Closer to completion

The International Space Station proves to be an ongoing engineering experiment with an ultimate goal of becoming a human space-living reality.

It could be argued that some engineers became engineers after watching Walter Cronkite report on the first landing on the moon 34 years ago, showing moving pictures of humans hopping about in oversized clothes on the Earth's satellite. With that sense of play and sheer giddiness, an analogy can be made to those first lunar steps being made by a kindergartener, while the steps we are taking now in our exploration of space and the building of the International Space Station (ISS) are looking more and more like those of a high schooler on the way to eventually getting an advanced degree, or two.

The above analogy is not to say that there isn't still much to do. However, in terms of components, what needs to be done is getting done, with more than two-thirds of the ISS core structure complete. Prior to the Columbia disaster last month, Bill Gerstenmaier, Station Program Manager, NASA, had said that, “The year ahead will be the most complex so far in the history of the International Space Station and its construction in orbit.” He would prove to be right in more ways than one.