There are three kinds of people in the world: those who are intrigued by and optimistic about the International Space Station; those who are outraged by and skeptical of it; and those who look blank and say, "What International Space Station?"
The third group is undoubtedly the biggest, so for them, here is the news (it won't make headlines, but it should): After innumerable delays and cost overruns, the most ambitious construction project in history is about to begin. Next Friday, the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to head for the embryonic station to start outfitting the Russian service module Zvezda, which just docked in July, a year and a half late. The first crew will take up residence in early November. Meanwhile, participating nations can start the uniquely dangerous and difficult job of putting together what a NASA analyst described this week as "a giant Lego system in space" -- actually in low Earth orbit, less than 400 km over our heads. When it is finished, this weird-looking orbiting village will be as big as a city block, with habitable space equal to two Boeing 747 jumbo jets. As die-hard space nuts say, is that cool or what?
Critics, on the other hand, think it's just plain nuts. It probably did take a certain nuttiness to dream up the project in the first place, let alone stick with it through all the ensuing setbacks. Cynics allude darkly to the fact that it was first proposed, way back in 1984, by U.S. President Ronald "Star Wars" Reagan. Yet as initially conceived by the Americans, it was a modest enough affair, supposed to be up and running by 1990 at a cost of $8 billion. No one foresaw that it would become the baby of 16 nations, the United States, Russia (who would have predicted that in 1984?), Japan, Canada, Brazil and 11 European countries, deploying 10 years late at a projected cost of $60 billion.