HOME IN THE SKY

November 20, 1998
		After 14 years of planning, the construction of the International Space Station took a step closer today after a Russian rocket sent the station's first component into orbit. NewsHour correspondent Tom Bearden takes a look at the $60 billion project.

Dec. 8, 1998: Question and answer on the International Space Station. Oct. 29, 1998: Tom Bearden reports on John Glenn's lift-off and the science that will be performed. Oct. 28, 1998: John Glenn, the first American man to orbit the Earth, returns to space aboard the shuttle Discovery. Oct. 28, 1998: Phil Ponce looks at the Glenn flight from an historical perspective. March 6, 1998: NASA scientist Alan Binder discusses th new discovery of water on the moon. Feb. 27, 1998: Is the universe evolving more rapidly now than it has in the past? Jan. 16, 1998: Details of Senator John Glenn's planned trip back into orbit an age 77. Oct. 15, 1997: NASA begins its seven year missionto explore Saturn. Oct. 2, 1997: Forty years after Sputnik first circled the Earth, historians examine its impact. Sept. 30, 1997: An interview with Mir astronauts. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Science     NASA PBS's John Glenn Special Space Shuttle Information	TOM BEARDEN: Within the next few years earthlings will be able to look up into the night sky and see a brilliant new star - a man-made star. It's the International Space Station-the culmination of generations of dreaming, planning, spending, squabbling, revising, building, testing, and hoping. The first piece is now in orbit. Over the next five years or so, more and more pieces will be added. Sound simple? Frank Culbertson.is the space station deputy program manager. FRANK CULBERTSON: Putting the space station together is probably going to be the most complicated thing we've ever done in the history of humankind once it's all completed TOM BEARDEN: That complexity is matched by the station's own complex history. Say "space station" and most people think of a giant wheel in space, like the one in the motion picture "2001: A Space Odyssey" or "Star Trek." in those visions, a space station was an orbital colony, a waystation to the moon. the planets, and even the stars. At the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum, where the dreams of flight finally come to rest, space historian Howard McCurdy recalled the early vision. HOWARD McCURDY: NASA's wanted to build a space station since before they were NASA. They always believed that the first step into space was going to be a space station because it would provide an operational base for them going deeper into space, going around the Moon, landing on the Moon and finally launching expeditions to the planets.
	The dream begins.
	TOM BEARDEN: The dream began to take on reality in the optimistic era of the early 70's after the Apollo Moon missions. NASA confidently proposed a reusable space vehicle--the shuttle, and it was supposed to build a space station as the "next logical step." But only the shuttle was funded. It wasn't until 1984 that President Reagan authorized work on a station--and even that went through a series of redesigns and downsizings. It kept getting smaller and less capable as budget realities set in. HOWARD MC CURDY: NASA would propose a space station as, in effect, the builders of a house might propose a construction of a house and the owners would say no, that's too much, we want you to scale it back, take out the brass, take out the bathrooms and come back with something that's a little less expensive. Amazingly that process went on for 11 years through a variety of designs and redesigns of the space station until we finally got to the point where everybody threw up their hands and said, well let's build this one; this is the last design. TOM BEARDEN: What finally emerged was the international space station, because it became clear that an all-American station would never be funded. NASA persuaded Congress that a larger, more useful station could be built for less money if Russia were brought into the project. The agency said the U.S. could tap into the Russians' long experience on their own "Mir" space platform. Unlike the science fiction dream, it won't be a waystation, or a fueling depot, or a construction site for interplanetary spacecraft. It's strictly a platform for scientific research in biosciences, materials, and physics. It isn't even a wheel, but rather a series of individual modules mated together in space, then capped by a giant truss with huge solar power panels at each end. The United States and Russia will contribute the first modules and do all the assembly. Other international partners, including Europe and Japan, will build research modules. The final project is roughly the size of two football fields - too big to assemble to see how everything fits before launch. FRANK CULBERTSON: You're taking two pieces of equipment that may or may not have seen each other on earth before they were launched and launching them on one vehicle or another, let's say, for example, the shuttle, you're going to attach the shuttle to the space station, lift this component out of the payload bay with an arm and then attach it to the station itself all going l7,000 miles an hour in the vacuum of space and it's got to work right the first time. TOM BEARDEN: The first element was successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan this morning. It's called Zarya - U.S.-designed and financed and built by a Russian contractor. Two weeks from now the shuttle "Endeavour" will launch the first U.S.-built module--a connecting node called "Unity." The shuttle will approach Zarya from behind and below. It will slowly maneuver to an overhead position. The robot arm will grab it and eventually join the two modules. But it won't be easy. Mission Commander Bob Cabana explains.
	Construction challenges.
