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Expedition 1: The Beginning

Season 1Episode 184Feb 26, 2021

George Abbey, former center director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, former Expedition 1 training integrator Ginger Kerrick, and Expedition 1 crew members Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko, and Sergei Krikalev gather to relive the first long-duration mission aboard the International Space Center. HWHAP Episode 184.

Expedition 1: The Beginning

Expedition 1: The Beginning

If you’re fascinated by the idea of humans traveling through space and curious about how that all works, you’ve come to the right place.

“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center from Houston, Texas, home for NASA’s astronauts and Mission Control Center. Listen to the brightest minds of America’s space agency – astronauts, engineers, scientists and program leaders – discuss exciting topics in engineering, science and technology, sharing their personal stories and expertise on every aspect of human spaceflight. Learn more about how the work being done will help send humans forward to the Moon and on to Mars in the Artemis program.

On Episode 184, George Abbey, former center director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, former Expedition 1 training integrator Ginger Kerrick, and Expedition 1 crew members Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko, and Sergei Krikalev gather to relive the first long-duration mission aboard the International Space Center. This episode was recorded on October 28, 2020.

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Transcript

Pat Ryan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 184, “Expedition 1: The Beginning.” I’m Pat Ryan. On this podcast, we talk with scientists, engineers, astronauts, and all kinds of experts about their part in America’s space exploration program. Today, we take you back in time, a generation, to when the permanent human presence on the International Space Station began. The first module of the International Space Station, the Zarya control module, was launched from Kazakhstan on November 20th, 1998, followed by five flights of NASA’s space shuttles, which delivered more components and equipment for the inside of the station. But those shuttle crews stayed aboard only a short time. It wasn’t until October 31st of 2000 that the first permanent crew, Expedition 1, lifted off in their Soyuz spacecraft. On November 2nd, it docked to the station’s Zvezda module, and station commander Bill Shepherd of NASA, Soyuz commander Yuri Gidzenko, and flight engineer Sergei Krikalev floated inside to begin a global adventure in space. We’re going to let you get a peek inside that mission, how it came to be, and how it established a pattern of operations that has sustained this international endeavor for more than 20 years now, right into Expedition 64 aboard the station today. Recently, NASA kicked off a series of panel discussions in recognition of the 20th anniversary of continuous human presence on the station. Like many other gatherings in the age of COVID-19, this one was a virtual gathering of six participants on the internet, so you’ll understand why, on a few occasions, their sound levels dip a bit. But the story’s terrific, and we want to share. The moderator is Space Foundation board member and veteran journalist Jeanne Meserve, and she will introduce you to former Johnson Space Center Director George Abbey, Expedition 1 Training Integrator, Ginger Kerrick, and the Expedition 1 crew members themselves, Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko, and Sergei Krikalev. Here we go.

[ Music]

Jeanne Meserve: Hello, I’m Jeanne Meserve, and we are marking an important anniversary. Twenty years ago, three men embarked on a journey, a journey to the International Space Station, where they became the first full-time inhabitants. We are now marking two decades of habitation, cooperation, and investigation. Today, we’re going to be talking about what’s been done up there, what it has meant, and we’re going to do that by talking to the crew of Expedition 1, and some of those who supported them. This conversation is brought to you by the team at NASA, and by the Space Foundation. We had hoped to do this conversation in person at the Space Symposium, but COVID. So, let me introduce to you our guests today, joining us virtually. First, the members of the crew — we have the commander who is with us, Bill Shepherd. He joins us from Virginia. Also, with us from Russia, his crewmates, Sergei Krikalev and also Yuri Gidzenko. Also joining us from Texas, a man whose vision, and management, and oversight was crucial to the success of the mission, George Abbey. He was — he is the former director of the Johnson Space Center, and also joining us is Ginger Kerrick of NASA, who was the Russian training integration instructor for Expedition 1. Great to have you all with us here today. George Abbey, I’d love to start with you, and get a sense of what you hoped for from this mission. What was your goal? What did NASA think it would get out of this?

