CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The human race is poised to take up permanent residence in space.

Seventeen years after U.S. President Ronald Reagan first proposed the project, an American and two Russians will take flight Tuesday, October 31 for the International Space Station.

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And when they float into the outpost two days later, the stations first full-time tenants aim to secure an orbital foothold that could lead to colonization of the Moon, Mars and beyond.

"Weve begun a long and hopefully very exciting journey," added Jim Van Laak, a senior NASA manager with the 16-nation consortium that intends to complete station construction in 2006 and then operate the outpost for a decade beyond that.

"This is the beginning of what we hope is at least 15 years of continuous human presence in space, and personally, I hope its much, much longer than that that once we get this crew on orbit, well have spacecraft flying with people on board for centuries to come."

Look for mankinds near-term destiny in space to begin unfolding early Tuesday at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

U.S. astronaut William Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev are scheduled to blast off from the storied spaceport at 2:53 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (0753 GMT) that day.

Rocketed off the same launch pad from which Yuri Gagarin embarked on the worlds first piloted spaceflight in 1961, the Expedition One crew then is to dock at the station at 4:20 a.m. EST (0920 GMT) Thursday, kicking off a four-month tour of duty at the outpost.

Their mission: To prepare the station for the mid-January delivery of its first science lab, setting the stage for rotating research crews that will live and work aboard the complex over the next decade and a half.

Shepherd likened the job to taking a new ship or submarine out for its first long voyage at sea.

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"You might call it a shake-down cruise," the former U.S. Navy SEAL said. "I think thats the main job for the first expedition making sure everything we put on board is functional and working the way that we want it to work."

A joint project of space agencies in the U.S., Russia, Europe, Canada, Japan and Brazil, the international station now is made up of three permanent wings.
 

The first two building blocks a Russian space tug and an American docking module were launched and linked in space in late 1998. The third wing Russian crew quarters that serve as the stations central command post was launched in mid July after a frustrating two-year delay.

Three NASA space shuttle crews, however, already have visited the station, stocking it with some 14,000 pounds (6,300 kilograms) of supplies and equipment for the Expedition One crew.

Then another shuttle crew jump-started construction earlier this month, erecting the first piece of the stations girder-like backbone and adding a new shuttle docking port to the outpost.

Shepherd and his crew, consequently, will rendezvous and dock with an unfinished station that nevertheless looms 13 stories tall and weighs some 80 tons. Inside, the outpost is cluttered with bag after bag of supplies and equipment that still must be stowed or set up.

"They are going to take delivery of basically an infant station," said Van Laak. "It will not be fully outfitted, not all the systems will be operational and they will have quite a bit of work to do over the first few weeksfinding their home, so to speak."

The first order of business: Opening the hatch and flipping on the lights about 90 minutes after the crew docks their Soyuz spacecraft at the station.

Then, during what amounts to a three-hour scramble, Shepherd and company will set up a makeshift galley, activate a water supply system, turn on the toilet and establish TV and radio links with ground controllers.

"Its kind of like getting into your house," Shepherd said.

"Were going to go around the house and turn the utilities on, and were going to want to get at the fresh water, be able to heat it and make food [and] turn on the toilet. If we get all that done the first day, well count it as a success."

The following week will be focused on making the station habitable for the long term.

A crucial oxygen generation machine, a carbon dioxide scrubber and other key life support systems will be activated and tested to make certain a breathable atmosphere can be sustained in the otherwise deadly vacuum of space.

A laptop computer network will be set up so key station systems can be monitored from any of its wings, and the crew also will outfit an on-board medical center and install exercise equipment key to keeping fit during extended stays in weightlessness.

"We want to get the life support system up and running so that we have a means to absorb carbon dioxide and also produce oxygen," Shepherd said. "We have computers to install, radios to put in probably several days to a weeks worth of bolting things down, wiring things up and punching buttons to make sure that they run right."

The initial home-warming work will put the stations first residents in a position to host three visiting shuttle crews over the course of the next several months.

Shuttle Endeavour and a five-man astronaut crew will launch November 30 on a mission to mount a giant pair of power-producing solar arrays atop the station.

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The American-made solar panels which will have a wingspan of 240 feet (73 meters) once unfurled in space will generate electricity to run various station systems, supplementing power already produced by existing outpost arrays.

Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalev will spend about five weeks wiring the system up on the inside of the station and putting the massive solar wings through extensive tests.

Next up will be the January 18 launch of shuttle Atlantis and a four-man, one-woman crew. Their job: To put in place a U.S. lab dubbed Destiny, which will be the scientific heart of the outpost.

What follows for the Expedition One crew will be a month-long effort to connect lab systems with the rest of the station so that scientific research can begin in earnest.

The first battery of research experiments will be flown up to the station aboard shuttle Discovery in mid February along with the second full-time outpost crew.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev and two American astronauts -- Susan Helms and Jim Voss will replace the Expedition One crew, which will return to Earth aboard Discovery on Feb. 26.

If all goes well, the station crew swap will be the first of almost 50 that are carried out over the next 15 years as the matter of living and working in space becomes increasingly ordinary.

And both Gidzenko and Krikalev who already have spent a combined total of 663 days off the planet say that work aboard the station could pave the way for human expeditions beyond the grasp of Earth orbit.

Visionary scientists and science fiction writers have long "assumed that Earth is sort of the cradle of mankind, and that sooner or later man would move into space to live, to work there," Gidzenko said.

The international station, added Krikalev, is "just the next step. Its the next step to joint exploration of the universe."