	BOB CABANA: The key is positioning those two pieces together precisely to have that success. We have to be confident that we're within that envelope because if we're not, the two pieces won't grab together, they'll bounce apart. TOM BEARDEN: Astronaut Nancy Currie will use the robot arm to maneuver the multi ton mass of Zarya to within a fraction of an inch. Currie and other astronauts have been practicing on a simulator for more than a year. NANCY CURRIE: In order to properly grapple Zarya, the free flier, we actually have to maneuver it down into the bay at a level that is lower than Unity itself. So it actually slides behind it, about twenty feet behind it, slides behind it and so all we see is the two solar rays on Zarya sticking out. TOM BEARDEN: She won't be able to see much with her own eyes because the bulky modules will block the view from the cockpit windows. Currie will use TV cameras in the payload bay and a newly developed computerized positioning system that presents a graphic display. The day after the docking, three spacewalks will take place. It will take approximately 160 spacewalks to assemble the station over the next several years. In fact, putting the station together will take more spacewalks than have taken place in the entire history of manned spaceflight, U.S. and Russian. It will also take a whole new set of tools. For example, a new robot arm from Canada will eventually be installed on the central truss. It can actually inchworm its way along the beam to go where it's needed. A remote control camera will be able to fly freely around the station to do inspections. Astronauts will be able to move quickly along the truss using a Brazilian built cart on a track, pulling themselves hand over hand. And the space suits, which astronauts will use to do most of the assembly work, have been largely rethought and redesigned. For example, for the first time they'll be able to fit different size astronauts. And they can be used in space up to 25 times before they have to be brought back to earth. Phil West helped design some of the new tools. PHIL WEST: We've broken the suit down into major components, and we could launch a new component - they could reassemble it on orbit, rather than trying to re-launch a whole suit. The suit is modular, more so than it was in previous space shuttle missions, and so we can actually disconnect the suit here at the upper arm and pull this apart. We literally now can take aluminum rings in and stack them in the upper and lower leg to make the suit longer or shorter depending on the size astronaut. That can be done on orbit, whereas before it was technicians with sewing needles on the ground and, believe me, you don't want astronauts floating around the space station with needles. It's like running with scissors, right? Bad plan. TOM BEARDEN: Because of the long cold workdays, the gloves will have heated fingertips for the first time. Astronauts will also carry around a portable foot restraint to hold them in place while they work. PHIL WEST: Working in your house things work out fine generally because gravity holds your feet to the floor. You drive a screw into your wall -- that's great. You don't go anywhere. But if an astronaut floats up to a bolt on a space station and tries to turn the bolt without holding on, the bolt's not going to go anywhere. They're just going to spin around the bolt, which we found to be, as I said, somewhat entertaining but not very productive. So they clip in here, and when they want to reposition themselves, they can pull one boot out and move themselves side to side this way, or move themselves around like this, and there's even another degree of freedom - they can get out and change as well.
	The challenge for Astronauts.
	TOM BEARDEN: Astronauts Jerry Ross and Jim Newman will do the first three spacewalks. They'll be doing relatively simple tasks like hooking up power cables and bolting on handrails. Both have trained extensively in the giant water tank that simulates weightlessness on earth. Still, it's a challenge. JERRY ROSS: It's difficult to describe exactly what it feels like to be in a spacesuit. But if you can imagine putting on a very heavy overcoat like you're going out in wintertime, put on some very heavy thick gloves kind of like welder's gloves or very thick leather gloves, if you can imagine putting on a very heavy hat and scarf or something like that, that cuts down on your visibility, and now you've got to go out and change those spark plugs way in the back of your engine that are hard to reach. TOM BEARDEN: Do you get tired? JERRY ROSS: Absolutely. Every time that your open and close your glove you're doing work. And you're doing that repeatedly over a series of six hours of activity outside, and another hour or so beforehand and another half hour to an hour after you get back inside the orbiter. Every second that you are out there your brain is going l00 miles an hour thinking about what you got to do, how you're going to do it, what tool you're going to use, what setting you're going to have in your power wrench, making sure that your tethers aren't getting tangled on some other equipment or somebody else out there, and so you're very busy, very active, and it keeps you to the point that you're very exhausted by the time you come in. TOM BEARDEN: A lot has been learned about spacewalking since the early days, particularly when astronauts successfully completed the delicate and unanticipated repairs to the Hubble space telescope. It's still risky but NASA is confident it can manage that--so confident that it's now talking about workdays of up to ten hours in a space suit. JIM NEWMAN: Everything that we do in space is risky. There are various levels of risk and our comfort with it. And the more spacewalks we've done I think the more we understand it. TOM BEARDEN: But there are still many unknowns. It's not like fitting together a giant tinkertoy. Take the central truss: no one's ever put together a single object that big in space. It will clearly bend and flex. The question is how much. FRANK CULBERTSON: The changing conditions in space where the sun is full blast for a little while and then gone for a while affects you thermally. Every time your fire a jet or maneuver the station the whole thing will ring with a resonance and so we have structural concerns about the truss or any the elements bending in response to these thermal changes, and we'll probably learn some things as we go, but we're designing lots of margin into it to make sure we can take care of anything we can think of that might affect its service life.
	Russia's economic crisis.
	TOM BEARDEN: Perhaps the biggest unknown has nothing to do with stress or engineering. It's how good a partner the Russian space agency can be. Because of ongoing Russian financial crises, Moscow has been late with funding. The third module in the sequence, the vital service module, was supposed to have been launched last April. It's now scheduled for next summer. FRANK CULBERTSON: That's going to be something we're going to have to watch over the next few months and next few years as they get their affairs in order and take care of their economic problems. That's a real issue -- a real situation for them that they've got to sort out for themselves. TOM BEARDEN: NASA is asking a skeptical congress for money to help the Russians complete the service module, while at the same time preparing a temporary backup. SPOKESMAN: It is clear that Russia's problems have cost the ISS program both time and money. TOM BEARDEN: The official time line calls for the station to be built and operational in 2004 but even the space agency admits that's probably optimistic. The station is already behind schedule and billions over budget-how many billions depending on whom you ask. Yet even with the delays it is clear that the station has entered a new era and is on its way at last. McCurdy believes its value will ultimately be more than just science. HOWARD MC CURDY: The reason we do things in this government is not always because they are utilitarian. It's simply because they want to. Why do people own cats? I mean, there's no economic cost benefit advantage to owning cats. We go into space because it's, in effect, in our genes to explore. TOM BEARDEN: McCurdy believes that the joining of these first elements will be remembered as a milestone in human history, one perhaps even more important than the first Moon landing. He believes it will mark the beginning of a permanent human presence in space.