George Abbey:Well, I thought it was very important that we partner with our Russian colleagues. We were working on a space station and had been working on it for some period of time and were not too successful. So, we went through a redesign, and I felt it was important to bring our Russian colleagues in on it, make them a part of the program. And actually, the program started with the Shuttle-Mir, which was the Russian space station, and that gave us an opportunity to get some experience on space stations, as we were planning a space station. And we were able to work with the Russians and do that on the Mir program, at the same time, partnering with them on an International Space Station, and was — turned out to be an excellent partnership. And I think our success was really, in large part due to the fact that we had that partnership. And so, as we worked into the Shuttle-Mir program, we were looking ahead to the International Space Station, and finally being able to get that first element up, and then, of course, get the crew up, which came about a year and a half after that first element went up. So, I was looking forward to that day, and with great expectations, and great hope that we would finally get the program underway, and get that first crew up there, which we did. And we have — we’re fortunate to have all three crew members with us this morning.

Jeanne Meserve: And I wanted to ask you about these three crew members. Why were these three picked for Expedition 1?

George Abbey:Well, I think they were picked based on their experience and their backgrounds. We wanted to make sure that first crew was an experienced crew, and it was going to be a first — the first time in space with the space station. And we wanted someone who had been up there before, and also could work in that environment, and if there were problems, could deal with them. And we selected a crew where we had high confidence with the three crewmen that they would be able to do that, and that turned out to be certainly the case. And we were fortunate to have all three of them up there as we went through that first step on Expedition 1.

Jeanne Meserve: Ginger, you ended up working with these guys for years, getting them ready for this mission. Would you agree this was the right combination of personalities and skills?

Ginger Kerrick:Oh, absolutely. From day one — you know, you got to remember, this is the first time we were training a crew for the space station. So, we were building it as we went along, and all three of the crew members were quick to identify gaps in the support plan that we had put forward, not only for training, but for operations. So, they were the perfect people. It took the courage for them to step out and try to establish a new training paradigm, a new operations paradigm, and they proved to be successful once they executed their mission.

Jeanne Meserve: Sergei, I’d like to ask you and Shep both — you were both — come out of a military background, where you were trained to view one another as adversaries. Here, you’re put in this situation where you’re going to interact cooperatively. Was that a difficult transition, or did that come naturally to both of you?

Bill Shepherd: Sergei, why don’t you go ahead?

Sergei Krikalev: OK. So, at first, I came not from military background. So that’s one point, and second — maybe most important, that this was not the first experience. My first spaceflight was international mission together with French cosmonaut, but also before that, before this mission, I was trained and flew twice on shuttle. First flight was on STS-60, and we were trained together. Charlie Bolden was the commander of this mission, and my second flight on shuttle was actually first assembly mission, so — first station assembly mission, STS-88 with Bob Cabana as a commander. So, it was not the first experience, and actually even before us, many years ago, was very good example of good relations and good partnership from [inaudible], so we were based on previous experience, and ready for good cooperation. And that’s why I think everything went very smooth from my point of view.

Jeanne Meserve: Now, Shep, you did have a military background. I’m right there, aren’t I?

Bill Shepherd: Yeah. Actually, Yuri and I were really the two military guys. Jumping way ahead in the answer, one of my most interesting moments with Yuri in space was looking at the Earth, and he was saying, “OK, I was a MiG-21 pilot, and I was stationed here.” And half an orbit later, I would say, “OK, I was a Navy SEAL, and we were here, here, and here.” And that was a really interesting dialogue, but I think my personal interest in being part of this crew was to try and put the space station on the footing of either the early space voyages, where we did not have a lot of contact with the ground, and that seems to be — seemed to me to be much more like being on a ship or a submarine than flying an airplane. So, NASA had a shuttle program, which was basically airplane flying, and I thought we were doing something different with space station, and that’s why I really wanted to be in the first crew. I went to Russia. I had certain views on how the partners should interact, and fortunately, Yuri and Sergei helped me maybe change my views quite a bit on what I thought was the right way to do things. And so, I was really fortunate to have both those guys on the crew, because they taught me a lot. Jeanne, if I might suggest, why don’t you ask Ginger if she can explain what brain-sharing was.

Jeanne Meserve: Brain-sharing? Ginger, you want to hop in here?

