Space Stations: Base Camps to the Stars*
Chapter 23 Space Stations: Base Camps to the Stars* Roger D. Launius† Introduction This paper reviews the history of space stations in American culture, from an 1869 work of fiction in the Atlantic Monthly to the present realization of the International Space Station (ISS). It also discusses the history of space stations “real and imagined” as cultural icons. From winged rocket ships, to the giant ro- tating wheels of Wernher von Braun and 2001: A Space Odyssey, to the epic, controversy-wracked saga of the ISS, the paper also discusses Mir, Skylab, and the Salyuts. It will close with a projection into the future as ISS is realized—or perhaps deferred—and perhaps future generations begin work on space stations elsewhere in the Solar System. The Attraction of a Space Station From virtually the beginning of the 20th century, those interested in the human exploration of space have viewed as central to that endeavor the building of a massive Earth-orbital space station that would serve as the jumping-off point to the Moon and the planets. Always, space exploration enthusiasts believed, a * Presented at the Thirty-Eighth History Symposium of the International Academy of As- tronautics, 4–8 October 2004, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Paper IAC-04-IAA.6.15.4.01. † Division of Space History, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. 421 permanently occupied space station was a necessary outpost in the new frontier of space. The more technically minded recognized that once humans had achieved Earth orbit about 200 miles up, the presumed location of any space sta- tion, the vast majority of the atmosphere and the gravity well had been conquered and that people were now about halfway to anywhere they might want to go.
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