A lot of things. For example, you could buy all the houses in a small city. Or you could buy 150 million pizzas. But the ISS buys you something way cooler: a place where astronauts eat freeze-dried ice cream and do experiments on fire in zero gravity. That’s basically a high school science fair but with spacesuits and no parents yelling at you to clean your room.
It also buys you a front-row seat to Earth. Astronauts on the ISS see 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every single day. Meanwhile, you’re stuck in traffic, watching one sunrise through a dirty windshield. The ISS is the ultimate real estate with a view—if you don’t mind the occasional micrometeorite threat and the fact that you have to pee into a vacuum hose.
A Little Anecdote from My Kitchen
I remember once trying to fix a leaky faucet. I spent an hour under the sink, got covered in water, and the pipe still dripped. On the ISS, they had a leak in a cooling system last year. A real coolant leak. The astronauts fixed it with spare parts and duct tape (yes, they use duct tape in space). If they can do that while floating, I can handle a faucet. But let’s be real: I still call a plumber.
Bookmarks 100 : 10 Most Expensive Things In The World (Video
The point is, the ISS is about human grit. It’s the most expensive object because it’s the most complicated. It’s like your home’s HVAC system, except it’s powered by solar panels the size of a basketball court and has to support six humans in total isolation. Your basement furnace is a cheap toy by comparison.
