It’s a milestone for millennials: we have witnessed history and seen the evolution of the International Space Station into what it stands for today.
The dawn of the new millennium marked the emergence of a small stride for mankind that succeeded in building a joint space station dedicated to making space exploration accessible to all.
In his address to the State of the Union, Reagan directed NASA to build an international space station within the next decade.
He said, "Just as the oceans opened up a new world for clipper ships and Yankee traders, space holds enormous potential for commerce today."
NASA then launched the first segment of the ISS, known as the Zarya Control Module, aboard a Russian Proton rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on November 20, 1998.
The Zarya Control Module was instrumental in providing fuel storage, battery power, and rendezvous and docking capability for Soyuz and Progress space vehicles.
The Russian-built Zarya module, which stands for “sunrise,” is primarily a U.S. funded component of the station, although it was manufactured and launched by Russia.
Zarya orbited Earth alone for 16 days before space shuttle Endeavour arrived to install the Unity module on October 26, 2007.
It provides living and working space for astronauts, acts as a gateway to international lab modules, and offers docking ports for commercial crew and cargo vehicles.
Then, on November 2, 2000, exactly 25 years ago, came the big day all Americans were waiting for: the first crew mission to reside aboard the ISS, including NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev.
It was called Expedition 1, and the trio spent nearly four months onboard.
There began a journey of continuous human presence in space that still continues after 25 years.
Among them are four from the NASA-SpaceX Crew-11 mission: NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, and JAXA’s Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui.
The Crew-11 mission was launched on August 11 this year from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, as the astronauts embarked on their space journey inside a Dragon capsule, launched into orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Also onboard is NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, who arrived at the ISS in April alongside cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky via a Soyuz capsule launched from Kazakhstan.
Together, this multinational crew forms Expedition 73.
In the 25 years since its establishment, more than 280 space station residents from 26 nations have visited the International Space Station, including 170 from the U.S., according to NASA.
The space station functions through global collaboration among space agencies: NASA, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration (JAXA).
The ISS is 356 feet long, equivalent to a six-bedroom house, and is divided into six sleeping quarters, two bathrooms, an exercise gym, and a bay window offering a 360-degree view, along with a capacity to dock up to eight spacecraft at once.
A quarter-century of nonstop views into our cosmic backyard, enabled solely by an orbiting outpost about 260 miles high above Earth.
The ISS silver jubilee is not merely a celebratory event but also a moment to reflect on the journey, realize how far we have come, and consider what lies ahead.
Mutual space exploration is what the ISS was built on.
And 25 years of global astronauts collaborating aboard it, forging the path for tomorrow’s deep-space adventures.