Before there was a moon race, putting a space station in Earth orbit was one of the major goals of space planners in the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets, who lost the race to put a man on the moon, succeeded in launching history's first space station, Salyut 1, in April 1971. Consisting of a single module weighing 19 tons, Salyut 1 (the name, which means "salute," was chosen to honor the late Yuri Gagarin) offered 3,500 cubic feet of living space that doubled as living quarters and workplace for a trio of cosmonauts. The first mission to Salyut 1, in April, failed after the cosmonauts docked their Soyuz ferry craft to the station and found they could not enter it.
No such problems hampered the second crew, who arrived that June. Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev spent 23 days aboard the station, setting a new space endurance record. During that time, the men conducted scientific and medical experiments, operated an astronomical telescope, and took multispectral photographs of the Earth. But the mission ended in tragedy. After undocking from the station, a cabin leak in their Soyuz ferry craft killed the three men, who were not wearing spacesuits; the Soyuz returned to Earth under automatic control.
More troubles were ahead for Salyut; the next three space station launches failed. In June 1974 Salyut 3 successfully reached orbit, but its mission was not scientific: It was the first military space station. A pair of cosmonauts spent two weeks aboard Salyut 3 in July 1974, photographing selected targets on Earth with a high-resolution camera. Salyut 4, launched in December 1974, marked a return to civilian missions. Two cosmonaut teams visited the station in 1975, conducting scientific, medical, and engineering experiments.
Salyut 5, a final military version of the station, reached orbit in 1976 carrying military surveillance equipment. In July and August, a pair of cosmonauts aboard Salyut 5 observed military exercises in Siberia, but were forced to abandon their mission early due to a variety of problems, possibly including an onboard fire. A second team launched in February 1977 completed the earlier crew's mission, and conducted additional scientific and engineering tests. Beginning in the late 1970s, Soviet cosmonauts aboard the final two Salyut stations pushed back the frontiers of long-duration spaceflight. Similar in design to its predecessors, Salyut 6 was launched in September 1977 and spent four and a half years in orbit. During that time Salyut 6 was visited by 16 separate teams of cosmonauts, including four crews who set new space endurance records. The longest Salyut 6 mission was flown in 1980 by Leonid Popov and Valerie Ryumin, who spent 185 days space. The Soviet space marathons continued aboard Salyut 7, which reached orbit in April 1982 and remained there for four years. The longest stay, by Leonid Kizim, Vladimir Solovyov, and Oleg Atkov, lasted 237 days--nearly eight months in space.
During these space marathons, cosmonauts battled the physiological effects of long-term weightlessness, which necessitated frequent, vigorous exercise on an onboard treadmill. The psychological strains, which included boredom and isolation, were also a concern. To alleviate these stresses, the long-duration crews hosted visiting cosmonauts who journeyed to the station in their own Soyuz ferry craft. The visitors included guest cosmonauts from Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, and other Soviet allies. They also received shipments of mail, gifts, and other amenities carried on unmanned Progress supply freighters. Nevertheless, the cosmonauts' dairies reveal that Salyut marathons were not easy. One cosmonaut, beset by insomnia and anxiety, wrote in one entry, "Everything hurts. Yesterday, I worried too much. My stomach had spasms. My heart was pounding in my chest like a hammer." For all their difficulties, the Salyut long-duration missions paved the way for even longer stays aboard the space station Mir and, now, aboard the International.
Salyut 7 was also the scene of one of the most remarkable
space repair missions ever made. While unoccupied in February 1985, the
station had fallen mysteriously silent. In June, cosmonauts Vladimir Dzhanibekov
and Viktor Savinykh reached the inert station, whose electrical system
had gone dead. Conditions inside were frigid--walls and equipment were
covered with frost--as the cosmonauts, wearing winter clothing, worked
to revive Salyut 7. By the end of July, the station was almost completely
returned to normal. Two more cosmonaut crews visited Salyut 7 before abandoning
it for good in mid-1986.
Temperatures inside the orbital workshop had soared to desert-like conditions, and power was severely curtailed because the remaining solar wing had failed to deploy. The men erected a foil umbrella to act as a sunshield, passing it through a small scientific airlock and then retracting it against the station's hull. After Conrad and Kerwin made a spacewalk to free the stuck solar wing, Skylab was back to normal. Aside from the repair efforts, Conrad's crew conducted a variety of experiments, including medical tests to measure the effects of long-term exposure to weightlessness. And they savored Skylab's amenities: 10,000 cubic feet of habitable volume, including sleeping quarters and a domed upper compartment that offered enough room for weightless gymnastics. Conrad's crew logged 28 days in space, breaking the record set by the Salyut 1 crew two years before.
Two more teams of Skylab astronauts were launched in 1973, logging stays of 56 days and 84 days respectively. Like the first crew, they conducted medical tests, Earth and solar observations, and experiments in processing materials in weightlessness. Skylab gave the United States valuable experience in long-duration spaceflight, and set an orbital endurance record that stood for five years. Skylab, which was not designed to be resupplied, met a fiery end when it reentered the atmosphere in July 1979.
Russia's Mir Space Station has been in orbit for over ten years. The first element of the station was launched on February 20, 1986. On June 17, 1992 in Washington D.C., George Bush, the President of the United States, and Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Federation, signed the "Agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes. Between March 1995 and May 1998, the Russian Space Station Mir hosts a series of NASA astronauts as crewmembers. The NASA program supporting this endeavor is commonly known as International Space Station Phase 1. Shuttle-Mir participants seek to answer vital questions about the future of human life in space. They work in the safety of a known environment, experiencing real-life issues that might otherwise arise with more serious consequences aboard the International Space Station.
For more info about Mir Space station (click here and link to mir_description.doc
"Men who have worked together to reach the stars are not likely to descend together into the depths of war and desolation."
U.S. Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson,
addressing the U.N. General Assembly, 1958
In a historic moment, Mission Commander Robert Cabana and Russian Cosmonaut/Mission Specialist Sergei Krikalev swung open the hatch between the Endeavour and the First Element of the International Space Station at 1:15 p.m. CST, Thursday, December 10, 1998.
The STS-88 astronauts completed the first steps in the orbital construction of the International Space Station. In all, it took Jerry Ross and James Newman three space walks totaling 21 hours and 22 minutes to complete the initial assembly of the station. The Space Shuttle and two types of Russian rockets will conduct 45 missions to launch and assemble the more than 100 elements which will comprise the completed International Space Station. In all, 460 tons of structures, modules, equipment and supplies will be placed in orbit by the year 2004.
Fig. 2 Endeavour prepares to capture the Functional Cargo Block (FGB also called Zarya) using the shuttle's mechanical arm in this artist's depiction of the first Space Shuttle assembly flight for the ISS. The shuttle carries a connecting module called Node 1 to be attached to the already orbiting FGB.
(movie of the astronauts assembling the first parts of the ISS -3a3.mpg)