Ginger Kerrick:Oh, sure. So, one of the things that Yuri was talking about was that it was difficult to train when you didn’t have training materials. You didn’t have all the right simulations. So, we spent a lot of time with the hardware owners, the hardware developers, and there was one particular instance where this brain-sharing name came to be, is Shep had gone and met with some — one of the hardware developers, and was asking a series of questions, you know, three or four questions. And then, Sergei was a little late, so Sergei comes in, and he looks at the hardware, and immediately, same three or four questions. And we were just like, oh my God, they’re sharing a brain now. These two —

Jeanne Meserve: Oh, I’m curious about the language issue. What was the language that you spoke?

Bill Shepherd: Yeah, I thought initially that because the United States had an agreement with the other partners, where we said English was going to be the standard language, that would be the way to go, but I got to Russia and was working with many of the engineers, technicians, and managers. Some of these people helped to put Sputnik in space, and launched Yuri Gagarin, and these people were still there. And so, I thought — I said, “Well, we’re not going to completely invert the Russian space system because we like English.” But even beyond that, in order for — it’s not enough to know what the Russians did. The key element of making a space station work was to understand why the Russians approached problems a certain way, and the only method by which we were really going to get to that was if we could talk to all these people in Russian. So, that became the way we operated. If we could pull up picture number four, I’ll show you kind of one of the crutches that we used to get by that, if we can do some screen sharing here. Yeah, what this is — it’s going to be a picture of me in one of the training mockups, and a big sheet of paper to the right is a big schematic drawing of the air purification system that I’m working on. And our effort — the early-on in the space station training was to create very understandable graphic diagrams of all the systems that we had to use, and I — Ginger, correct me if I’m wrong. I think we still use these today.

Ginger Kerrick:Yes, we still use those today.

Bill Shepherd: And for me, that was a big help, because a lot of times, I could go through class, and I could look at the diagram, and even if I didn’t get 100% what the instructor was trying to teach us, I could make sense out of it by referring to the diagram.

Jeanne Meserve: So, Ginger or Shep, I’m curious as to whether the Russians had a very different approach to training, if there were things that you learned from participating in Russia that might not have been obvious to you previously.

Ginger Kerrick:Yeah. You know, they broke down lessons into theoretical and practical, and you would get all of your theoretical lessons, and then do your practical lessons. They had a less of a reliance on diagrams and documentation, because they had — the people teaching the classes were experts, and knew that information inside and out, whereas on the U.S. side, we were all starting up. A lot of the instructors were young. I was young at that time, and so, we were developing materials. And we didn’t have the expertise. So, it was interesting to see the dichotomy between the U.S. approach and the Russian approach, but we learned a lot from each other, and I think each of us adapted our approaches so that we were both better off in the end.

Jeanne Meserve: Sergei — hear your perspective from the Russian side. Did the Americans have something to teach you?

Sergei Krikalev:Actually, Ginger is 100% correct. We were learning from each other, and returning back to your previous question, what was the language. Shep was speaking some Russian. We were speaking some English, so we called this mixture of languages Runglish, and that’s what we used during the mission. We actually, had this name when I was training for shuttle, shuttle flight, and actually for us, it was very interesting exchange of experience. Because we were — Ginger is right. We were based more on theoretical knowledge of the system, and preparation for long-duration flight was such that we — we were not able to repeat every step for several times, getting ready for the flight. Because flight itself is long, and you cannot do kind of usual rehearsal. But it was certainly possible to do, and training for short-duration flight is little different. But what we learned — that we can use more computer-generated lessons, or mock-up, simulators. Before that, computer was not as available, and we had to have all these diagram in our head. We had to understand how system worked, and it actually had some advantages. Because if you are working in stressful environment and limited amount of time, sometimes better to have everything in your head, although it’s more difficult to build up this knowledge. But as we said, we were learning from each other. We tried to share our experience, experience of Mir missions, and we were learning from all this computer-supported training from U.S. side. And I think at the end, now we have some kind of mixed system of training crew for now. Actually, it may be more difficult as we have in the beginning. No one exactly knew what kind of knowledge we will need in flight. So, for this purpose, in case of this uncertainty, we had to have more information that we really needed, because no one knew how much information exactly we need. And I see now the training for subsequent missions, and especially now, allow people to learn only what they really need for the flight. In our case, we learn with some margin, and it was really interesting.

