It's finally done...thanks for your patience everyone.  I've wanted to make this animation for so long and now it's finally here!  The script went through multiple revisions to get to where it is now.  I had family and friends watch it who know almost nothing about the ISS.  They asked really good questions such as "what is a docking port?" and "where can the astronauts actually go?"  

4 days of continuous rendering on my computer and only a few hours of lost sleep over this.  I think it was worth it.

I almost split this into a two part animation but I decided not to...  Hopefully one long animation is better is better than 2 parts?  I've received some comments on my Apollo Spacecraft series saying it should have been one long video.  If you have any thoughts on this please let me know.

I think I literally could have made this thing into a full hour documentary (given enough time and $$).  So much good information here!  Here are few cool pieces of information that I didn't include in the animation:

-All astronauts aboard the ISS must be fluent in English and Russian.

-The space shuttle is now retired so all astronauts are currently flown the station in the Soyuz Spacecraft.

-When the P6 Truss was being relocated (Oct 2007), it developed a tear while unfolding again. The whole truss segment was almost discarded.  Don't worry - they fixed it.😲

-Since the Canadarm2 can attach at either end of it's arms, it can "walk" around the station to wherever it's needed.  Combined with Dextre and the MBS, this is extremely powerful.  (check out this neat video)

-The ISS occasionally needs to be moved slightly to avoid space rocks or debris.  (remember that the station is moving many times faster than a bullet)

-There several canceled ISS modules that still appear in artistic renderings of the ISS.  (I may do a video on these cancelled modules)

I plan on doing more animations on the ISS in the near future.  Please let me know what you want to see next.