The International Space Station is a shared laboratory where people live while circling Earth.
NASA puts the mass at 925,335 pounds (about 420 metric tons). End to end, it runs longer than a football field.
A crew has been aboard without a break since November 2000.
Seven people live and work there now.
They circle the planet in about 90 minutes at roughly 17,500 mph.
In one day the station makes many full laps and never stops.
It does not hover over a single point on the map.
It flies in the thin upper atmosphere. That air is sparse, but it still drags the station down. Engines fire from time to time and push it back up to about 250 miles.
How much mass is that on the ground?
About 70 African elephants.
The herd is not standing in a field.
It circles the planet with seven people sealed inside pressurized modules.
NASA compares the space in those modules with the cabin of a Boeing 747.
The cabin is a passenger jet.
The weight is a whole herd in orbit.
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