The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Space station celebrates 20 years of people in orbit
The International Space Station marks a big milestone Monday.
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — The International Space Station was a cramped, humid, puny three rooms when the first crew moved in. Twenty years and 241 visitors later, the complex has a lookout tower, three toilets, six sleeping compartments and 12 rooms, depending on how you count.
Monday marks two decades of a steady stream of people living there.
Astronauts from 19 countries have floated through the space station hatch es, including many repeat visitors who arrived on shuttles for shortterm construction work, and several tourists who paid their own way.
The first crew — American Bill Shepherd and Russians Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko— blasted off from Kazakhstan on Oct. 31, 2000. Two days later, they swung open the space station doors, clasping their hands in unity.
Shepherd, a former Navy SEAL who served as the station commander, likened it to living on a ship at sea. The three spent most of their time coaxing equipment to work; balky systems made the place too warm. Conditions were primitive, compared with now.
Installation sand repairs took hours at the new space station, versus minutes on the ground, K rik al ev recalled.
“Each day seemed to have its own set of challenges,” Shepherd said during a recent NASA panel discussion with his crewmates.
The space station has since morphed into a complex that’s almost as long as a football field, with eight miles of electrical wiring, an acre of solar panel sand three high-tech labs.
“It’s 500 tons of stuff zooming around in space, most of which never touched each other until it got up there and bolted up,” Shepherd said. “And it’s all run for 20 years with almost no big problems.”
“It’s a real testament towhat can bed one in these kinds of programs ,” he said.
Shepherd, 71, is long retired from
NASA and lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Krikalev, 62, and Gidzenko, 58, have risen in the Russian space ranks. Both were involved in the mid-October launch of the 64 th crew.
The first thing the three did once arriving at the darkened space station on Nov. 2,2000, was to turn on the lights, which Krikalev recalled as “very memorable.” Then they heated water for hot drinks and activated the lone toilet.
“Now we can live,” Gidzenko remembers Shepherd saying. “We have lights, we have hot water and we have toilet.”
Although pioneering theway, the three had no close calls during their nearly fivemonths up there, Shepherd said, and so far the station has held up relatively well.
NASA’s top concern nowadays is the growing threat fromspace junk. This year, the orbiting lab has had to dodge debris three times.
As for station amenities, astronauts now have near-continuous communication with flight controller sand even an internet phone for personal use. The first crew had sporadic radio contact with the ground; communication blackouts could last hours.
While the three astronauts got along fine, tension sometimes bubbled up between them and the two
Mission Controls, in Houston and outside Moscow. Shepherd got so frustrated with the “conflicting marching orders” that he insisted they come up with a single plan.
“I’ve got to say, that was my happiest day in space,” he said.
Astronauts spend most of their six-month stints these days keeping the space station running and performing science experiments. A few have even spent close to a year up there on a single flight, serving as medical guinea pigs. Shepherd and his crew, by contrast, barely had time for a handful of experiments.
The first couple of weeks were so hectic — “just working and working and working,” according to Gidzenko — that they didn’t shave for days. It took awhile just to find the razors.
The current residents—one American and two Russians, just like the original crew — plan to celebrate Monday’s milestone by sharing a special dinner, enjoying the views of Earth and remembering all the crews who came before them, especially the first.
But it won’t be a day off: “Probably we’ll be celebrating this day by hardwork,” Sergei Kud-Sverchkov said Friday from orbit.
One of the best outcomes of 20 years of continuous space habitation, according to Shepherd, is astronaut diversity.
While men still lead the pack, more crews include women. Two U.S. women have served as space station skipper. Commanders typically are American or Russian, but also have come from Belgium, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. While African Americans have made short visits to the space station, the first Black resident is due to arrive in mid-November on SpaceX’s second astronaut flight.
Massive undertakings like human Mars trips can benefit from the past two decades of international experience and cooperation, Shepherd said.
“If you look at the space station program today, it’s a blueprint on how to do it. All those questions about how this should be organized and what it’s going to look like, the big questions are already behind us,” he said.