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All About the International Space Station (ISS)

Real Estate Agent with CENTURY 21 Regency Realty

April 22, 2009 02:06 PM

The International Space Station orbits around the Earth at an altitude of 360km. The construction of this beneficial satellite was a joint effort, bringing together the resources of NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency. During the early 1980s, the United States planned for the NASA International Space Station to be a counterpart for the Soviet stations Salyut and Mir, but construction was never implemented. The resolution of the Cold War and the end of the race to space triggered international efforts to rekindle the project.

The International Space Station was finally launched on November 20, 1998 to begin its first 92-minute trip around the Earth. The first permanent crew of astronauts arrived on the International Space Station on November 2, 2000. Since then, there have always been at least two people on board. So far, the astronauts residing on the space station have been American or Russian. Pictures of the International Space Station are available below.

In addition to the astronauts who have resided on the International Space Station, space tourists have also visited the shuttle. Dennis Tito was the first person to visit space as a tourist. After his visit, Yuri Malecnchenko and Ekaterina Dmitriev were married on the International Space Station.

You may enjoy this. This is the ISS Assembly diagram, piece by piece. I had no idea the Space Station had grown to this size. I would need a road map!!!