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Stationed in the Stars
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Program Overview
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On December 2nd 1998, the space shuttle Endeavour blasted off from Cape Kennedy
carrying the first stage of the world's most ambitious and expensive
engineering venture of all time. If all goes as planned, by 2004 the US and
its 14 international partners will have launched 460 tons of hardware into
orbit 220 miles above earth. These components will be assembled in a space
station as big as two football fields and weighing a million pounds. The
station will offer at least eight interior spaces for living, storage, or lab
research. Its solar panels - among the largest structures ever placed in orbit
- will generate 45 kilowatts of power. The bill will come to at least $50
billion.
The International Space Station got off to a shaky start in the early 1980s,
when its design was constantly at the whim of fluctuating budgets and
successive NASA engineers. In the era of glasnost, the project got a new lease
of life when it was perceived as an effective way of reaching out to the
beleaguered Russian space agency. Fraught with funding issues and political
tensions, the collaboration highlighted the different styles of its engineers.
NASA engineers tend to think on a big—sometimes too ambitious—scale,
while the Russians have concentrated on low-cost, improvised solutions to such
problems as long-term life support for the astronauts on board.
NOVA's profile of the ISS will focus on a crucial turning point in the project
as the Russians finally deliver the vital Service Module, which they've been
constructing for almost 15 years. NOVA will take viewers inside the excitement
and risks of the shuttle mission that will place this third key component of
ISS in orbit. Assuming the mission succeeds, NASA hopes that ISS will begin to
silence its many critics and start to realize its scientific potential. Our
show will paint a vivid picture of the third mission, the risks and hazards of
long-term operations in space, and the vision and audacity that lie behind this
extraordinary project.
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