Jeanne Meserve: Yuri, did you want to weigh in on what you might’ve learned from the American side?

Yuri Gidzenko: Agree with Sergei. [speaks in Russian]

Sergei Krikalev:[speaks in Russian]

Yuri Gidzenko: [speaks in Russian]

Interpreter: It was actually interesting to work together, because we were learning from each other, and different approaches helped us to understand the stations best.

Jeanne Meserve: George, was this exactly the kind of synergy you wanted to see come out of this international mission?

George Abbey:Yes, it was. It really turned out just to be what I had hoped it to be, and we had worked with our Russian colleagues before on Apollo-Soyuz, the first joint docking mission. And so, I had confidence that we would be able to work with them, and it would really turn out to be a good partnership for us, and that we could learn from them, and hopefully they could learn from us. And between our two nations, we would come up with a great space station, and I think this crew made it all happen.

Bill Shepherd: Hey, Jeanne, one important point that Sergei touched on that I want to double-down on — in Houston, we had extensive simulators for the shuttle, and the crew spent hundreds of hours in these machines. And quite often, we would be sitting, waiting for the computers to come up because the sim had crashed, and it happened, like, twice a day. And it took about 30 or 40 minutes to reboot the computers and get everything running again. When I got to Star City, and I asked the instructors there about their Soyuz simulator, and how often they had to reboot it because it had crashed, the answer was, “Well, we do this maybe once a year.” And so, when I finished the space station, and I came back to Johnson, I was trying to get the point across to senior management that the way the Russians designed some things is really good, and we need to learn from this. Unfortunately, you know, space technology being what it is, we have a fascination, particularly in the States, with the most complex things we can build. I’m not sure that’s the right answer.

Jeanne Meserve: George Abbey, I have to give you a chance to respond to that.

George Abbey:Oh, I think I would go on — what Shep says. I think the Russian design approach is a very good one, and it — they come up with very reliable equipment, with very reliable systems. And I think we learned from them, and hopefully, we can adapt some of those lessons, and incorporate them into our spacecraft. But, yes, I agree with Shep.

Jeanne Meserve: Ginger, I’d like to talk to you a little bit about your feelings after working with these guys for years. They’re about to take off. Tell me that story of what that was like, and what you felt, seeing them launch.

Ginger Kerrick:Yeah, you know, I spent four years of my life — wherever this crew was, that’s where I was. If we were in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, looking at the service module before it launched, I was right there with them. If we were in Florida, if we were in Huntsville, Alabama, or Houston, or Star City, Russia — so we formed quite the bond, and so, on launch day, I got to go to their launch. And it was a foggy day, and I remembered watching them walk up the stairs of the launch vehicle, and as soon as that hatch shut, I started hyperventilating. And I know the spacecraft. I knew that they were going to be safe, but something inside me said, “My family is going on a rocket,” and I could not handle it. And one of the Russian high-ranking military officials noticed that, put his arm around me, and started parting the crowd to try to bring me to a closer view. And as he’s doing that, he says, [speaks in Russian], “It’s the mother of the crew. Get out of the way.” And so, he put me in a spot where I could watch them, and I was reassured that everything was going to be OK. But it was weird, because, you know, we were a family of four, and three of them were going to space.

Jeanne Meserve: And so, the three of you arrive at the space station. Love to get your first impressions. Sergei, what did you feel? What did you see? What did you smell as you arrived there?

Sergei Krikalev:Actually, the service module of International Space Station is very similar to core module of Mir station, mechanically. So, the only difference I felt that — we came to the station, and it was very new, very clean, and not completely empty, but much emptier that you — this space — happened to be after several months of crew living there. So, I remember we were discussing with designers on the ground that maybe the table we had in the middle of this big compartment can be not assembled as a full part, maybe only part of it can exist. But when we came, there was no table. We switch on lights, and the first thing we need to do is prepare our TV down link to have teleconference from the station. And we start to search for connectors, and it was typical operation, but it was very memorable. Switching on light for the first time when we came to almost dark station, switching on light, and it became very light.

Yuri Gidzenko: Hot water.

Sergei Krivalev: And trying to make hot water, because for two days, we were flying on Soyuz. We had only snacks and cold food, so we knew how system was built, and start to activate hot water to have hot drink on the station, right? Yuri is right.

