Abstract: This information has been gleaned from the various fliers we have been sent from PBS.

This live, interactive, 2-hour videoconference is designed to put the audience directly in touch with engineers, scientists and astronauts who are "making the dream of living and working in space a reality". One goal of the presentation is to learn how the International Space Station (ISS) is being built, tested and prepared for launch and assembly in orbit. For an artist's rendition of what the space station will look like, go here; but it may take a few seconds to load.

Some key aspects of the International Space Station:

• The ISS will be a permanent orbiting science institute, where long-duration research in materials and life sciences will take place in a nearly gravity-free environment.
• The ISS will be a proving-ground for advances in communications, computers and systems integration. Lower-cost heating and cooling systems; long-life power converters; safer chemical storage and transfer processes; and air and water purification, waste management and recycling systems will also be tested.
• Telerobotic and robotic systems validated on the ISS will increase human efficiency in space and result in reliable, low-maintenance robots for industry on earth.
• The US, Canada, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Russia all participate in the ISS.
• ISS facilities will allow researchers to study materials that could not exist and processes that could not take place in full Earth gravity. These materials include polymers for everything from paint to contact lenses, semiconductors for high-speed computers and electronics, and high-temperature superconductors for efficiency in electrical devices.

Those participating in the teleconference include...

• Colonel Kevin Chilton, NASA astronaut, and ISS Deputy Program Manager for Operations. He's logged over 704 hours in space.
• Lynn Cline, Director, Space Flight Division, Office of External Relations; responsible for international aspects of NASA's Space Flight and Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications programs; lead negotiator for Space Station agreements.
• Frank Buzzard, chief engineer for the ISS.
• Elizabeth Smith, integration manager of Flight 2a Launch Package Team - the team responsible for the second flight in the construction of the ISS.
• Captain W. Shepaherd, commander of the first ISS Station Crew, currently training in Russia.
• Howard Ross, chief of Microgravity Combustion Branch, Microgravity Science Division at NASA Lewis Research Center - managing the developement of research and technology on the chemistry and physics of fires.
• Suzanne Fortney, project scientist for the Human Research Facility on ISS; also research physiologist at NASA Johnson Space Center - research focuses on the effects of microgravity on the human cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and reproductive systems.
• Sergei Krikalev, Russian cosmonaut assigned to the first ISS crew; has logged more than 15 months in space, on the Russian Space Station Mir.

Related ISS facts:
We have had continuous presence of American astronauts aboard Mir, the Russian space station, since March 22, 1996. We hae flown five successful Space Shuttle/Mir docking missions, and one rendezvous mission. Over 160 thousand pounds of flight hardware have been built in the US alone for the ISS project. Design and fabrication of flight elements for the first six US flights are almost complete; first flight hardware may be shipped to Kennedy Space Center as early as June 1997.

End-to-end, the wingspace is 356 feet; the length, 290 feet. Weight is to be 470 tons (940,000 pounds). Average operating altitude is 220 miles. Crew size is up to 7; they will live in an atmosphere of 14.7 pounds/sq inch (as on Earth at sea level). The total pressurized volume is 43,000 cubic feet.

The ISS will be at 51.6^o to the equator. There will be 6 laboratories, including 2 US, 1 European, and 2 Russian research modules. Most of the power will be supplied by four large US photovoltaic modules, each module having two 112 x 30 ft arrays; each module will generate approximately 23kiloWatts..

Lastly, NASA has a web page on this videoconference: go here if you are interested. Other NASA sites of interest:

• The NASA homepage
• The International Space Station's homepage
• NASA's Office of Space Science homepage
• NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications homepage
• NASA's education program homepage