CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.–NASA couldn't have staged it any better: 10 people in orbit for yesterday's 10th anniversary of the world's most elaborate and expensive housing project, the International Space Station.
On Nov. 20, 1998, the first part of the space station was launched by the Russians from Kazakhstan. NASA followed up two weeks later with piece No. 2 carried up by a space shuttle. Astronauts and cosmonauts moved in two years later, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The space station has grown into a behemoth outpost 350 kilometres up, home to three people – soon to be six – at any given time.
Over the weekend, the shuttle Endeavour delivered an extra bathroom and kitchen, two more bedrooms and a recycling system for turning urine and sweat into drinking water. The space station now has five sleep stations, two baths, two kitchens and two mini-gyms. All told, there are nine rooms, three of them full-scale labs.
Three-quarters complete, the total mass of the station is 284 tonnes. NASA says it's about the size of a five-bedroom house.
Some other fascinating factoids: The space station has travelled 2.1 billion kilometres, orbited Earth more than 57,300 times, hosted 167 people from 15 countries, and served up more than 19,000 meals.
The space station has taken longer for NASA and its international partners to build, cost more money and produced less science than originally envisioned. But that hasn't spoiled the celebrations going on all over the world – and off.
The linked Endeavour and space station sailed past the 10-year mark at 1:40 a.m. yesterday while the astronauts slept. Mission Control marked the occasion by showing video of the first rocket's launch in 1998.
"After 10 years, we wish the International Space Station a happy birthday and we hope to see many, many more," Endeavour commander Christopher Ferguson said in a taped message from the orbiting complex.
Before rocketing away aboard Endeavour last Friday, astronaut Donald Pettit noted that every major engineering marvel has had its share of dragged-out schedules, budget overruns, controversy, even scandal. "How long did it take us to build the Panama Canal, Brooklyn Bridge?"
As for the space station, "we're 10 years down the road, and it still isn't built. It's almost built. And it's an amazing, wonderful piece of technology that once it's done, people probably won't even think too much about how long it took to build," said Pettit, who called the complex home for five months in 2002-03.
To date, it's taken 80 rocket launchings from Florida, Kazakhstan and French Guyana (the launching site for the European Space Agency's cargo carrier) to make and staff the space station.
The price tag, from start to finish, is often quoted at $100 billion (U.S.). That includes money spent not only by the U.S. and Russia, but also Canada, Japan and the 18-member European Space Agency. NASA disputes that amount and estimates its share at $44 billion, including shuttle launch costs.
As for delays, the 2003 Columbia disaster set space station construction back by a few years. So did Russian financial problems in the 1990s that delayed the launch of the first crew's living quarters.
Its objective also has shifted over the years. NASA views the space station as essentially a place to learn more about astronaut health and other issues that could make or break future expeditions to the moon, Mars and beyond. Before, the emphasis was supposed to be on basic scientific experiments.
NASA expects to wrap up space station construction in 2010.
