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Trailblazing International Partnerships

Season 1Episode 195May 14, 2021

NASA’s International Space Station program manager Joel Montalbano gathers with leaders from partner space agencies during a panel to discuss the importance and evolution of the international partnership and collaboration that has enabled more than 20 years of continuous human presence aboard the orbiting laboratory. HWHAP Episode 195.

Trailblazing International Partnerships

Trailblazing International Partnerships

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 195, NASA’s International Space Station program manager Joel Montalbano gathers with leaders from partner space agencies during a panel to discuss the importance and evolution of the international partnership and collaboration that has enabled more than 20 years of continuous human presence aboard the orbiting laboratory. The panel discussion in this episode was recorded on December 8, 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 195, “Trailblazing International Partnerships.” I’m Pat Ryan. On this podcast we talk with scientists, engineers, astronauts, all kinds of experts about their part in America’s space exploration program. Today, the world comes to Houston to talk about the confederation of nations behind the success that is the International Space Station. There have been people on board the International Space Station for more than 20 years now without interruption. But the story of the beginnings of the project goes back years before that. Short version, not from the very beginning: in his State of the Union message in 1984, President Reagan announced that he directed NASA to develop a permanently manned space station; less than two years later, Europe, Japan and Canada had agreed to participate. The Soviet Union, which flew one joint mission with NASA in 1975, had flown a series of space stations all on its own before launching the first components of the Mir station in 1986. And after the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990’s, the Russian Federation agreed to team up with the U.S. and the others. It was an unprecedented global partnership, dependent on the contributions of all and providing benefits to all. Today, representatives from each of the five partner space agencies discuss how they’ve stayed together all these years and what they’ve gained from a generation of international cooperation in space. This is the fifth in a series of NASA-sponsored panel discussions in recognition of the 20th anniversary of continuous human presence on the station. We brought you the others starting in February. This time, representatives of NASA and the other partner space agencies discuss how their partnership has worked and improved over more than 20 years now. The moderator is veteran journalist Jeanne Meserve, and she’ll introduce you to NASA’s International Space Station Program Manager Joel Montalbano and representatives from the four other national space agencies that make up the partnership. OK then, here we go.

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Jeanne Meserve: Hi, I’m Jeanne Meserve, and it’s my pleasure to host a conversation that really is life- and world-changing. Today, I am joined on the program by the five primary partners of the International Space Station. Let me introduce them now. Joel Montalbano of NASA, Frank De Winne of the European Space Agency, Luc Dube of the Canadian Space Agency, Junichi Sakai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Sergei Krikalev of Roscosmos with the Russian Federation. Welcome to all of you, great to have you with us. And a special thank you to NASA for their assistance in assembling these leaders, and to the Space Foundation Space Symposium 365 platform. And now, let’s go. Joel Montalbano let me start with you. A lot of relationships don’t work for 20 years, but this one has. Can you explain why this relationship is still going on, and successfully?

Joel Montalbano: Well, excellent question and hello to everyone and thank you for getting together today. You know, to me it works because we help each other, we learn from each other, and we cooperate from each other. You know, throughout the 20-plus years of the International Space Station, whenever we’ve had a challenge, there’s another partner that’s always ready to step up and help wherever they can. Across the 20-plus years that we’ve seen operations of the International Space Station, you know, we’ve had those opportunities and every single time, it — a partner has reached out to another partner when they were in need. And to me, that has been the biggest success of the International Space Station.

Jeanne Meserve:Sergei Krikalev, do you want to weigh in on why this has been successful?

Sergei Krikalev: Joel already mentioned that this probably was successful for the last 20 years because it really started earlier than 20 years ago. We start our first joint mission in 1975, Apollo-Soyuz mission. We start our joint flights on shuttle and on Mir station, in begin of the ’90s, so—in middle of ’90s—so I think, the main reason why it works after that was because we have a really strong desire to do this. And this was first part, and second part is that we have very good professionals who were doing this. Because good professionals have a really big desire to be successful, we were successful for these 20 years.

Jeanne Meserve:There are, as you all know, skeptics on Earth who are asking why are we spending this much money on space exploration. Mr. De Winne, can you tell us what value the space station has brought to people on Earth?

