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In 1984, President Ronald Reagan said the United States would build or help to create a space station. Now what he said is finally coming true.

When the human body is in space for long periods of time, it starts to change. The muscles weaken and the heart, veins, and arteries work differently. This is because there is no gravity in space.

The International Space Station will have six state of the art laboratories that can be used to study the changes that occur in space on the human body. This research will give us a better understanding of the human body. This could lead to a possible cure for diseases like cancer and diabetes. We can grow human cells in the space station laboratories that will allow us to test new drugs without testing them on humans, possibly risking their lives.

Along with studying the human body and the effects of gravity, the International Space Station can also be used to look down on Earth. Since the space station is orbiting Earth, scientists can actually look down on huge sections of Earth at once. From the space station, scientists can study the oceans, mountains, and forests, they can study the effects of air pollution, and they can study the effects of volcanoes, typhoons, and hurricanes.

Do you think that this project is being carried out by just the United States? Actually there are 16 countries helping to build the space station: the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, Brazil, and 11 countries of the European Space Agency. Each country is providing different parts to the project.

Canada is building a 55-foot long robot arm that can be used to build and eventually repair the space station.

Russia has already built Zarya, one of only two pieces already built and in space. Zarya provides the power needed during the assembly of the International Space Station. Once the space station is complete, Zarya will be used mostly for storage. Russia will also be building two research

modules with life support and habitation systems (where the astronauts will live), an electric power supply, and transport vehicles. The Russian Space Agency currently owns and runs the Russian space station, Mir. The scientists that are building the International Space Station have learned a lot from the Russian cosmonauts (Russian astronauts) that lived and worked on Mir, and they used this information to design and build the new space station.

The European Space Agency consists of 11 countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom (Great Britain). It is building one of the 6 state of the art laboratories for the new space station.

Although Japan does not have its own space agency, it is working with NASA to build another laboratory for the new space station.

The United States has already built and sent Unity into space. Unity is the connecting piece of the space station that will allow other parts to be attached to it. It will act as a passage from Zarya to other parts of the International Space Station. It is also working on a new transport vehicle, the X-38, which will be used as the lifeboat for the astronauts on the International Space Station. They will be able to use the X-38 if they need to return to Earth in an emergency. While the X-38 is being built, the space station will use the transport vehicle from the Russian space station. The United States leads the International Space Station project.

In May 1999, the first launch was sent up to begin building the International Space Station. So far, only two parts have been fully constructed and sent into space, Unity and Zarya. There are almost 100 major parts still to be built and sent to space. Once there, they will all need to be connected to each other like a giant erector set. This project is said to be the most complex construction in history.

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Space Exploration of the Past, Present, and Future
Bartlett Elementary School 2000