First Residents Arrive: International Space Station Opens

An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts floated through the hatch of the International Space Station on November 2, 2000, and humanity has maintained a continuous presence in orbit ever since. Expedition 1 commander William Shepherd and flight engineers Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko arrived aboard a Soyuz TM-31 spacecraft after launching from Baikonur Cosmodrome two days earlier. Their four-month stay inaugurated the longest unbroken stretch of human habitation off Earth. The station they entered was still a skeletal framework. Only three modules were operational: the Russian-built Zarya control module, the Unity connecting node from NASA, and the recently attached Zvezda service module that provided living quarters and life support. The crew spent much of their time activating systems, fixing equipment, and preparing for construction missions that would follow. The partnership that built the station was itself extraordinary. The ISS brought together the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and eleven European nations in what remains the most expensive object ever constructed, with total costs exceeding $150 billion. NASA absorbed Russian engineers into the program partly to prevent their expertise from being sold to nations developing ballistic missiles. Shepherd, a former Navy SEAL, lobbied NASA to give the station the call sign "Alpha," arguing that crew members needed a name for radio communications. The choice generated mild controversy, as Russian officials felt it diminished their station Mir, which had been continuously occupied for nearly a decade before its deorbiting in 2001. More than two decades after Expedition 1, the ISS has hosted over 270 people from 21 countries, supported thousands of experiments, and proved that international cooperation can function even when the nations involved are in conflict on the ground.