CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Now two years sailing on the ocean of space, the International Space Station continues to cruise well in Earth orbit.
It was on this day in 2000 that NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev first boarded the embryonic International Space Station.
"Now make ship come alive," Shepherd said as he first floated into the small outpost, which at the time only included the U.S. Unity node and the Russian Zarya space tug and Zvezda service module.
Since then the station has grown into a giant multinational complex and the human race has had -- so far -- a permanent presence in space.
"The station is now, and will continue to be an incredible engineering feat," station science officer Peggy Whitson said this week from onboard the ISS. "It is literally and figuratively the shining star of international cooperation and a lot of dedicated work."
For NASA and its international partners, the anniversary marks an ambitious and virtually flawless year of expansion and research in space.
Already the largest and most sophisticated spacecraft ever built when its second year of occupancy began in November 2001, space station Alpha has since grown by more than 56,000 pounds (25,401 kilograms) in components added during the past 12 months.
"The International Space Station was truly spectacular a year ago, but with each new assembly mission -- almost one every month -- it's further enhanced," said Bill Gerstenmaier, ISS program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. All told, during the past two years the frontier outpost has grown by more than 200,000 pounds (90,719 kilograms), and its internal volume has increased from that of a small efficiency apartment to a more comfortable three-bedroom house.
"Our success in the past two years has been phenomenal. We are blazing a trail in space and on Earth, through research and international cooperation, which can improve lives and expand exploration," Gerstenmaier said.
This year, construction began on the station's backbone, an 11-piece truss structure that eventually will support almost an acre of electricity-generating solar panels and heat-rejecting radiators. These will provide power and cooling for the new international science laboratory modules still to be added.
"I think we are well on our way," Whitson said. "We are living here and I think that as the station grows we will become even more productive in the scientific endeavors we are pursuing. And we've come a long way so far."
Given the successful completion of the upcoming shuttle Endeavour assembly and crew rotation mission by the end of 2002 the station's truss will stretch almost 133 feet (41 meters). That mission is now scheduled for launch Nov. 11 between 12 and 4 a.m. EST (0500 to 0900 GMT).
When completed in 2004, the truss will stretch 356 feet (109 meters); longer than a football field.
During the past 12 months, 33 people have visited or lived aboard the orbiting complex. A total of 112 visitors have been aboard the station since it was launched, including men and women from six nations.
Five three-person crews have lived aboard for durations ranging from four to more than six months. In its second year of occupancy, astronauts and cosmonauts have conducted 16 spacewalks for maintenance and assembly of the Station.
As the station expands, so does its research capability -- a fact NASA likes to underscore given the ongoing debate over the ultimate worth of this engineering marvel.
Experiments aboard the complex have attained more than 90,000 hours of operating time. Sixty-five U.S. investigations have been launched as well as numerous international studies, NASA officials say.
Science topics have ranged from growing "soybeans to superconductors," Whitson said.
The first-ever soybean crop grown in space spent nearly 100 days aboard the station before it was returned to Earth by a visiting space shuttle. The seeds are currently undergoing several months of chemical and biological tests to reveal whether their growth in a low-gravity environment changed their chemical composition.
Soybeans are a leading source of protein in the human diet and are used in many products, from oil to crayons. Station research, in conjunction with commercial companies, could lead to producing crops that support long-term human presence in space and possibly pave the way for improving crops grown on Earth, NASA officials say.
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