International Space Station
November 20, 1998
The International Space Station (ISS), under construction since 1998, is the largest international scientific partnership in history. The project involves seventeen countries: the United States, the eleven member nations of the European Space Agency, Canada, Japan, Russia, Italy, and Brazil. When the ISS is completed, astronauts will have assembled a total of one hundred separate parts during forty-five missions while the station orbits 240 miles (384 kilometers) above Earth. The ISS will eventually consist of several modules, and as many as seven crew members will live on board, conducting scientific experiments and space research. By 2004 eight crews had already stayed on the ISS for months at a time. Construction had been postponed in 2003, however, as a result of the Columbia space shuttle disaster, and the future of the ISS remained uncertain. (A space shuttle is a craft that transports people and cargo between Earth and space.)
Soviets Launch First Space Stations
Although the former Soviet Union built the first space stations, which ultimately led to the development of the ISS, the
actual concept has roots in the nineteenth century. The idea of a space station has been traced back to "The Brick Moon: From the Papers of Captain Frederic Ingham," a story by author Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909) published in the Atlantic Monthly magazine (1869–70).
This is a free page. This page contains 201 words. This
article contains 2,488 words (approx. 8 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our International Space Station Access Pass.