Frank De Winne: Well, one of the biggest values, of course, is the cooperation itself. And we see around the world, it’s not always so easy for big nations to work together. And this partnership has shown that if you have a common goal, if you want to work together, that you can achieve great things. And I think the example that it sets in that area is tremendous. But it has also brought very specific results. For example, ESA has done the experiment Airway Monitoring, where we studied the lung functions of astronauts on board of the space station. Well, the results of that research have led to new technologies, new tests that can be used on asthma patients, and as a result of that 300,000 patients have been tested, 36 million tests have been performed and those patients have received specific medication for their disease, which had a direct impact on their quality of life. Another example is, for example, the MELFI (Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS) freezer, that we have on board of the International Space Station. It freezes our samples up to minus 80 degrees. Well, the technology that is used to maintain those kinds of temperatures on board of the International Space Station is now used on big ships that transport gas. And this gas that normally boils off can be recycled. And due to that, we are recycling per year, 100,000 tons of CO2 carbon emissions, meaning that it has a direct impact on fighting climate change. These are only two examples, but I know that our partners, across the board, have many more, have thousands of examples, how research, innovation on the International Space Station has directly impacted the life of the citizens around the planet.

Joel Montalbano: You know, I’ll say a couple things. You know on the, you know, Frank mentioned the, the freezers we have on board and the minus 80-degree freezers. You know we, because of the assets we have on the International Space Station, and the need for us to transport across the globe, we have reached out to help these drug companies that are about to start distributing the COVID-19 vaccine. And using our experience and offering up this experience that we have globally to help this global pandemic. So, to me, it’s just one, one of the many examples where we can capitalize on the International Space Station and what we’ve learned over these 20-plus years to help others and to benefit humans on Earth.

Jeanne Meserve:Political winds blow, leadership changes; Joel Montalbano, let me start with you, on how you think these sorts of changes impact the International Space Station?

Joel Montalbano: You know, over the 20-plus years, we’ve had leadership changes, and all our agencies and the governments associated with them, and you know, throughout that, the standard that’s been cooperation. And we’ve been able to cooperate while meeting the different national priorities of the different agencies. And to me, the benefit of the International Space Station is we work on a physics base, and physics is the same across the globe. So, regardless of any political change and leadership change, we’re able to manage and operate the International Space Station, we’re able to communicate because we’re communicating in the physics-type method. We’re able to operate and stay below any political-type challenges, but we still are able to meet each agency’s national goals.

Jeanne Meserve:Well, your agencies have worked together for two decades now, amazingly; what are some of the things that you are able to do now that you could not do 20 years ago? Mr. Dube, why don’t you go ahead with that one.

Luc Dube: So, in our case, you know, our original operation concept for the Canadarm2 and Dextre was based on how the shuttle arm was operated with astronaut driving at every step. But what we do now looks nothing like that. The CSA flight control room, which hosts the CSA flight controller, is now used a lot. The development of our ground segment is a big part of the ground…completely controlling the robots from the ground is now most of the way we operate. So, we work also with the American and the Japanese partner. We also added the capability to capture free-flying cargo vehicle. So, since 2009, we have done 43 free-flyer captures. We also have unexpectedly become a key provider for robotics services to external payload. So as a result, the demand of our robotics has gone up and up. So, we have started also developing autonomous control on our ISS robots. So, this will become the basis for how we design and operate on our future systems.

Jeanne Meserve:Mr. Sakai, do you want to weigh in on this question of what you can do now that you couldn’t do ten or 15 years ago?

Junichi Sakai: Yeah, we are able to proceed a variety of new transitions that were not originally expected due to the great efforts of engineers and researchers on the ISS. For example, there is a research in space medicine that will be useful for human, future human exploration, and the private sector is actively utilizing the ISS. We are also trying commercial components in the ISS; the success of Crew Dragon is also an epoch-making event. If I may appeal to you, the Japanese experimental module Kibo has both a robotic airlock and a robotic arm to conduct CubeSat deployment and material exposure experiment. It was developed by an engineer’s idea after Kibo become operational. We have learned that since having expandability, fosters a new tradition and future needs. I also believe that one of the achievements is that ISS international partners have been also to discuss on the, consider the Gateway, the next human space station based on the ISS cooperative experiments of the ISS program.

Jeanne Meserve:Has the International Space Station changed your countries and your countries’ aspirations in space? This is something I would like all of you to respond to, but Mr. Krikalev, why don’t we start with you. Has it changed the outlook?

