It sounds like the beginning of a science fiction work, but it is a silent milestone in the history of our species. On Tuesday, October 31, 2000, he marked the last day that every human being on the planet was on this side of the atmosphere. Since then, there has not been a single moment in which full humanity has been confined to our native planet.
A historical launch. That October 31, 2000, a Soyuz ship took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, carrying on board the expedition 1 of the International space Station: the American commander Bill Shepherd of the NASA and the Russian cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko de Roscosmos.
The crew reached an incipient ISS on November 2, 2000. It barely had a couple of modules (the Russian Zarya and the American Unity, assembled in 1998), but since then, the orbital laboratory has been occupied uninterruptedly. For 24 and a half years, there is always some human floating about 400 kilometers on our heads.
A quarter of a century. The International Space Station is a collaborative project between five space agencies (the American Nasa, the Russian Roscosmos, the European ESA, the Japanese Jaxa and the Canadian CSA). It is not only an international cooperation symbol, but an unparalleled scientific laboratory, that orbits the land every 90 minutes at a speed of almost 28,000 km/h.
In this quarter of a century, the Orbital Station has reached a habitable volume greater than that of a six -bedroom house, with a wingspan of 109 meters and an average of seven people always on board. It can attach up to eight spacecraft simultaneously and has hosted almost 3,000 investigations of more than 108 countries, taking advantage of microgravity to study from particle physics to the effects of space trips on the human body.
The ISS gives the witness. Aged and with age of age, such as the air leaks that bring their operators head, the ISS members plan to leave it in 2030, before a ship developed by Spacex trailer to a safe place for its atmospheric reentry.
NASA’s strategy is clear: ceasing to be the owner and main operator to become a key client, thus ensuring the continuous human presence in the low terrestrial orbit. This will allow to continue investigating in microgravity (which is crucial for future missions to the moon and Mars), maintain international collaboration and promote a commercial space economy.
The United States has just reduced the budget for ISS in the hope that there is a rapid transition to new commercial space stations. Companies such as Axiom Space (with their Axiom Sation project), Blue Origin (with its Reef orbital or Voyager Space (with Starlab, in collaboration with Airbus) are developing new private orbital platforms.
What if they are not ready in time? If commercial stations do not arrive by 2030, humanity will continue to inhabit the orbit low thanks to China. Votada de la ISS, China has expanded its presence in space with the Tiangong Space Station, continuously inhabited since 2022.
China not only plans to double its size of three to six modules in the coming years, but is already opening its doors to international cooperation, as demonstrated by the recent agreement to train and send Pakistani astronauts to the Chinese space station.
With NASA focusing on a commercial model and the exploration of deep space, Beijing is strategically positioned as a central actor and a possible alternative in the low orbit, especially for nations that seek to collaborate outside the US frame.
A changing environment. But there is another reason why the United States has focused on the moon and Mars. The low terrestrial orbit faces the increasingly critical challenge of space garbage. Millions of objects, from dead satellites and higher stages of rockets to small undetectable fragments generated by collisions or antisatellite missile tests.
These waste travels at huge speeds and represents a risk of collision constantly and potentially catastrophic for astronauts. ISS itself has had to perform numerous evasive maneuvers in recent years. Manage this problem through better follow -up systems (especially for small objects), the active withdrawal of the most dangerous waste and, above all, prevention and mitigation in the generation of new space garbage (such as rapid exorbitation of rocket stages) will be essential to guarantee the safety of future long -term crew.
For now, and for almost 25 years, we continue to live the space. On October 31, 2000, it was the last day of an era in which humanity was anchored exclusively to Earth. Since then we have been, uninterrupted, a species with extraterrestrial presence. Human permanence outside the earth seems assured, but its sustainability will require even more global effort and cooperation.
Image | THAT
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