The International Space Station reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
(provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

International Space Station

A newer version of this article is available: see International Space Station at Schools Wikipedia
Have you considered sponsoring a child

Continuing on from the United States' Skylab and Russia's Mir, the International Space Station (ISS) represents a permanent human presence in space: it has been manned with a crew of at least two since November 2000. Each time that the crew is replaced both the old and the new crew as well as one or more visitors are present.

The space station is located in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of approximately 386 km, a type of orbit usually termed low Earth orbit. (The actual height varies over time by several kilometres due to atmospheric drag and reboosts.) It orbits Earth at a period of about 92 minutes; on December 1, 2003 it had completed over 28,700 orbits since launch.

It is serviced primarily by the Space Shuttle, and Soyuz and Progress spacecraft units. It is still being built, but is home to some experimentation already. At present, the station has a capacity for a crew of three, who have all come from the Russian or United States space programs.

International Space Station photographed following separation from the Space Shuttle Atlantis, October 16, 2002Enlarge

International Space Station photographed following separation from the Space Shuttle Atlantis, October 16, 2002

The station consists of several modules:

Other major subsystems include As configured as of 2003, the station massed 187,016 kg and had 425 cubic meters of living space. Its extreme dimensions were 73 meters wide, 52 meters long, and 27.5 meters high. Operations had included 16 American Space Shuttle flights and 22 Russian flights. Of the Russian flights, 8 were manned and 14 were unmanned flights. Construction had required 51 spacewalks, of which 25 were shuttle-based and 26 ISS-based. Total spacewalk time at the station has been 318 hours, 37 minutes.

On December 1, 1987, NASA announced the names of four companies who were awarded contracts to help build the Space Station: Boeing Aerospace, General Electric's Astro-Space Division, McDonnell Douglas, and the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell.

Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev inside the Zvezda Service Module, November 2000Enlarge

Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev inside the Zvezda Service Module, November 2000

The first section was put in orbit in 1998. Two further pieces were added before the first crew was sent. The first crew arrived on November 2, 2000 and consisted of US astronaut William Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. They decided to call the space station "Alpha" but the use of that name was restricted to their mission.

The ISS has had a troubled history. Initially planned as a NASA "Space Station Freedom" and promoted by President Reagan, it was found to be too expensive. After the end of the Cold War, it was taken up again as a joint project of NASA and Russia's Rosaviakosmos. Since then, it has been far more expensive than originally anticipated by NASA, and is behind schedule. As of 2003 it is unable to yet accommodate the expected crew of seven, thus severely limiting the amount of science that can be performed on it and angering European partners in the project.

There are many critics of NASA who view the project as a waste of time, inhibiting progress on more useful projects: for instance, the estimated $100 billion USD lifetime cost could pay for dozens of unmanned scientific missions. There are many critics of space exploration in general, who argue that the $100 billion USD would be better spent on problems here on Earth.

Advocates of space exploration hold that such criticisms are at the very least short-sighted, and perhaps deceptive. Advocates of manned space research and exploration claim that these efforts have indeed produced billions of dollars of tangible benefits to people on Earth. In some estimates, it has been held that the indirect economic benefit, made from commercialization of technologies developed during manned space exploration, has returned more than seven times the initial investment to the economy (some conservative estimates put the amount at three times the initial investment). Whether the ISS, as distinct from the wider space program, will be a major contributor in this sense is, however, a subject of strong debate.

After the accident of the Space Shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003, and the subsequent suspension of the US Space Shuttle program, the future of the ISS is uncertain. The construction is halted as that is done by the Space Shuttle, and the crew exchange is done using the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. With Soyuz TMA-2 a two-astronaut caretaker crew is launched, instead of the previous crews of three.

Astronaut Michael Foale on an construction EVA outside the ISS in February 2004Enlarge

Astronaut Michael Foale on an construction EVA outside the ISS in February 2004

The ISS has seen the first space tourist, Dennis Tito, who reportedly spent 20 million USD to fly aboard a Russian supply mission and the first space wedding when Yuri Malenchenko on the station married Ekaterina Dmitriev who was in Texas.

On 27 February 2004, ISS crew Michael Foale and Alexander Kalery conducted the first spacewalk involving its entire crew (Soyuz 26 was the first involving the whole crew of a vehicle). Most of the spacewalk's goals, the installation of external equipment, were accomplished before a kinked tube in Kalery's suit caused a cooling malfunction and forced an early end.

The possibility of an extremely high-speed collision with space debris is considered a long-term threat to the International Space Station. One proposed solution is a laser broom.



Crew


The International Space Station is the most visited space craft in the history of space flight. Almost 1/4 of astronauts who have ever flown into space have been to the ISS. See List of International Space Station visitors.


External Link