The first crew on the International Space
Station arrived on November 2, 2000. Continuous human habitation in space began
15 years ago, when three people stepped onto an orbiting laboratory that space
agencies see as a springboard
to Mars.
On November 2, 2000, a Russian Soyuz
rocket docked at the International Space Station carrying Expedition 1, made up
of NASA astronaut William Shepherd and Roscosmos cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and
Sergei Krikalev.
For 136 days, 17 hours and 9 minutes,
they lived in the narrow quarters of the station as it zipped silently around
Earth at 5 miles per second, 250 miles above its surface.
To amuse global audiences, they played
with weightlessness on camera. But mostly, they carried out experiments in the
world's only microgravity laboratory. NASA says breakthroughs have been
achieved there that would not have been possible on Earth.
The station has been continuously inhabited since, and today Monday,
to celebrate the anniversary, the current crew of Expedition 44 will talk live
on camera (CNN).
Two of them, NASA's Scott Kelly and Roscosmos' Mikhail Kornienko, are
on a one-year mission to test the effects on the human body of long-term stays
in space. The experiment is a precursor to sending people to Mars. 200 people
from 15 countries have visited the station since 15years today.
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