Sergei Krikalev: In the beginning of course, although we have experience of international cooperation on previous stations, but still was a pretty big concern how well we can work together, what is going to be result of our work, and how we will move forward together. Now, we know that this partnership is working really well, and now we are looking on the station not only as a platform for current exploration but also as a platform for future exploration. We use space station as a test bed for new technology, for new experiments that, a result of this experiment, we expect will be useful for future space exploration, beyond low-Earth orbit.

Jeanne Meserve:Mr. De Winne, do you want to weigh into this? Obviously, countries plural in your case. Has the ISS changed things, in terms of, space aspirations in Europe?

Frank De Winne: Absolutely, it has changed a lot. I’m coming from a small country myself, Belgium, but nevertheless, I was able to fly to space twice. Without an international corporation, like the International Space Station, this would of course not have been possible. And today, we see we are actually starting a new astronaut selection in Europe in the next months. We see that a lot of countries have the aspiration to have their citizens flying to space. And I’m sure that in the future, every European citizen can have these dreams. And this is of course, relating directly to young people who have to invest in STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math, skills that we will need to build further our society in the future. But of course, it’s not only linked to human spaceflight and to what we do on board of the International Space Station. There are so many other domains in space, navigation, Earth observation, telecommunications, where we will need a lot of people. And the fact that we can work in cooperation, that there is a visible element that people can see in the sky every night and say, my citizens, they are flying there, they are working there for the benefit of humankind, has dramatically changed the way Europeans look to space.

Jeanne Meserve:Luc Dube, how about you? What are your thoughts?

Luc Dube: Yeah, so our contribution, the Canadian arm, has allowed Canada to become a world leader in space robotics. It’s also given us the access to a big laboratory for science and allowed Canada to have its astronauts fly long-duration mission and international cooperation. It’s also helped promoting the space in Canada and was key for the development of such in the industries and the academia. So, it’s inspired future generations in science and technology, education. So, it’s a dream to come true for many Canadians. So, we are very proud to contribute to such an important research opportunities. It is largely thanks to the ISS that the space community in Canada are now setting their sights on this nation like the Moon and Mars. So, for 20 years the ISS has been a vital test bed that enables us to prepare to explore deeper into space. So, the Canadian Space Agency is very proud to play a big role in this endeavor.

Jeanne Meserve: Joel Montalbano, your thoughts?

Joel Montalbano: You know, as you heard from Sergei and Frank and Luc, this space station has inspired a generation that is going to take us from low-Earth orbit, where we are today, to return to the Moon and then eventually to Mars, and we’re using the experiences we have on the International Space Station. You know, going back to your last question, you talked about things have changed over the last ten or 15 years, and when we first started this project, we, each of the agencies, had really individual, a lot of individual projects. And what we’ve learned over time is, if we work together and we cooperate and we combine assets and combine resources, we can do much more with the International Space Station. And that, that learning that we’ve done on the International Space Station has spilled over outside of just human spaceflight. And the, and the science mission directorates that we cooperate internationally across the different agencies, we’ve taken the lessons learned from space station and we’ve used that to cooperate in those areas as well. That they based it on what we did on the International Space Station. So, to me just, it’s been pretty cool. It’s been cool to watch, and it’s been just an awesome adventure so far.

Jeanne Meserve: And if I could just follow up on that with you. In the current world of budgetary constraints, is this kind of international cooperation necessary in space, simply from a financial point of view?

Joel Montalbano: It’s mandatory, in my mind. You know, we’ve learned a long time ago that any single agency does not have the resources to do everything they want to do. And, but when you combine, you put all these agencies together, we can accomplish so much more, and we have been. And the cool thing is, we’ve demonstrated—we don’t just talk about it, we do it, and that’s one of the best things about the International Space Station. I’m a little biased as the, as, you know, the NASA program manager, but I can tell you the people we’re talking to today, I know would sign up right behind me and agree.

Jeanne Meserve:Mr. Sakai, we didn’t get your thoughts on that initial question of how the ISS has changed your country and its aspirations in space?

Junichi Sakai: Oh well, I guess I, the ISS program and its accomplishment has changed the LEO transition easier than previous. But it’s not only allowed for some special person, but for everyone having what he wants to something, wants to try something in LEO. ISS accomplishment in many different areas. For example, basic science; scientific research; practical research, leading to industrialization; education of youth of the next generations; international cooperations, etc. And JAXA as a only ISS participant in Asia, provides opportunities for Asian countries to utilize Kibo, while building cooperation in the space field and promoting the significance of space experiments for each country.

