The International Space Station Marks 25 Years of Nonstop Human Presence in Orbit
The International Space Station is marking 25 years of nonstop human presence in orbit, an unprecedented space streak of people living off-planet without pause.
The station boasts a guest list of nearly 300, including professional astronauts, space tourists, and a movie director. The first full-time residents, NASA’s Bill Shepherd and Russia’s Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko, opened the hatch on November 2, after launching from Kazakhstan on October 31 in a Russian Soyuz rocket.
They spent almost five months on board, making the station functional and hospitable. With only five years left at the scientific outpost, NASA is counting on private companies to launch their own orbiting stations with a bigger and wider clientele.
It’s an unprecedented space streak: 25 years of people living off-planet without even a moment’s pause.
Autor's resume: The ISS marks 25 years in orbit.