Since the dawn of human history, people have looked up at the stars and longed to reach them. With the recent advances in mathematics and physics, scientists have been able to invent and build vehicles to take humans far above Earth and into space. Science-fiction writers often imagine these people living in space stations—enormous, rotating habitats teeming with activity. In reality, a program began in the 1980s to build a simpler, more basic facility that has become known as the International Space Station.
A space station is a structure orbiting Earth that human beings can inhabit for extended periods of time. Since 1971, nine space stations have been launched into orbit and occupied by astronauts. Some of these stations have been built by the Soviet Union and others by the United States. The International Space Station is unique in that it is the result of cooperation between many countries.
During the height of the cold war in 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy vowed to put a man on the moon before the decade was over. The U.S. succeeded in sending astronauts to the moon on July 20, 1969. But the financial burden of putting astronauts on the moon meant that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had to postpone some of its plans. It wasn’t until after the cold war had ended, in 1991, that plans for the International Space Station began to materialize.
In 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton urged NASA to join forces with its Russian counterpart. One of the trickiest parts of combining the efforts of these two former rivals was learning how to work together after having had separate space programs and not having shared knowledge for the previous thirty years. The Russians had succeeded in sending up and occupying several space stations for varying lengths of time. The U.S., on the other hand, had concentrated on developing the space shuttle, an airplane-like vehicle that could be used multiple times to carry passengers into space and back. The integration of the two nations’ space programs began when NASA’s space shuttles began to ferry American astronauts to the already orbiting Russian space station, Mir, in 1995. This allowed American astronauts to learn the practical know-how of operating and occupying a space station. Russian astronauts, on the other hand, benefited because they were finally able to complete the structure of Mir with the funding they received from the U.S.
In November 1998, the first module of the International Space Station was launched on top of a Russian rocket. Due to growing international cooperation, this component, called Zarya, which means "sunrise" in Russian, had been built in Russia using American funding and technology.
A little bigger than a standard bus, Zarya was designed to provide electricity and propulsion for the International Space Station, but it did not include living quarters for crew members. Next, the American space shuttle Endeavour met up with Zarya and attached the U.S. connection module Unity. Finally, another Russian module was attached to the ISS. Called Zvezda, meaning "star," this structure was the crew living area.
In October 2000, Expedition One, the first ISS crew, consisting of two Russians and one American, arrived. Expedition Two included a woman astronaut, and subsequent expeditions have included crew members from countries such as Spain and Brazil. The International Space Station is the product of the cooperation of nearly twenty space agencies around the world.
In 2001, the space shuttle Atlantis delivered a laboratory called Destiny to the International Space Station to study the effects of zero gravity. Destiny was a monumental step for the ISS because it had the facilities to conduct scientific experiments that could lead to a deeper understanding of the effects of long-term space travel. Much of the research being done in the ISS has to do with zero gravity and its effects on the human body. Zero gravity, or the weightlessness that humans experience in outer space, feels like constantly falling from a great height or riding a roller coaster.
Scientists have discovered that in a weightless environment, bodily fluids tend to stay in the upper body. Many astronauts have shown a decrease in strength in their lower body as well as a significant loss of bone calcium after long periods of weightlessness.
The number of red blood cells in the bloodstream, those that deliver oxygen to the body’s tissues, also goes down, which can lead to a variety of health problems. When astronauts began to do certain exercises on specially designed machines while living in the ISS, the negative effects of zero gravity on their bodies were reduced.
As scientists study how weightlessness affects the human body, they are also conducting many other experiments. By studying how proteins, viruses, and living cells behave in space, scientists may be able to develop more effective medicines. Observing how fluids and flames behave differently when they’re not subject to Earth’s gravity can lead to new alloys and other materials for industrial use. Last but not least, watching Earth from space allows scientists to document the effects of environmental damage, volcanic eruptions, pollution, and many other factors.
Since the addition of Destiny, several European countries, as well as the Japanese space agency, have contributed other components to the ISS. It now has docking compartments, robotic arms, solar panels, and an array of other gadgets that allow astronauts to perform safer space walks, and of course, conduct more scientific experiments. The International Space Station also has a "lifeboat" in the form of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that could return the crew to Earth in the case of an emergency.
Since 1998, most of the U.S. space shuttles’ flights have been used to work on the ISS. The progress of the space station has come at a price, however. Sadly, in 2003, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it was returning from orbit, and all seven crew members aboard died. The shuttle fleet was grounded, which left the International Space Station’s development virtually at a standstill until 2005. Since then, construction has picked up but proceeds more slowly than before the Columbia disaster. There were only four space shuttle flights to the ISS between 2005 and June 2007. Even at this reduced pace, however, the ISS is expected to be mostly completed by 2010.
Although the development of the ISS has slowed down, there has been some growth in the area of space tourism. A man named Denis Tito made world history on April 28, 2001, when he became the first paying passenger to travel to the International Space Station for the price of twenty million dollars.
Some argue that while there are still so many problems on Earth, we should not be using valuable resources for space exploration. While they may have a valid point that the budget set aside for space exploration and research could be used to fight crime, reduce poverty, and improve social welfare systems, space exploration has improved the quality of our lives. Many of the technologies originally developed for the space program have practical applications on Earth, such as water-purification treatments and scratch-resistant lenses for eyeglasses.
Perhaps in the future, humans will be able to travel to the far corners of the galaxy. Today, however, they can hope for a better future in seeing that because of international cooperation, a project that was not feasible for a single nation to manage has been accomplished by many working together.