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I took the virtual tour of the ISS - and my first impression was "What a mess!"

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Okay, I understand any elements should be easy to move; any "decorative" elements like locker doors add unnecessary weight to the orbit, without gravity there's no need to attach anything in a really sturdy way...

but as one moves through the station, without means to perform a rapid, unplanned stop, it seems to me it's all too easy to get tangled on all the hundreds of loose wires forming a thick layer of canopy over the walls, and rip something out of its socket.

Is there a particular reason the wires aren't trimmed to needed distance, bundled snugly along the walls, or drawn through dedicated ducts, but instead are left coiling all over the place, hard to troubleshoot, easy to damage, and creating visual chaos that is hardly conductive to productive work?

Max Q Lagrange
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SF.
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    See Why does the interior of the ISS appear so disorganized? – TildalWave Oct 19 '15 at 13:46
  • This still doesn't explain all the wires being simply needlessly long. It has nothing in common with storage space or being under-manned. Shorter wires = lower payload to orbit and less room on ISS occupied, and I guess people on the ground should know where each device will get installed and should be able to plan ahead how long a wire is needed to connect to all the necessary sockets, instead of giving everything two meters of extra slack. – SF. Oct 19 '15 at 14:22
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    @SF Why do you think they are needlessly long ? The design might need to be flexible. – Antzi Oct 19 '15 at 15:06
  • @called2voyage: STILL doesn't explain why they use 3 meters of wire to connect to a socket 15cm away. – SF. Oct 19 '15 at 15:34
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    @SF. "They want to be as efficient as possible. This means when they install a new experiment or piece of gear, they will do enough work to make it functional, but they won't spend the extra time necessary to make it super neat." This applies to that case as well. An astronaut likely thinks "I may need to connect this to that port over there at some point" and thus leaves the extra length for flexibility, as Antzi indicated. – called2voyage Oct 19 '15 at 16:03
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    I'm not exactly sure what you mean with lose wires? I don't see any loose wires, they're all neatly tacked away and don't fly freely inside the station at all. Actually, quite a lot of effort on the ISS goes to securing workplaces and organizing where anything is stored. But it's a workplace, not a museum, so some of it might look untidy to laymen. Cables are longer than needed when rolled and the station / equipment is not in use because they're needed longer when used. See where they connect to. They all connect to mobile equipment. Stationary equipment doesn't have any loose wires. – TildalWave Oct 19 '15 at 16:39
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    Also, there's plenty of space left to push yourself away, and forces involved probably aren't as high as you anticipated. If you watched astronauts on the station work, they'd frequently push away even from their notebook that's placed on a movable stand. ISS astronauts don't push themselves with much force so their movement doesn't translate to station's vibration and/or change in its attitude. It is a microgravity laboratory after all. See this video to appreciate how much force is needed to move about the station https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHQU92nGE1Y – TildalWave Oct 19 '15 at 16:47

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