Deck the Station With ?

The International Space Station (ISS) is a research facility currently being assembled in Low Earth Orbit. On-orbit construction of the station began in 1998 and is scheduled to be complete by 2011, with operations continuing until at least 2015. This week the astronauts brought to the space station an outdoor porch. On Saturday they installed it.

This is a smart move for the cash strapped NASA, because an outdoor deck is the number one thing you can do to a home to increase its resale value. According to the annual Cost vs. Value survey jointly sponsored by Remodeling and Realtor magazines, a typical American homeowner who adds a deck could recoup 75 percent of the total cost if he or she sold the house within a year of the deck’s construction it says here.

Cost and value of decks varied from region to region.

In metropolitan Boston, where a similar deck costs about $7,600 to build, a homeowner can expect to recoup 139 percent of his investment at sale time. On Long Island, where it costs $7,800, the return is 112 percent. In Westchester County, N.Y., Albany, and Baltimore, the return is only about 50 percent. No figures are available for low earth orbit as yet. You know the real estate add will say "spectacular Earth views".

Adding a wooden deck costs $10,601 and adds $8,676 in value, 81.8% of the cost, it is estimated at another website. (We don't know the cost of adding a titanium deck, though. The total cost of the Japanese lab segment with the porch is one billion dollars it says here (and people complaint about the cost of building with union labor!). By comparison, minor kitchen remodeling costs $21,246 and adds $16,881 in value, 79.5% of the cost, it says here. However, the astronauts are once again having trouble with the commodes on the space station, and having enough working bathrooms is important when you go to resell that space station to some third world space agency, or some unsuspecting hick space traveler from a planet in the boondocks of the Milky Way.

The International Space Agency had planned to build the porch last year, but the recession made it very difficult to get a construction loan. Finally they got one, but we suspect that Home Depot or Lowe's may own the naming rights. ("An outer space deck? You can build it, we can help!") Part of the problem may have been that it's a long way to go to hang a "For Sale by Bank" sign if they have to foreclose.

The Italian Space Agency (Italian: Agenzia Spaziale Italiana; ASI) is also participating in the ISS, but they want to build a portico.

Certainly when the astronauts get up in the morning they'll want to step out onto the porch with a cup of hot coffee Tang in a mug, but first they'll have to hold out their hands to see if there's a meteor shower. And if the Pope ever comes to visit, he could bless the entire Earth from this outside balcony. But you really can't sit on the sixteen square feet in a rocking chair or on a porch swing, because without gravity if you rock backwards, you'll just keep going.

It's a great place to hang out with your new solar grill and barbecue a few steaks without smoke and ashes floating all over the inside of the space station.

Next year they plan to screen the porch to keep out those intergalactic insects.

o0o

In other news, an 81 year old man drove in a NASCAR event in California. His left turn blinker was on the whole way.

Quiz for extra credit: What major league baseball player has a name that, on paper at least, is an oxymoron? Answer tomorrow.