Main Page
Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 3204 xkcd comics, and only 59 (1.8%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!
Latest comic
| International Station |
 Title text: Welcome to the International Space Station Exclamation Point! |
Explanation
This comic plays on different meanings of the word 'space': firstly as the invisible character between words, and secondly as in the void between astronomical bodies. In this case, it is claimed that the word 'space' was never meant to be part of the name of the International Space Station, 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". The resulting accidental name was then accepted, due to it being apt or inconvenient to change.
The title text furthers the joke by transcribing the exclamation mark at the end of the phrase. (This is 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 word 'point' can sometimes be used to refer to a specific location within a wider space, such as a muster point. The "International Space Station Exclamation Point", then, may sound like it refers to a named location in the International Space Station (the "Exclamation Point") that is specifically intended for making exclamations (such as the one in the title text).
Similar problems to these can occur when customers order signboards. They sometimes come with unintended quotation marks, because the customer writes the signage text with quotation marks, with the expectation that the signmaker will ignore them. Or they may give the order verbally, resulting in similar problems as seen in the comic, or even more comprehensive failures.
While the ISS had other names during its design, such as Space Station Freedom or Alpha, it does not appear that NASA or Roscosmos literally originally referred to it as just International Station. The Russian name for it is "Международная Kосмическая Cтанция" (MKC) or "Mezhdunaródnaya Kosmícheskaya Stántsiya", which translates as "International Space Station" using the cosmic, non-punctuation meaning of "space".
The ISS made the news on 15 January 2026, the day prior to the release of this comic, due to the early return of some crewmembers to Earth for medical reasons.
Transcript
- [Ponytail is talking to Cueball. They seem to be floating in a weightless environment, 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.
View comic discussionNew here?
Last 7 days (Top 10) |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to create an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for xkcd comics, characters, What If? articles, and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd comic, it should be here.
- If you're new to wiki editing, see the explain xkcd:Editor FAQ for a specific guidance to this wiki and the more general help on how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.
- Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.
- You can browse the comics from the list of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.
- The incomplete explanations are listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!
Rules
Don't be a jerk!
There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.
If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.
Please only submit material directly related to xkcd and, of course, only submit material that can legally be posted and freely edited. Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.
If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.
