The International Space Station (ISS) is taking shape above our heads as you read this, and has been since 1998. USAToday has a cool flash animation on how the ISS has come together. Check it out..
Okay, so it’s not the great double wheel of a space station that so inflamed my imagination back in 1968, with Stanley Kubrick’s epic film 2001: A Space Odyssey. I saw that film 6 times in the spring and summer of 1968 – a couple of times at drive-in theaters – before it left the large screen for the first time (before it returned and achieved film immortality).
But hey. The ISS a space station, a place where human beings are meant to live and work in space. And although my enthusiasms might not burn as brightly now as they did 40 years ago, I still think that’s pretty cool.
Lest we forget … sigh …
The ISS is scheduled for completion by late 2011. The station is expected to remain in operation until at least 2015, and likely 2020.
Alan Stern: ‘I’d like to see the U.S explore planets with human beings.’
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