and on voyages through deep space.

Expanding science and technology development in low Earth orbit means expanding access. Boeing collaborated with Nanoracks on the payload services provider’s Bishop Airlock on ISS. It will open the station to more commercial users and research.

Benefits for Deep Space Exploration

The United States’ goal of sustained human exploration of deep space relies on advanced technologies such as surface habitats.

Boeing’s deep-space surface habitat concept builds on the company’s experience from designing, building and operating the ISS for more than 20 years, including recent advances such as superefficient lithium-ion batteries and roll-out solar arrays. Boeing is working on a habitation module and an airlock module that doubles as additional living/work space.

The ISS also gives researchers a unique environment to investigate the physiological and psychological effects of long-duration spaceflight, and to test deep-space technologies, in preparation for crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.

Boeing Surface Habitat Demonstrator - Exterior

Boeing Surface Habitat Demonstrator – Habitation Module

Boeing Surface Habitat Demonstrator – Research Area

Sustainability Is Built In

The International Space Station has inspired sustainability efforts here on Earth. From the station's smaller, more efficient solar arrays to its global humanitarian applications, see how discoveries on orbit help us innovate for a better tomorrow

ISS Video Tour

This NASA fly-through of the International Space Station uses a fisheye lens for extreme focus and depth of field. It’s narrated by Boeing Mission Evaluation Room Manager Jennifer Hammond.

International Space Station Gallery

International Space Station Technical Specifications

The nations of the international space station.

NASA selected Boeing as prime contractor for the International Space Station on Aug. 17, 1993, and the original cost-plus-award-fee contract began on Jan. 13, 1995. Boeing is responsible for maintaining the station at peak performance levels so the full value of the unique research laboratory is available to NASA, its international partners, other U.S. government agencies and private companies.

Netherlands

Switzerland

United Kingdom

United States