Megan's Blog

Five years of the ISS

Whether you think the International Space Station is a vital step for the future of human space exploration or a gigantic waste of money and resources, today marks five years of continuous human presence on board. On November 2nd 2000 a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying Bill Shephard, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev docked with the station and it began full-time operations. The station has been continuously manned ever since. The Shuttles and Soyuz vehicles have carried nearly 100 astronauts with a variety of nationalities to the station where they have stayed for various lengths of time, performing experiments and housekeeping procedures to keep the station operational. Both NASA and ESA have articles about this. Nasa are celebrating in various ways. NASA's site has archives of the best images taken from the ISS and will even let you send a postcard to the current crew!