This program sought to develop ostensibly only space stations that were intended solely for civilian and scientific use, but ended up being a dual-use project. It was against this background that the Soviet Union began its Salyut program in 1971. With the scientific progress of the Cold War era being overshadowed by the looming threat of planetary-scale annihilation, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty sought to prohibit space-based weapons of mass destruction, as well as regulate access to space as being essentially a public good. What the ISS also demonstrates – tragically – is that expensive space exploration programs tend to be heavily linked into politics, and by extension military objectives. This latter point is becoming ever more pertinent now that the goal is to have refueling stations in orbit around Earth as part of NASA’s new Moon landing program. Another essential feature is the convenience of having a spot to dock to outside of Earth’s gravity well. Space stations also form an excellent location to gather information on how to keep human beings alive with and without artificial gravity before we venture further into space and onto other planets. This is demonstrated by the International Space Station (ISS), which performs a range of experiments every single day, both inside and outside the station.īy removing gravity as a factor, its effect on everything from the way fluids behave during an experiment to how lifeforms grow can be examined and quantified. Why even put a habitat in orbit, whether it’s in low-Earth orbit (LEO), around the Moon or the massive space colonies in O’Neill cylinders, as popularized in sci-fi? Although less flashy than a daring trip to the Moon to perform experiments on its surface, there is a lot of practical use for having a constantly habitable space in microgravity. Sense And Nonsense Of Space Colony in an O’Neill cylinder, with a clear view of nearby planets. These Salyut space stations also served as cover for the military Almaz space stations that were intended to be used for reconnaissance as well as weapon platforms.Īlthough the US unquestionably won out on racing the USSR to the Moon, the latter nation’s achievements granted us invaluable knowledge on how to make space stations work, which benefits us all to this very day. The Soviet Union established a near-permanent presence of cosmonauts in Earth orbit since the 1970s as part of the Salyut program. Perhaps ironically, considering the portrayal of space stations in Western media, virtually all of the space stations launched during the 20th century were Soviet, leaving Skylab as the sole US space station to this day. The first space stations were being launched following or alongside Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and countless other books and movies during the 1960s and 1970s such as Moonraker which portrayed people living (and fighting) out in space. As the first artificial satellites began zipping around the Earth, this was soon followed by manned spaceflight, first in low Earth orbit, then to the Moon with manned spaceflights to Mars and Venus already in the planning. When the Space Race kicked off in earnest in the 1950s, in some ways it was hard to pin down where sci-fi began and reality ended.
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