Jeanne Meserve:Space is becoming more and more of a commercial enterprise, and I’m wondering how that’s going to change the ISS and potentially your partnership with one another. Joel Montalbano, you want to handle that first?

Joel Montalbano: You know, so the first ten years of space station were dedicated really to assembly. And then, after assembly, we moved into a utilization, research, technology development where we’re actually, optimizing the use of the International Space Station. And then in these last, say, five or six years, we’ve been developing this commercial market in the U.S. and working with our partners to understand, you know, what it means to them and how we can help and how we can utilize the great space station we have. You know, in our mind, we’ve, we’ve been able to optimize with these commercial partners the use of the International Space Station. This weekend we had the hundredth launch of the Falcon 9 rocket. And, you know, because we’d helped develop that rocket, we’ve helped develop the Antares rocket for Northrop Grumman, and we’ve taken those activities as well as other activities and we’ve brought items to the International Space Station, we’ve opened doors to the International Space Station for additional research and utilization, technology development on board. And now we’ve opened these opportunities to commercial, and it’s not just NASA: Russia’s done it, Canada has done it, you now, ESA has done it, JAXA has done it, we’ve all, you know, we’re all starting in different places, but we’re all moving and trying to optimize the use of commercialization and use this great resource that we have on board the International Space Station.

Jeanne Meserve:Sergei Krikalev, you want to weigh in on that commercialization question?

Sergei Krikalev: I can just add, what Joel said that we really started from some simple things like, we were flying tourist, flight participants as we call them, to space and it was only one side of commercialization. But now, we see much more opportunities, such as, commercial experiments, and we know that some, some companies need some data using space environment. And we can use it, space station can be used to provide this data. So, the variety of a commercial application is much bigger than it was a while ago.

Jeanne Meserve:Frank De Winne, from the European perspective, any downside to the commercialization, or is this all a big plus?

Frank De Winne: Well, the main is a big plus of course, and again it shows very clearly the agility of the partnership, because we have done so many new things with this partnership, under this agreement that was signed probably 25 years ago, and that we have been able to adapt to the new environment and to the new world. Of course, it’s also put some strains on the, on the system, because the commercial companies, they want their data quicker, they want better access, they want easier access. So it also strains, on our side, the way that we operate. We need to completely, continuously, rethink what we can do, how we can better now service the customer, another customer, because initially, our customers were only the scientists and they were used to work with us. Now, we have to get used to work with other entities that have other drivers. So it’s not always easy, but it shows for the agility of the partnership that again, not one of the agencies apart is able to do that, but through the cooperation, through exchanging experiences, how we do that, we are able to manage this, this great new endeavor. And at the end, of course, the aim is to build an economy in low-Earth orbit. The aim is not that we, as agencies, we continue to operate, and to fly, and to build everything in low-Earth orbit, but that there is a real economy and we are just one of the users of the systems that will be there. And then we can focus, as was said already by a number of our guests, we can focus on exploration. The Gateway, going to the surface of the Moon and eventually to Mars: this is where we should have to shift our focus of the agencies in the next ten to 20 years.

Jeanne Meserve:Could I — follow up a moment and ask you about the strains that the commercial enterprises are putting on the system? Can you be specific about what you’re talking about?

Frank De Winne: Well, of course, if you have a commercial company that says I want to do my research on board of the space station, they want to have, of course, a guarantee that they can fly. They want to have return on investment, that’s everything that is there about the commercial companies. So, how do we manage this as agencies? How do we put the priorities right with our member states, especially in ESA, because they fund the national science? How do we manage all these different inputs that we are getting, these different requirements that we are getting? And this is something that we need to learn. We are not there yet, we are not fully 100% proficient yet, but I’m sure that we will get there over time.

Jeanne Meserve:Sergei Krikalev, what advice you might have for future projects that are this complex?

Sergei Krikalev: I think what we experienced from very beginning, that on top of a regular work relationship, we start to build personal relationship inside the program. And I think this is very important because we, in this way, we can trust each other, we know each other better. And I think, from my point of view at least, it’s one of the big advantages we have through this program, because now I have friends in Europe, in European Space Agency, in (United) States, in Canada, in Japan, and with some people we work closer together in space with, some people we were working together here on the ground and mission control. But I think this is probably one of the reasons why our program was successful because we start to build trust to each other. And I think it’s based on a personal relationship and I treasure this as a part of my life experience.

