Brief Ceremony, Then Back To Work

The image was grainy. The actors were stilted. But it was heartwarming, nonetheless. In spite of the Columbia disaster last February, Russia's continuing financial crisis and hestinancy on the part of some space partners, the Russian and American astronauts aboard the International Space Station paused for a moment today, marking the one thousandth consecutive day that the ISS has been manned and operational.

Mission Commander Yuri Malenchenko of Russia and the US's Science Officer, Ed Lu, stood shoulder to shoulder in the Destiny lab module, facing the television camera.

"Greetings from on board the International Space Station," Malenchenko said in his thick Russian accent. "We are orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 240 miles, midway through our six-month mission." He passed the mic to Ed Lu.

"Today marks the one-thousandth day that humans have been living here on the International Space Station. Since the Expedition One crew floated on board on November 2nd, 2000, the station has developed into a fully operational microgravity science platform that will be expanded considerably in the years to come. The living and working areas inside the station alone have increased over the past thousand days to the size of a three-bedroom house. The seven international expedition crews have conducted numerous spacewalks from the station, welcomed eleven visiting shuttles, ten Progress cargo vehicles and four Soyuz taxi crews. The station has been equipped over the past thousand days with the largest solar arrays ever built, the first dedicated science laboratory, which we're in now, the Destiny laboratory, two generations of dedicated space robotics, Russian and US airlocks for station-based spacewalks, three sections of the station's supportive truss structure and a space railway system.

"There are many activities to look forward to in the next one thousand days on the station," Lu continued. "First, there is the important return to flight of the space shuttle, after the loss of Columbia and our friends on the STS-107 crew. Then, we will resume the expansion of the station with more trusses, the addition and upgrading of power systems and the delivery of the second node, which will mark the US core complete and set the stage for the European and Japanese Columbus and Kibo science facilities. We have a very exciting and challenging road ahead of us, but NASA and its international partners will make great strides working together, as we have in the first one thousand days in the life of the International Space Station."

FMI: www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/station