General Information

When the International Space Station (ISS) is finally completed, the station will have living and working space to easily accommodate six people. This will provide the international crew with an area greater than the size of a Boeing 747's passenger cabin. (That is also the same as the average spacing of a five-bedroom house and the station produces and uses the equivalent of ten American homes) The station is not only the biggest engineering project in peacetime history, but it will also involve seventeen nations, including Russia, the United States, Canada, Japan, and members of the European Space Agency (ESA). The new station will require more than 40 launches from around the world and will involve thousands of hours of space walking to complete this enormous project. There will be more time logged on space walks than all of the EVAs (extravehicular activity) since the beginning of space flight; almost one and half times as many. The ISS will be so large that it will span the size of a football field. This will allow Earthlings to have a great chance to get a glimpse of the station in the night's sky, while it is cruising at a steady pace of 17,500 miles per hour (28,163 km) above its home planet. Since the ISS is so massive, it would collapse under its own weight if it were constructed here on earth, with a combined weight of 520 tons. The station is estimated to have a price tag of $40 billion when all is said and done. The United States has paid $21.9 billion for its share and long-term estimates show the station will cost $98 billion to the United States over a fifteen year period. Prices on behalf of the United States might also increase as the Russians face a desperate economic crisis, which is overflowing and effecting their part of participation on the station. The ISS also has the unique role of playing a major role in international politics, and the tragedy aboard Columbia has only complicated matters. The station, which is used as a cooperation project, arose after the Cold War and is being used as a way to foster international goodwill on a worldly scale. This project, for example, is being used to keep Russian scientists busy on a good cause, instead of feeding countries like Iran and North Korea with nuclear weapon program technologies. The station was designed to cut the costs of space exploration, but due to recent figures, this is very questionable to many people involved with the project. The partners of the ISS envision that the station will usher in a new space age in which, mankind will move one more step closer to leaving our home planet and return man to the moon or possibly Mars. The chief goals of the International Space Station consist of long-term space travel, commercial development, medical research, and environmental research. The main purpose is to team together the various countries of the world and focus them on a common goal of studying the long-term effects of space travel on humans. These studies are meant to pave the way for future missions, including a trip to our nearest neighboring planet, Mars, and beyond. Another key of the station is to study the effects of micro gravity on plants and animals and to use this data to determine better seeds and crops and various types of other products that can be used directly on Earth. A third point is to study medical aliments in hopes to finding a cure for cancer to making synthetic bone and artificial tissues. And finally, the International Space Station will be used to monitor the green and blue planet from space, which will allow researchers to investigate everything from natural phenomena, such as El Nino and La Nina, to tracking hurricanes and global warming. The project was broken down into three phases and are as follows: 1) Involving the occupation of U.S. astronauts aboard the Russian Mir space station, which includes dockings with Mir, the building of a joint space experience between the two nations, and the performance of scientific research. 2) This stage involves the building of the ISS, in orbit, to the point of housing a permanent three person crew. This phase will end when the  U.S. laboratory module, named Destiny, is successfully mated to the space station. 3) This part of the mission is the last part of construction, where the ISS we be able to contain seven people at one time and have all the scientific and research facilities connected and available to the ISS. The ISS will follow the foot steps of its predecessors, such as the Mir space station, to bridge all the nations of the world together in the name of science and the betterment of all mankind.

Modules