Happy New Year! This very day we should celebrate 5 AS, the fifth year of our ascension into space uninterrupted. On that November 2 the three first residents of Expedition One climbed into their new home, by proxy representing humanity establishing their stellar beachhead. I suppose we're actually two days into the new year, since it takes two days for the Soyuz to catch up with the station after launch. (Like we need any better excuse to stretch a one day holiday into three!)

From its slender beginnings Alpha has grown to 200 tons surrounding a pressurized volume of 15000 cubic feet. Her solar array wingspan is 240 feet, length 146 feet, and she stands 90 feet high. That means about one half of one percent of the station's volume is habitable. Her growing pains have included common household nuisances such as strange knocks, leaky windows, bad thrusters, and faulty oxygen generators.

Everyone involved deserves the gratitude of everyone else, but particularly these good people:

Table 6 - Tug Capacity
EXPEDITION LAUNCH-LAND ALOFT TIME PERSONNEL
One 0010.31-0103.18 140 Days 23:38:00 ISS Commander William Shepherd, Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko, Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev
Two 0103.08-0108.22 167 Days 06:41:00 Commander Yury Usachev, Flight Engineers James Voss and Susan Helms
Taxi 2 0104.28-0105.07 9 days 22:05:00 Soyuz Commander Talgat Musabayev, Flight Engineer Yury Baturin and Spaceflight Participant Dennis Tito
Three 0108.10-0112.17 128 Days 20:45:00 Commander Frank Culbertson, Flight Engineers Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Turin
Taxi 3 0110.21-0110.30 9 days 18:58:00 Soyuz Commander Victor Afanasyev, Flight Engineers Konstantin Kozeev and Claudie Haigneré
Four 0112.05-0206.19 195 days 19:39:00 Commander Yuri Onufrienko, Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch
Taxi 4 0204.25-0205.04 9 days 19:25:00 Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko, Flight Engineer Roberto Vittori and Spaceflight Participant Mark Shuttleworth
Five 0206.05-0212.07 184 days 22:14 Commander Valery Korzun, Flight Engineers (Science Officer?) Peggy Whitson and Sergei Treschev
Taxi 5 0210.29-0211.09 Soyuz Commander Sergei Zalyotin, Flight Engineers Frank De Winne (ESA) and Yuri Lonchakov
Six 0211.23-0305.03 161 days 01:17 Commander Kenneth Bowersox, Flight Engineers Don Pettit and Nikolai Budarin
Seven 0304.25-0310.27 184 days 21:47 Commander Yuri Malenchenko, Flight Engineer Ed Lu
Eight 0310.18-0404.29 194 Days 18:35 Commander Michael Foale, Flight Engineers Alexander Kaleri and Pedro Duque (ESA)
Nine 0404.18-0410.23 187 Days 21:17 Commander Gennady Padalka, Flight Engineers Edward "Mike" Fincke and Andre Kuipers (ESA)
Ten 0410.13-0504.24 192 Days 19:02 Commander Leroy Chiao, Flight Engineers Salizhan Shairpov and Yuri Shargin
Eleven 0504.14-0510.10 179 days, 23:00 Commander Sergei Krikalev, Flight Engineer John Phillips
Twelve 0510.01-0511.02 12 Commander Bill McArthur, Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev and Spaceflight Participant Gregory Olsen


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