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> to reach the center in Houston, orbiting astronauts have to dial 9 for an outside line, followed by 011 for an international line > His comms slip-up set off

> to reach the center in Houston, orbiting astronauts have to dial 9 for an outside line, followed by 011 for an international line > His comms slip-up set off a security alert at the Houston center, he explained, with emergency staff to check the room where the space station’s line connected to Earth. Dialing 9 and "outside lines" implies there's some sort of PBX system, which makes sense. What I don't get though, is if the outside lines are in Houston, why do you have to dial the international access code 011 to call Houston? I thought maybe there was a country code allocated to the ISS, but according to a Reddit thread, they just use Houston numbers [1]. I think the first bit from the article is just a mistake (eg he wasn't calling a Houston number, just through Houston). Aside, it's amazing how many (new) PBXs still use the "dial 9" requirement. If you dial a 10 digit number (in North America), it's obviously destined for an outside line. If you avoid assigning extensions that conflict with area codes, you can even use early dialing (where the call is placed as soon as a number pattern is recognized), but that's optional as the system will just wait a few seconds to see if you're dialing more digits or not. Already anyone with an extension that starts with the local area code probably already gets lots of misdialed calls since people forget to dial 9 all the time. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/56yxnd/til_the_area_code_for_the_international_space/ https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/56yxnd/til_t...

rtkwe 8y ago
They might just provide the numbers with the 011 included at the front so no one has to remember if they need to dial the extension. Makes sense given the astronauts travel all over the world doing training before launch so they've probably dialed the number with the extension at least as much as dialing the bare number, also note this was a Dutch astronaut so he probably learned the number including the 011.
- isostatic 8y ago
  Only North America use 011 for international lines. ITU recommendation is 00, Russia use 810 if I recall correctly
NedIsakoff 8y ago
How do you know he was calling Huston? He's Dutch. Maybe he was trying to call home?
- ddalex 8y ago
  Maybe they had a problem and the regular radio was offline /s
- alistairSH 8y ago
  Not sure why this is being downvoted, as I'm pretty sure that's the correct answer. 9 - gets him out of the internal exchange 011 - gets him out of the USA xx - country code (probably 31 for the Netherlands) then whatever other numbers are required inside the Netherlands
wolfgang42 8y ago
I think this is just a badly edited sentence. 011 is the prefix to dial international numbers from North America, so they probably meant "dial 9 to reach an outside line in Houston, then 011 for international".
netsharc 8y ago
> If you dial a 10 digit number (in North America), it's obviously destined for an outside line. It's interesting how phone systems aren't built for this, and they do a "shortest match" algorithm, e.g. if you dial 555-4628 and there's extension 55, you'll get connected there. I remember taking advantage of this for some free service: you could get 24 hours free trial every month if you get a token by SMS/phone call. So, I just entered an incrementing extra digit at the end of my phone number for the robot to call and read me my token, and that got me a few days of free "trial"...

rtkwe 8y ago

They might just provide the numbers with the 011 included at the front so no one has to remember if they need to dial the extension. Makes sense given the astronauts travel all over the world doing training before launch so they've probably dialed the number with the extension at least as much as dialing the bare number, also note this was a Dutch astronaut so he probably learned the number including the 011.

isostatic 8y ago
Only North America use 011 for international lines. ITU recommendation is 00, Russia use 810 if I recall correctly

NedIsakoff 8y ago

How do you know he was calling Huston? He's Dutch. Maybe he was trying to call home?

ddalex 8y ago
Maybe they had a problem and the regular radio was offline /s
alistairSH 8y ago
Not sure why this is being downvoted, as I'm pretty sure that's the correct answer. 9 - gets him out of the internal exchange 011 - gets him out of the USA xx - country code (probably 31 for the Netherlands) then whatever other numbers are required inside the Netherlands

wolfgang42 8y ago

I think this is just a badly edited sentence. 011 is the prefix to dial international numbers from North America, so they probably meant "dial 9 to reach an outside line in Houston, then 011 for international".

netsharc 8y ago

> If you dial a 10 digit number (in North America), it's obviously destined for an outside line. It's interesting how phone systems aren't built for this, and they do a "shortest match" algorithm, e.g. if you dial 555-4628 and there's extension 55, you'll get connected there. I remember taking advantage of this for some free service: you could get 24 hours free trial every month if you get a token by SMS/phone call. So, I just entered an incrementing extra digit at the end of my phone number for the robot to call and read me my token, and that got me a few days of free "trial"...