“You can’t give yourself a price”: the International Space Station marks 20 years

As humanity celebrates the 20th anniversary of continued human presence in low earth orbit, a leading UK space expert has described the International Space Station (ISS) as an invaluable scientific resource.

Libby Jackson, who is the head of the human exploration program at the UK Space Agency, said having a space laboratory in orbit, which cost more than US $ 100 billion (£ 75 billion), is something. that “you can’t put a price on”.

He said, “It’s a unique science lab and the science we’re doing on the space station can’t be done anywhere else on Earth.”

Construction of the ISS began in 1998 and its first inhabitants – US astronaut Bill Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko – arrived on November 2, 2000.

Since then, human occupation of the 420-ton space station has been uninterrupted, with 240 men and women having camped out over the past two decades.

Ms. Jackson said, “There have been over 2,775 different experiments (conducted in the space station) involving more than 100 countries.

“We looked at how cells change, how humans change, and how materials change in space.

“All of these things are answering questions that benefit everyone on Earth.”

One such space project involved primary school children from across the UK taking part in a salad seed gardening experiment.

British astronaut Tim Peake took charge of two kilograms of rocket seeds during his time on the space station, which were returned to Earth in March 2016 and distributed to around 10,000 schools.

The children then grew those salad seeds into plants to see if they were affected by space travel.

Major Peake also participated in more than 250 other experiments designed by scientists from around the world, one of which involved participating in a research-developed airway monitoring test that could benefit hundreds of thousands of people suffering from asthma. on earth.

Ms. Jackson said, “You also have technological advantages that come from designing something in space that can have side effects in things (on Earth).”

About the size of a five-bedroom house, the ISS has six bedrooms, two bathrooms, a gym and a series of bay windows that provide astronauts with a 360-degree view as it spins the globe 16 times a day, traveling to over 17,000 miles per hour.

But with around four billion US dollars (3 billion pounds) spent annually on maintenance costs and service flights, questions are being raised about the future of the space station.

The ISS includes contributions from 15 nations and NASA, which provides the majority of the funding, has indicated it plans to end support in the near future as it focuses on lunar and Mars missions.

But Ms. Jackson said she hopes private companies will step in to manage it commercially.

One such company includes Texas-based Axiom Space, which recently signed a deal with Tom Cruise’s production agency to send the actor into space alongside director Doug Liman.

Ms Jackson said, “The space station benefits all of humanity, but we cannot afford to continue doing anything as governments.

“We may see some of these costs incurred by people with very, very deep pockets.”

He said even if human space exploration moves beyond low earth orbit, a research base closer to home will still be needed.

Ms. Jackson added, “We need the technical test bed to allow us to check our toilets and our water recycling systems.”

Caroline Harper, who is head of space science at the British Space Agency, said she hopes the international cooperation that led to the ISS will continue with future human exploration.

He said: “(Even when) the politics on the ground isn’t great, it was wonderful to see all that cooperation going on up there on the space station.

“International cooperation is a huge factor and I don’t think academics will want to let it go.”