3195: International Station

International Station

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Title text: Welcome to the International Space Station Exclamation Point!

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Explanation

This is one of 59 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a BOT APOSTROPHE S SPACE TRANSLATION SPACE ERROR PERIOD. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

This joke makes fun of the parity between 'space', as in the invisible character between words, and 'space', as in the void between astronomical bodies. In this case, it is said that the word 'space' was never meant to be part of the name of the name, but was included as a word due to a transcription error.

The presumption is therefore that someone thought it necessary to say the name as "International (space) Station," perhaps to quash any misconception that the intended name might be "InternationalStation" (however capitalised). Someone else would have written this down as International Space Station, with the accidental name being accepted due to resulting name being acceptably apt or inconvenient to change.

The title text furthers the joke by transcribing the exclamation mark at the end of the phrase, similar to 3143: Question Mark. There were also multiple examples of strings, with punctuation (literal and otherwise) and spelling easy to misconvey in 1963: Namespace Land Rush, though none of them used either spaces or "space"s. The full name of "International Space Station Exclamation Point" may also sound like it refers to a location in the International Space Station by the name of "Exclamation Point".

The ISS made the news on 15 January 2026, the day prior to the release of this comic, due to the unprecedented evacuation of its crew to Earth for medical reasons.

In a similar vein, when customers order signboards, they sometime come with unintended quotation marks. The customer writes the signage text with quotation marks, with the expectation that the signmaker would ignore them.

Transcript

This is one of 37 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[Ponytail is talking to Cueball. They seem to be floating in space, surrounded by a wrench, a book, two sheets of paper and some debris.]

Ponytail: You know, NASA and Roscosmos actually originally named it the International Station, but a translation issue led someone to accidentally transcribe the formatting.

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Discussion

Holy refresh pull exclamation mark! tilde tilde tilde tilde --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 14:55, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Should the "not-earth" "space" be changed to something like "the void between astronomical bodies"? I'm not sure if, say, the surface of the Moon or Mars or Eminiar VII count as being "in space". BunsenH (talk) 15:27, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

I initially interpreted the cartoon as showing the people and objects floating within something gloopy, and the wrench as a bone, and that the joke was about an "internal space station". Here we are, inside a gelatinous cube, or possibly a gigantic space amoeba... BunsenH (talk) 15:43, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

New Category: Weightless There are a few strips that take place demonstrating micro-gravity, right? Is that worthy of a category? The 'space' tag could be used for comics about space or comics in space (or, I guess, comics on planets?). 191.101.157.82 17:08, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

I think the ISS was originally called start quote Alpha end quote period tilde tilde tilde tilde 134.173.108.120 18:23, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm early! 2603:7083:8700:E02:FE51:837E:B6F:327 18:24, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

It took me a moment to get it, but when I did this xkcd made me capitals LOL which doesn't happen often 2401:D005:D402:7A00:7FE1:F042:B839:91B8 21:23, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

You forgot tilde tilde tilde tilde tilde tilde tilde tilde --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 21:31, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

At least it's not the International Ampersand En Bee Ess Pee Semicolon Station ellipsis tilde tilde tilde tilde 174.142.148.226 21:42, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Speaking of Ampersand Aa Em Pee Semicolon, that's a real life example of this effect actually happening. It was at the end of the alphabet where they would say "X, Y, Z, and, per sé, 'and'". Tilde tilde tilde tilde. Not sure if that is relevant enough to the comic though. Tharkon (talk) 02:26, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Dear Bot, don't get this Irishperson started on apostrophes. 205.175.118.102 22:57, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

From John Littlewood's "A Mathematician's Miscellany": A minute I wrote (about 1917) for the Ballistic Office ended with the sentence 'Thus a should be made as small as possible'. This did not appear in the printed minute. But P. J. Grigg said, 'what is that?' A speck in a blank space at the end proved to be the tiniest a I have ever seen (the printers must have scoured London for it).Lord Pishky (talk) 03:59, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
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