By Richard Tew
Nasa Correspondent for The Post Newspaper
On December 06, 1998 the International Space Station went from an idea to a reality.
Starting with two original modules: Unity and Zarya, would eventually culminate into a space station spanning some 358 ft in length and would occupy roughly the same living space as a modern six bedroom house.
According to spacecenter.org, the first astronauts to live on the space station (2000) were former NASA astronaut William (Bill) Shepherd (expedition commander), and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev (flight engineer) and Yuri Gidzenko (Soyuz commander).
The ISS orbits the Earth 240 miles up every 90 minutes and has logged some 3,300 experiments over the last 23 years it has been crewed.
The space station is supported by five national space agencies: NASA, Roscosmos, The European Space Agency (ESA), The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the Japan Space Agency (JAXA).
To date the ISS has hosted 273 astronauts from 21 different countries, all while performing research to help develop cutting edge technologies for life back on Earth and also to continue space travel to points further in the solar system.
Photo cutline: The International Space Station. Photo by NASA.
