https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=Mkw_iqcDCos

For centuries, people have looked up into the night sky at the vast world beyond our own. They
would wonder what it would be like to look back at Earth from the moon, or the sun, or a star far
out in the universe. Could you see the borders between nations, or the changing of the
seasons? Would we be able to eat and sleep? How would our bodies react and do the laws of
science differ or remain the same as they are on Earth? What would it be like to live in space?

- As of Nov. 2000, not a day has passed that there hasn’t been a human in space. They
live, work, eat, sleep, and conduct scientific experiments to solve the many questions
that space has to offer.
- Within the last decade, 15 nations have come together to design, build, and occupy the
largest and longest inhabited object to ever orbit Earth. They conduct research both
inside and outside of this engineering masterpiece. Workers consist of scientists,
construction workers, technicians, repairmen, teachers, cleaners, and cooks.
- They have set aside their boundaries and differences to create this incredible man-made
spacecraft
- This is the International Space Station.

- Dating back to early in the 19th century, writers, artists, and scientists from around the
world have given their idea and vision of space travel and their opinions on life in space.
- In the early 1960s, as human spaceflight programs in the U.S. in Russia began to take
off, engineers and designers began to draw their own concepts on a possible space
station based on the current technology that they had.
- The Soviet Union was the first to get an orbiting space station established and into
action, Salyut I, which was launched in 1971.
- The U.S. would get their first space station, Skylab, established in space, which was
assembled from unused Apollo rocket parts, in 1973.
- Three crews flew aboard Skylab for 171 days, conducting scientific experiments
and observations, which would show the potential of space research.
- A temporary space station was created on July 17, 1975. An American Apollo command
module spacecraft docked with a Russian Soyuz ship. Apollo-Soyuz was a prime
example of cooperation by the superpowers of the world, and it was the foundation of
the global partnership that would result in the agreement and construction of the
International Space Station.

- America would resume the flight of men and women into space with the launch of the
first space shuttle on April 12, 1981.
- In his presidential State of the Union address in 1984, president Ronald Reagan
announced the construction of a permanent space station, Space Station Freedom,
which was agreed and signed by 11 nations and NASA to participate in the development
and production of the spacecraft.
- In February, 1986, the Soviets began construction of their own space station, Mir.
- By October 1990, budget changes issued by Congress mandated a complete redesign
of the Space Station Freedom project, with heavy emphasis on affordability.
- In 1993, NASA was directed to maximize the new stations scientific capabilities, and
leverage Russia’s considerable experience in space station operations by inviting
Russian participation in the American space station project.
- The result was a global partnership made up of 15 countries that would work through
differences in culture, language, politics, and design and operation styles.
- During Phase I of the space station program, from February 1994 to June 1998, space
shuttles made 11 visits to Mir, and 7 American astronauts lived aboard the Russian
station.
- The experience gained was very important, and it set the stage for the design,
development, and construction of the greatest engineering project in the history of
mankind - a state of the art research laboratory orbiting our planet: The International
Space Station
- The International Space Station is the largest and most complex object ever assembled
in space.