Jeanne Meserve: Yuri, the job of your crew primarily was to set up house on the space station. Can you talk to us a little bit about that, what you had to do when you got there, besides getting hot water for something to drink.

Yuri Gidzenko: [speaks in Russian]

Interpreter: Well, first, I want to say that when we just got there, we were not able to open the hatch right away. We had struggle, with Sergei, with our legs, with our arms, for maybe five minutes, and we were thinking, how come? We just arrived to the station, but we are not able to get in.

Yuri Gidzenko: [speaks in Russian]

Interpreter: And we finally opened the hatch, and we got in. As Sergei said, we turned on the light. We got some hot water. We activated the toilet, and I remember Shep said, “Now, we can live. We have light. We have hot water, and we have a toilet.”

Bill Shepherd: Jeanne, jumping in again, I think history may forget our first cargo ship came up about ten days after we arrived, and Yuri did a great job of docking it, because it was supposed to find us automatically. But it came up, and it was acting very strangely, and Yuri flew it in by hand. Maybe he can tell a little bit — Yuri and Sergei can tell a little bit about how that went. It was a pretty big deal.

Sergei Krikalev:Yeah, it was unusual docking, because the ship said — this cargo vehicle is supposed to approach and then dock in automatic mode. But when it came for about 100 meters range, then it start to wobble, and searching for docking. And this oscillation became so big that it start to be dangerous, and fortunately, we had opportunity to manual control it. So, we had to switch to manual control, and Yuri was controlling it by hand controllers installed in the station. But next issue was that lens on the camera that was used for landing vehicle was fogged, and we didn’t know what is this fog. Is it kind of glue or something else stick to the window of this camera, or something else? So, we called this remote control of the vehicle mode is tele-operation mode, but the problem was that, because Yuri cannot see station and target well, I was jumping to window. And we have what we said tele-tele-operation mode, because I was looking out in the window, give some guidance to Yuri, and Yuri was trying to control it, try to use some image on the monitor, and some information that he got from me, because I was looking directly at the approaching vehicle. So finally, we were able to station this vehicle very close to the station, and on sunlight, this fog on the lens came out, and we were able finally to dock. That was very unusual way of docking vehicle, but fortunately, we had very, many layers of redundancy. And one of these layers worked out well, and we were able to do docking safely. And maybe, Shep can add something, because he was monitoring and recording this uh, looking at us jumping to the control panel, to window and back.

Bill Shepherd: Yeah, I think it’s one of the issues of, if you will, the culture. Russian designs put in many ways to get things done. There’s lots of redundancy, and in some programs, the U.S. does not have as much. And I think that’s one of the things, in the future, we need to pay a lot of attention to.

Jeanne Meserve: Shep, can you tell us what the average day would’ve been like? This was obviously an unusual day, when you had this docking drama, but what about the average day? What did you guys do? Did you have assigned responsibilities? Did you all do a little bit of everything? How did it go?

Bill Shepherd: Well, I’ve got to say that I don’t think you could say we had an average day, at least not too many of them. But this was good, because we were up there to get a lot of work done, and every day seemed to have its own set of challenges. We got up 6:30-ish in the morning. I like to get a cup of coffee, and read on the laptop or the printouts, kind of what the ground wanted us to do. But from then on, it was kind of free-for-all. The one thing I did enjoy was we got together around the galley table — another story about that, but three times a day, we made a point to have our meals together. And that was a big part of keeping everybody kind of on the same plan of the day, but I’ll let Yuri and Sergei talk about their perspectives.

Jeanne Meserve: Yuri, tell us what you thought. Really having trouble hearing you.

Yuri Gidzenko: [speaks in Russian]

Interpreter: Well, my impression, after looking back, you know, 20 years back, seems like the first couple of weeks, we were just working, and working, and working.

Yuri Gidzenko: [speaks in Russian]

Interpreter: Especially the first week, I think — I thought shaving, we did — we shaved probably, like, three days after we arrived, maybe even later, because we were not able to find the equipment —

Sergei Krivalev: The razor.

Interpreter: — the razor.

Yuri Gidzenko: [speaks in Russian]

Interpreter: But it was extremely interesting, very interesting.

