congratulations that streamed upward. "Finally, we've lived to see
this moment," Russian
Mission Control radioed.
NASA expects science research to triple at the space station. Until now, astronauts have had to spend most of their time keeping all the systems running and fixing things, like a urine-into-drinking water machine that took months to coax into operation. Astronauts took their first sips of the recycled water in orbit last week. There should be a mental bonus as well with a bigger crew. Psychologists have long said three is hardly the ideal crew size because of the potential for one person to feel left out. "Think about when you're 7 years old and you've got three kids," noted U.S. astronaut Timothy Kopra, who will fly up aboard Endeavour and then move in. The first space station crew arrived in 2000, two years after the first part was launched. Until now, no more than three people lived up there at a time. The crew size dropped to two following the 2003 Columbia disaster because of the lengthy grounding of NASA's remaining space shuttles. The space station has since expanded to nine rooms, three of them full-scale labs, and is now 81 percent complete. There are five sleeping compartments, two toilets, two kitchens and two mini-gyms. Another sleep station and more exercise equipment will be coming in August, and a dining table big enough to accommodate all six