FUTURE SPACE STATIONS
As the International Space Station approaches the end of its working life, NASA is looking at what might come next
WORDS ANDREW MAY
DID YOU KNOW? The ISS has been home to more than 280 astronauts from 23 different countries
For more than 20 years, almost all crewed space missions have involved visits to the International Space Station (ISS). This is a unique resource in human history – a continuously occupied scientific research outpost in Earth orbit. The lack of perceptible gravity allows the scientists and astronauts on board to perform experiments that would be impossible on Earth, both in fundamental science and with potential applications for technology development, as well as investigating the effects of prolonged spaceflight on the human body.
The idea of an orbiting laboratory goes back to the early days of spaceflight. NASA’s first space station, called Skylab, was made from the converted upper stage of a Saturn V rocket and hosted three crews between May 1973 and February 1974. During the same decade and the following one, the Soviet Union operated a series of increasingly sophisticated space stations of its own, culminating in Mir, launched on 20 February 1986. This was the world’s first multi-module space station, looking rather like a scaled-down version of the ISS.