Jeanne Meserve: George, I’m curious if there ever was tension between what the United States wanted the crew to be doing, and what the Russians wanted the crew to be doing.

George Abbey:No, actually, there wasn’t any of that kind of tension. I think that — I mean, I worked with the Russians on the Mir program, the Shuttle-Mir program. We had developed a lot of confidence in each other, and confidence when they made a decision that they exercised all of everything that needed to be done to make sure it was a good decision. And so, really, those missions that we flew to the Mir and working with the Russians in their control center really gave us a good foundation for moving into the assembly flights and — flight with the International Space Station. So, initially on the Shuttle-Mir, we had some tensions, but that had been well worked out by the time we were doing the first mission to the International Space Station.

Bill Shepherd: Hey, Jeanne, I got to jump in on that, because early on, the two control centers flying the ISS was kind of new for both of them, and about for the first maybe two or three weeks of things, occasionally, we would get conflicting marching orders, things that Houston had said, and then the control center in Moscow changed later. And this — and it would go back and forth almost orbit by orbit sometimes, and I got really frustrated one day. And I got on the radio, and both control centers can hear you when you can talk to the ground station, and said, “Look, we’re the International Space Station. You guys have to coordinate one plan and give it to us, and that’s the one we’ll do. We’re not doing one plan for Moscow and one plan for Houston.” They just needed that little reminder, and I was happy to give it to them. And I got to say, that was my happiest day in space [laughter].

Jeanne Meserve: So, you guys were living together in pretty tight quarters up there. How did you get along? I mean, were there tensions that developed? Were you ever able to have privacy? Was everybody chummy? Who wants to weigh in first?

Sergei Krikalev:Station was not big at that time, but I think it was still bigger than shuttle, shuttle cockpit, and we had enough room to have at least some privacy. But really, we don’t need much privacy, because we were working together. And I would like to return back maybe to previous question. Shep said that we didn’t have normal day, because every day was special. And I also remember another interesting thing. When we were still on the ground preparing for the flight, and we were shown tools we are going to have onboard on the station. One of the big tools — I don’t know how it called in English, but like big chunk of metal, like you open the door or safe, but Shep was looking, saying, “Why do we need this big, heavy instrument in there?” We said, “Well, Shep, let’s take it just in case.” And I think maybe not in first, but in the second week, when we were installing one of the equipment that supposed to take, like, 15 minutes to install, and when we had the training for this installation on the ground, it was very simple. We would just put it in, make several connection, and put four bolts to hold this piece of equipment. On the station, maybe station was deformed little bit from ground position and flight position, but really, we need to use all heavy tools to make this piece of equipment fit in the proper place. And it was almost like — I don’t know, special adventure. So, every day was very adventurous.

Jeanne Meserve: Ginger, we talked a little bit about how you felt seeing these guys go off, that you were the mother of the crew. Are you still close with these guys?

Ginger Kerrick:Oh, very much so. Every time I’m in town — well, in Russia, I always try to find Yuri and Sergei. I think I saw Yuri a couple of Novembers ago, when I was in Star City, and Sergei makes more frequent trips out to the U.S. So, he was able to meet my fiancée his last trip, and I’m hoping that they can both make it for the wedding in March, if travel allows. And Shep is going to be giving me away, so yes, we still stay in touch. We have formed, I think, what are lifelong friendships, and I’m very thankful to NASA for giving me a job that allowed me not only to support the Expedition 1 crew and their mission, but also to make such great friends.

Jeanne Meserve: We’re coming down to our last minutes, and I’d like to get from each of you your thoughts on what the big takeaway from your mission was. Shep, why don’t we start with you?

Bill Shepherd: I think space station, particularly Expedition 1, set the tone for how crews need to operate in space — that we can fly a really big, complex vehicle, lots of international partners, and with the right ground support and training, we can figure out how to make it all work. I think it’s the blueprint for larger expeditions, and going certainly to the Moon, and probably beyond that to Mars and elsewhere.

Jeanne Meserve: Yuri, big takeaway from the mission?

Yuri Gidzenko: [speaks in Russian]

Interpreter: Yes, I just will join Shep here, and want to add that the main objective for our mission was to prepare the station for the next crew, so for crew number two, crew number three, and so forth.

