The International Space Station [I.S.S.]
All images courtesy of NASA

     Currently, the nations of the Earth are engaged in the most ambitious project in the recorded history of the Human Race:

the construction of the first permanently crewed facility in Earth Orbit.

     The International Space Station [I.S.S.] begins construction in December, 1998, in the first of 45 missions over the next 5 years, with the launch to orbit by Space Shuttle "Endeavour" of the module "Unity", which will then be connected to the Russian-built power and propulsion module "Zarya".

     The development of the STS ["Shuttle"] system during the latter days of Project Apollo made possible one fundamental change in US space policy: the inclusion, at long last, of women in the program.
     That this was, in the long term, desirable -- indeed, necessary -- was unquestioned... at least by those visionaries who had, for decades, been working to lead Man out of the cradle of planet Earth. But there were many who were violently opposed to the integration of Space, not all of them military. They believed that women were unsuited to the "rigors of space flight", tending to regard the flight of Valentina Tereschkova as little more than a stunt... which might have been true.
     But few questioned the reality that, if humans were to be a permanent presence in Space, women would inevitably have to become space travelers and space workers. The advent of the Shuttle put an end to the last justifications of the nay-sayers and the future of Homo Sap in space began to take on realistic dimension.
     Women have been integral to the human drive into space ever since the landmark flight of Sally Ride. Among the NASA Shuttle Astronauts working to make this current dream a reality are:

          
Dr Kalpana Chawla from India, Elena Kondakova from Russia
and Americans
                    
Eileen Marie Collins, Bonnie Dunbar, Joan Higginbotham,

          
Cmdr Katherine P Hire, Martha S Ivins.

          
Rhea Seddon and Stephanie Wilson

for more information, visit

• the NASA Shuttle Web, or
• the Johnson Space Center.
  

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