What We Can Learn From 20 Years of the International Space Station

At a time when most gadgets, on average, last only a handful of years, it’s heartening to note that one of the most complex technological instruments ever built is still going strong. On Nov. 20, the International Space Station (ISS) reached a two-decade milestone since the launch of its first module. Beyond just a feat of engineering, the ISS serves as an all too rare example in this hyper-partisan era of what can be achieved when our desire to cooperate triumphs over our divisions. It was on this day in 1998 that aerospace engineers from former rivals Russia and the United States celebrated the lift off of the Moscow-built, U.S.-funded unit Zarya (“sunrise”) as it took off from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome. At 11:40 a.m. on a cloudy Friday, the first component of the ISS punched its way into orbit where it served as the foundation of an international space exploration program that continues today. But Zarya, and even the ISS as we know it, may never have existed had the vestiges of Cold War animosity and a bitter Space Race not been set aside to bring Russia onboard the station project. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. tapped Russia’s skilled but idle space industry to help bring down costs and expedite Ronald Reagan’s 1984 vision of a “permanently manned space station.” In their audacious bid to create a continuously inhabited structure 250 miles above the Earth, the long-time adversaries foun...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized onetime overnight space Source Type: news