Jeanne Meserve:And in terms of the challenges of designing and building, what did you learn? What would you do differently if you were to do it again, Mr. Krikalev?

Sergei Krikalev: I think we have different learning in different stages. Because sometimes, we try to do things standard and it has some advantages. But also, the labs show that things still different. We have one voltage on Russian segment, we have a different voltage on U.S. segment, and it has pluses and minuses. And because station’s basically the lab where we can learn what is the best way to operate, having a variety of technical solution, we will have more data. And even if we found out that one of the solutions is not as good as another, but if we wouldn’t try, we wouldn’t know about this. So, I think having this variety is also good for the station and for the program in general.

Jeanne Meserve:Mr. Dube, what are your thoughts on this, on the challenges of design and build and what might be done differently?

Luc Dube: Yeah, I think the fact that it’s so complex, there’s a need to have continuous communication between the partners, especially, during the design phases. Because there will be a lot of changes that will impact each other, so we need to better define interface and well define also the role and responsibilities of every partner. I know like on the ISS program, at the beginning during the design phase, we had a couple of changes over time and it impacted us on our design for the Canadarm, and, and it cost a lot of money and also had a big impact also on the schedule. So, those need to be defined clearly and also on a regular basis to make sure that at least we could react quickly on those changes, so.

Jeanne Meserve:Joel Montalbano, do you want to weigh in on this as well, how future projects that might be very complex, might have learned from the ISS experience?

Joel Montalbano: My biggest advice, and I talk to our Gateway folks all the time, is you can’t start soon enough talking globally. You got to get out of this idea of, you know, a single agency item. This has to be a global endeavor, it has to be a global partnership, and the sooner you can start working together and the sooner you can start sharing, you know, desires, needs, requirements on how you want to operate, to me, you can’t start early enough. It’s a huge benefit of the International Space Station. You know, when we first started it, you know, we were all kind of getting to know how each other operates and you can imagine that comes with some different challenges. You know, think of a, of a marriage, you start with a marriage, you know, you — it’s, you’re starting to learn each other. Today, we operate and, again, I’m probably a little biased, I believe we operate seamlessly. You know, when we have an issue, we’re ready to work together and we can solve things so much quicker today than we did in the early days. And it’s because of what we’ve done and, you know, with our global partnership. And so, I tell the Gateway guys all the time, start early and keep pressing in that direction.

Jeanne Meserve:And specifically, I presume, when it comes to design and build, you have to get talking to one another at the design phase, early, correct?

Joel Montalbano: Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, it’s, you know, this pandemic makes it hard, right, for some, for some people, and it’s harder for us, you know, no doubt. But the beauty of space station is, because of all the different time zones, we’ve already been operating remotely. We had a lot of practice in the International Space Station. So, while the pandemic has added different challenges, we can’t see each other face to face like we, like we need to and like we’ve, you know, we’ve done in the past, we have some experience on this and we’re able to use that. So, I’ll tell you that while the pandemic’s been hard on everybody, it could have been a lot harder if we didn’t have this partnership already well established.

Jeanne Meserve:Somebody else want to weigh in on this question of boundaries being pushed out further and further, and how the partnership can help enable some of these very ambitious missions that are now on the drawing boards? Sergei Krikalev, you want to take a stab at that?

Sergei Krikalev: Joel already talk about this, that if, we work together, all the time we work in some limits. We have financial limits, we have work resources limitations. And working together we can, inside the same limits we can, move much further. Combining our efforts, we can do more things than we, we would be able to do if we work alone.

Jeanne Meserve:Mr. De Winne, I wanted to ask you the same question about pushing out boundaries and how the ISS lessons can be applied and will enable future missions?

Frank De Winne: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s mandatory that in the future if we want to go further that we will have to cooperate, that we will have to work together. And again, the friendship and the trust—and the word trust was used a couple of times—that we have built in this partnership has allowed us, for example, to move, to move much faster in the way that we have set up the Gateway program. But the Gateway program is, yes, it’s going towards the Moon, but at the end, we all want to explore together the surface of the Moon. And even later on, we want to go to Mars. And this will be impossible if we don’t continue to build this trust, build on the lessons that we have learned from the ISS and, and just work together in ever more complex missions and ever more complex systems. Because yes, the ISS is very complex, but imagine that one day we have to fly with six or ten young people to Mars and bring them safely back. The complexity of that, today, we, I don’t think that we can even imagine. And so we will need all the forces and all the minds, bright minds, in all the agencies that are there around the world.

