2.  President Ronald Regan committed to developing a space station back in 1984!  Zarya was lifted into orbit on November 20th, 1998 by a Russian Proton rocket lifting off from Baikonur, Kazhakstan  It was scheduled to be completed in 2003, but was completed in 2011.  First full-time crew moved into the space station on November 2, 2000.

3.  The International Space Station (ISS) is a little “city in space” orbiting 250 miles above the Earth.  About the size of two football fields, the space station will be a place where people from around the world can live and study in space over long periods of time.

4.  The most important benefit is that the space station allows humans to live and study for long periods in microgravity, or a “weightless” environment.  Think of the space station as a stepping-stone to the stars. If humans are ever going to travel to other planets, such as Mars, we must understand the effects of such long journeys on the human body.

5.  United States  Russia  Canada  Japan  Brazil  European Space Agency (Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland) **America is no longer sending shuttles into space. American astronauts hitch rides with shuttles from other countries.

6.  The space station travels at an incredible 17,500 miles per hour, orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes—that’s 16 times a day!!!  http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking / http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking /

7.  The modules are roomy, bright, and kept at a constant 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  In a typical workday, crew members will spend 14 hours working and exercising, 1.5 hours preparing and eating meals, and 8.5 hours sleeping.

8.  The completed International Space Station has a mass of about 1,040,000 pounds.  It measures 356 feet across and 290 feet long, with almost an acre of solar panels to provide electrical power to six state-of-the-art laboratories.  The ISS is the largest, most complex international scientific project in history and our largest adventure into space to date.  The ISS is comprised of more than 100 major components carried aloft during 88 space flights to assemble the space station.

10.  to conduct basic and applied research to support human exploration of space, and  to take advantage of the space environment as a laboratory for research -- scientific, technological, and commercial.

13.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/gallery/ 2010/feb/15/endeavour-international-space- station-tranquility?picture=359334748 http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/gallery/ 2010/feb/15/endeavour-international-space- station-tranquility?picture=359334748  http://www.pbs.org/spacestation/station/iss factsheet.htm http://www.pbs.org/spacestation/station/iss factsheet.htm  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station /main/index.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station /main/index.html