{"id":183,"date":"2016-10-24T13:28:46","date_gmt":"2016-10-24T12:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crystalimaging.co.uk\/?page_id=183"},"modified":"2016-10-24T13:28:46","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T12:28:46","slug":"a-brief-history-of-space-stations","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/crystalimaging.co.uk\/?page_id=183","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History of Space Stations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The ISS is by no means the first human habitat in orbit, but was in fact the 9<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0such space station. \u00a0In the 1970s and 1980s, the USSR launched a whole series of relatively small <em><i>Salyut<\/i><\/em>\u00a0space stations, while the USA put the somewhat longer-lived <em><i>Skylab<\/i><\/em>\u00a0into orbit.<\/p>\n<p>A major step forward came with the USSR (and latter Russian) <em><i>Mir<\/i><\/em>\u00a0space station, which introduced the idea of modular components launched separately and connected in space, allowing the construction of a larger station. \u00a0The series of rockets required to build such a station also naturally encouraged restocking with supplies in an on-going way, so it is perhaps unsurprising that <em><i>Mir<\/i><\/em>\u00a0had a large number of crews over its 15-year lifetime, some of long duration; Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 days on <em><i>Mir<\/i><\/em>, set a record for a continuous stay in space.<\/p>\n<p>The USA, Russia and Europe were all looking at following up on <em><i>Mir<\/i><\/em>\u2019s success with further space stations, but ultimately joined forces to collaborate on the ISS project.<\/p>\n<p>And currently there is a second space station in orbit, as China has launched the <em><i>Tiangong I<\/i><\/em>\u00a0module as a testbed for its own plans for a large space station.[\/vc_column_text][vc_spacer size=&#8221;30px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=&#8221;184&#8243; alignment=&#8221;center&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_spacer size=&#8221;30px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The relative sizes of the different generations of space station shown to scale (adapted with kind permission from a graphic produced by Richard Kruse for historicspacecraft.com)[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The ISS is by no means the first human habitat in orbit, but was in fact the 9th\u00a0such space station. \u00a0In the 1970s and 1980s, the USSR launched a whole series of relatively small Salyut\u00a0space stations, while the USA put the somewhat longer-lived Skylab\u00a0into orbit. A major step forward came with the USSR (and latter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crystalimaging.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crystalimaging.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crystalimaging.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crystalimaging.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crystalimaging.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crystalimaging.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crystalimaging.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}