Threshold Of New Era In Space
Humans to establish extraterrestrial home
David Perlman / SF Chronicle 1nov2000

Some Major Components of the International Space Station

With two Russian one American astronauts scheduled to board the international space station Nov. 2 as the first long-term crew, the first long-term crew, the orbiting structure this already lived up its name. Although the station currently only consists of three components, it's already large enough to be seen from Earth. Over the years, it will grow to the length of a football field. At least 17 countries will contribute to the station's construction, but most elements will be Russian- or American-built. 

Three orbiting spacefarers are set to move into humanity's first permanent habitat in space tomorrow aboard the largest, costliest and most complex engineering structure ever built, some 250 miles above Earth.

After a two-day flight launched yesterday from the steppes of Kazakstan, an American astronaut and his two Russian partners will nudge their Russian Soyuz spacecraft delicately up against the docking port of the huge International Space Station at 1:20 a.m. Pacific time tomorrow.

Ninety minutes later, the mission commander, Navy Capt. William M. Shepherd, 51, who has flown three previous space shuttle missions, will open the space station's hatch. He and his partners will move in and set up housekeeping for four months of shirt-sleeved residence.

As the space station's first crew, their job will be to bring the station to life -- turning on computer and navigation systems, assisting in expansion of the station and establishing everyday procedures.

The mission opens a new era in space exploration, Russian and American space agencies say, the first phase of 15 or more years of continuous habitation aboard the space station, with successive crews following for increasingly longer stays.

``We are going to be in space with people circling the Earth forever,'' NASA chief Daniel Goldin said after the launch. ``We will build bases on Mars, the moon and asteroids. Instead of pointing missiles at each other or competing with each other, we learn from each other,'' he told reporters.

LARGER THAN FOOTBALL FIELD

Already nearly 150 feet long and weighing about 80 tons, the International Space Station, with its vast array of solar panels, will ultimately cover an area larger than a football field and weigh more than a million pounds.

Over the next five years, successive missions will bring up new modules, solar arrays and other instruments contributed by 15 other nations. The cost has been estimated at $60 billion, but many experts believe the total could exceed $100 billion.

From conception more than 16 years ago, NASA leaders have promoted the space station as critical for basic research into the effects of weightlessness on everything biological, from cell reproduction to protein synthesis to human health and behavior.

Shepherd views this mission as critical to future space exploration. ``It really means that we will develop a lot of the capabilities and technology that'll allow humans to go elsewhere away from the planet,'' he said recently in an interview recorded by NASA.

``So if we don't have this progress with this space station, it means that humans in space are pretty much destined to stay close to Earth, and I don't think that's what humans are about.''

CRITICS CALL STATION UNNECESSARY

But critics of the space station argue that NASA's unmanned planetary missions and the deep space probes that track solar phenomena, cosmic background radiation and the violent blasts of supernovae provide far more pure science than the space station ever can.

That dispute, sparked mainly by budget competition, is unlikely to be decided anytime soon.

With Shepherd are Yuri Gidzenko, 38, a Russian air force colonel and Soyuz commander, and Sergei Krikalev, 42, a cosmonaut and mechanical engineer who has spent 15 months in space aboard Mir, the now-empty Russian space station. Krikalev is one of the world's most experienced space travelers.

Working with the two Russian cosmonauts, Shepherd says, may prove difficult at times, although they have all trained together for three years both at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan and the Johnson Space Center outside Houston, and English is their daily common language.

The space station may reflect a new era of international collaboration in space exploration, but Russian and American cultures are different, and even their space ventures can operate very differently. The Russians, for example, are often allowed by their mission controllers to improvise work routines in space more freely, while NASA ground controllers schedule virtually every working event by their crews.

Gidzenko noted these differences in a recent interview. ``We didn't have the same view on different situations (when we started out), but after three years doing training, we learned to understand each other and it helped us.''

THE ALCOHOL ISSUE

One cultural difference may prove extremely important: On Mir the cosmonauts were allowed to bring drinks with them -- a little vodka or wine now and then. But alcohol is strictly banned on any American space mission, as will be the case on the space station.