Yuri Gidzenko: [speaks in Russian]

Interpreter: And I just wanted to add that, right now, on the station, we have already crew number 63. This is mission number 63, and 64 there as well, and 63 is going to land today.

Yuri Gidzenko: Sixty-four missions.

Jeanne Meserve: Sergei, your thoughts on reflecting on your mission?

Sergei Krikalev: Well, as we said at that time, that goal of our mission was to make station alive, because when we came, most of the system was shut down. Some of them was not even installed, and some of them, installation and activation of the system was life critical. So, if we wouldn’t be able to do this on time, we’d have to stop mission early and return back home. So, we — as a crew, we need to be very reliable, and I think our crew was able to do what we’re supposed to do. But I think our goal was not only prepare station for future experiments. I think space station program itself is very big and interesting technical experiment. What we did on Expedition 1 was big technical experiment, because we were put some things together, and we were activating them in unusual situation. As we said, some of the hardware never met each other on the ground, and we had to install it in space for the first time. And not every time it was smooth. So, I think it was very interesting technical and organizational experiment, and the result of this experiment, we are using up to now, and as Yuri said, 63 and — Expeditions 63 and 64 is flying now. So, result of our first technical and organizational experiment was successful.

Jeanne Meserve: Ginger?

Ginger Kerrick: I’d like to build on what Sergei and Yuri said, with respect to the marvel of construction that is the International Space Station. I think they were able to set the tone, the Expedition 1 crew and the International Space Station program, that the world should follow. You know, when you look in the news today, and you see our countries not getting along, or other countries not getting along, and yet, when you work on a common goal, even if something as complicated as the International Space Station, we have proven to the world that when you’re joined in a common goal, that you can accomplish anything. So, I think the ISS should be the model for how the world should be getting along, how the world should be making bigger and better things together.

Jeanne Meserve: George Abbey, let me give the last word to you on what this mission accomplished, and what it’s meant.

George Abbey:I was convinced that — before this mission that if we’re going to explore space, we need to do that working internationally, that it’s much better to work with partners, and I think this first crew proved that. As Sergei was saying, we had the components and systems that were built all over the world, and they came together for the first time in space. And this crew was able to deal with them, and put them together, and make them all work. And that provided a good foundation to build on the 20 years that have followed on the space station, and as Ginger said, this is a model — should be a model for what we should do in the future. Because as we — when beyond Earth orbit, going back to the Moon, and maybe someday to Mars, we ought to be doing it internationally, and do it in the same way that we’re working together on the International Space Station. It is truly a model for how one can work with other countries, and not only with Russia, but all the partnerships that we form with the International Space Station.

Jeanne Meserve: And with that, I want to thank you all for your participation today and thank you all for your contributions to science and cooperation internationally. And on behalf of NASA and the Space Foundation, thanks to all of you who are watching us today. There will be more ISS 20th-anniversary programming on NASA television, and also on the Space Foundation’s new online digital platform, Space Symposium 365. You can learn more about that by going to spacesymposium365.org. I’m Jeanne Meserve. Please, all of you, stay well.

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Host: Terrific talk there to learn some inside stuff about how NASA and its international partners worked through some troubles to get the International Space Station on orbit, and then to put the first crew members aboard to continue assembly of the station, and work out the issues that were bound to come up when the whole world tries to work together on a project of this scale. I especially liked hearing the crew members talk about some of the things that happened during their time in space that the rest of us didn’t all know about at the time. Well, there’s more to come. This celebration of the space station’s 20th anniversary continues, five more of these great discussions to come. Next up will be the people who actually fly the station from right here on the ground, insight into the people who run things in Mission Control Houston. I’ll remind you that you can go online to keep up with all things NASA at NASA.gov, and you can find the full catalog of all our podcast episodes at NASA.gov/podcasts, and then scroll to our name. You can also find all the other exciting NASA podcasts right there at the same spot where you can find us, NASA.gov/podcasts. The panel discussion in this episode was recorded on October 28th, 2020. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Gary Jordan, Norah Moran, Belinda Pulido, and Jennifer Hernandez in putting together this podcast, and to the NASA Johnson Space Center External Relations Office for getting the guests together to share some history. We’ll be back next week.