Jeanne Meserve:Joel Montalbano, I’d like to come back to you. You have offered a few thoughts already on what other space agencies might learn from the ISS experience. I’m wondering if you have any additional words of wisdom that you would like to share?

Joel Montalbano: Probably the, you know, in addition to what I’ve said is, my words of wisdom then would be just, get started. Try, you know, you don’t have to go for the biggest, the biggest success right off the bat. Try and fly a payload or two on the International Space Station, see how that works, try and understand the processes, allow us to show what we can do as a partnership. You know, fly a small payload, then fly a larger payload, then fly a person on board. You know, you see some of the work with UAE, where they, United Arab Emirates, where they flew an astronaut on board the International Space Station. So, they’re taking steps over time. Get in the game is, would be my biggest, my next set of wisdom is, just get in the game and let us play together.

Jeanne Meserve:Mr. Sakai, do you have any thoughts on this that you’d like to share with others?

Junichi Sakai: Yeah. I’m not sure that this is the appropriate word but, ISS program allows to stay known ISS partners or participant’s astronauts at the ISS. As you know may, as you may know, Roscosmos has already mediated several private astronaut. The Crew-1 launched successfully on November 15th. So, I guess the area, the era of a commercial human spaceflight will be opened up soon. There is a country hesitates that human spaceflight not belonging in human space environment, or its difficulty. I recommend to try the [inaudible] service of ISS you transition to demonstrate the technology for the human space environment. Through this — demonstration, they can learn the philosophy of a human spaceflight and the detail requirement of human safety. In the future, a human space activity will expand from the LEO to the Moon, but the further we go, the greater the cost of the transportation and the communication, and the greater the technical risks. It is difficult to carry out a mission in a single country. And I believe that the most economical and efficient way to carry out a mission is for the countries to cooperate with each other in a mutually-beneficial relationship. I hope a lot of countries develop their own strengths and promote international cooperations using their strengths as a contribution.

Jeanne Meserve:Mr. Krikalev do you have any additional words of wisdom you’d like to share with some other space agencies around the world?

Sergei Krikalev: I would like to say that human spaceflight is a very wide area. And it’s not necessarily to fly a person to space to be participant of this human spaceflight exploration. Because, like, space or human spaceflight-related science, it can be life science, it can be fundamental physics science. There is a big variety of activity that can be done by especially new agencies; they can do specific scientific experiment. And in many cases, it can be done on automated spacecrafts, on satellites. But in many cases, it’s much more efficient, actually, to do on human spaceflights. So really, a space station is a very good test bed for new experiment, new tests, preparation for future flights, and being participant of this, has very different, very many different applications.

Jeanne Meserve:I want to thank all of you for your comments and reflections on what has been just an incredible International Space Station adventure. We’re grateful to everybody for taking part in this and we look forward to even more shared adventures living off of planet Earth, and a future with even more bold milestones. Thanks so much.

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Host: NASA’s first efforts in the realm of human spaceflight, Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, were designed to satisfy a national goal, an American goal of winning the Space Race by being the first country to put people on the Moon. But as the Space Age progressed, NASA’s collaborated with the world’s other national space agencies more and more, to achieve a succession of advances in human spaceflight, sharing the costs incurred as well as the knowledge gained. The International Space Station is an unmistakable symbol of the success of that joint international effort, and an example of the kinds of success the inhabitants of planet Earth may be able to achieve if they continue to work together on efforts to return to the Moon, and to go on to Mars. Well, there’s more to come on this celebration of the space station’s 20th anniversary. The next discussion focuses on the future. What the International Space Station has helped the nations of the world build and how that will contribute to their future in space. Coming up in a couple of weeks. You can go online to keep up with all things NASA at NASA.gov. You can find the full catalog of all of our podcast episodes by going to NASA.gov/podcasts, and then scrolling to our name. You could also find all the other cool 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 December 8, 2020. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Gary Jordan, Norah Moran, Belinda Pulido and Jennifer Hernandez in putting together the podcast, and to the NASA JSC External Relations Office for putting together this episode of the anniversary panel discussions. We’ll be back next week.