Getting Together

In the 1980s, the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union all made plans to build their own space stations. In 1984,

President Ronald Reagan announced that the U. S. space station would be built within ten years. President Bill Clinton ordered a review of the project in the 1990s, however, because of rapidly ris­ing costs. In the end, the United States agreed to share the project with other nations, and the International Space Station project came into existence.

In the early twenty-first century, five national space agencies are involved in the construction and use of the ISS. These are the U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos); the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA); the Canadian Space Agency (CSA); and the European Space Agency (ESA). Russia had continued the Soviet space program when the Soviet Union was dismantled.

Building the ISS

Construction of the ISS requires a series of flights by U. S. Space Shuttles and Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets. More than forty such flights will have been made before the station is finished. Construction is scheduled to be complete by 2010. When completed, the ISS will weigh (in Earth terms) more than 400 tons (363 metric tons). It will be 243 feet (74 meters) long and will have room for six people.

The first two modules of the ISS were the Russian Zarya and the U. S. Unity module. They were launched and joined in 1998, after Space Shuttle Endeavour had flown into orbit carrying two pres­surized adapters to join the modules. Shuttle astronauts captured Zarya and docked it with Unity. The union was the first stage of building the space station.

In July 2000, a Russian Proton rock­et launched the Zvezda service module, which was docked to the station. Space Shuttle missions continued to deliver new pieces, including-in October 2000- the Z1 Truss. This piece of equipment was vital, a large framework for the first set of solar panels and batteries that pro­vide electrical power to the space sta­tion. In December 2000, the first ISS crew fitted the giant solar panels that stick out from the space station like wings. The panels were then connected to the station’s power system.

The construction techniques devel­oped for the ISS could be useful when future astronauts build a Moon base, using similar modules prefabricated on Earth and assembled on the Moon. Technologies used on the ISS also may lead to improved commercial communi­cations systems on Earth.