Many future stays will be commanded by a Russian cosmonaut, and neither space agency will say whose rules will apply. Bets are that it will be the Americans, who are footing by far the biggest share of the program's cost.

When the three men enter the space station tomorrow, their first job will be to ``turn the lights on -- kind of like getting into your house,'' Shepherd said. Then they must fire up their computers and make sure they can communicate with them. Krikalev and Gidzenko, meanwhile, will turn on the first TV camera so they can beam images back to Earth.

``We're going to go around the house and turn the utilities on,'' Shepherd said.

Their house is in fact a 20-ton Russian module called Zvezda, meaning Star, which was rocketed up to the space station last July and will serve as living quarters at least until the main American laboratory module, called Destiny, arrives aboard the space shuttle Enterprise in January.

Like new tenants, the space station crew will spend most of tomorrow and Friday making sure that their house gear is neatly stowed and their life support systems are functioning.

Among the devices on board are a Russian system called Elektron that absorbs carbon dioxide exhaled by the men and produces oxygen for fresh air, plus another called Vozdukh that removes toxics from the atmosphere. Fresh water won't be recycled from wastes -- at least for now.

Early in their first day, the crew will turn on a water heater for cooking, switch on the suction toilet and prepare the fold-up beds where they'll sleep secured by straps to keep them from floating through the cabin.

``And if we get all that done the first day, we'll count it a success,'' Shepherd said.

HARD WORK

For the duration of the 115-day stay, the work schedule is tough, and each workday more than a little topsy-turvy.

The days begin with an electronic wake-up call at 9:01 p.m. Pacific time. The astronauts have two hours to read mail uplinked from Houston, eat breakfast and catch some exercise on the treadmill, weights and stationary bike. Exercise two hours a day is crucial to maintaining muscles and blood circulation endangered by weightlessness.

Work, with a midday lunch break, continues until midafternoon, when more exercise is followed by detailed conferences with mission control to plan the next day's activities. Then come dinner, chat time with Earth-bound families, and bedtime.

Mission controllers say the men will get 9 to 9 1/2 hours of sleep each ``night,'' but the Russians insist they'll need only 6.

Later this month, the unmanned supply ship Progress will arrive to haul away trash and flawed equipment. Another supply ship arrives and docks in December to deliver more gear and haul away more waste.

In January, the space shuttle Enterprise arrives with the American Destiny lab, whose complex equipment will take many days to check out and set up for science experiments.

Finally, on Feb. 15, the space shuttle Discovery will rocket up to the space station carrying retired Army Col. James S. Voss, Air Force Col. Susan J. Helms and Russian Cosmonaut Yuri V. Usachev as the Space Station's next inhabitants, with Usachev in command. Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalev fly back home aboard Discovery on Feb. 24.

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IN SPACE

the first long-term crew members check in -- to the International Space Station, they'll find a -- living space stocked with the essentials -- the bare essentials -- for a four-month stay in space. The crew -- two Russians and one American -- will spend most of their time in the Russian-built Zvezda service module that was attached to two previous modules in July. As the station continues to expand, these tight quarters will be replaced by a comparatively more luxurious habitation module.

MAJOR COMPONENTS OF THE COMPLETED INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION:

1 -- Unity Node: 1 December 1998 Passageway connects living and work areas, with six hatches to serve as docking ports for added modules. 2 -- Zarya: November 1998 Designed to provide power and propulsion to the fledgling station, Zarya will later be used for storage and external fuel tanks. 3 -- Zvezda Service Module: July 2000 Serves as initial living quarters and main docking port for cargo resupply vehicles. 4 -- Habitation Module: September 2005 With room for six crew members, these quarters will replace Zvezda, providing more comfortable accommodations, including a shower and complete galley. 5 -- U.S. Laboratory: January 2001 Will serve as central laboratory for experiments carried out in microgravity. 6 -- Solar array: November 2000 The first of these solar power collectors feed batteries, supplying the station with electricity. 7 -- Kibo: May 2004 Will provide laboratory facilities for Japanese material processing and research.

Sources: NASA, Boeing
Associated Press Graphic

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