The time of the International Space Station ends and the time of other new space stations begins.

And eight years from now, the International Space Station — the hub that helped humanity expand its bases in space — will end.

But this dramatic ending will not be a sad occasion. Rather, it will herald the birth of a new and exciting chapter in the human conquest of space.

The International Space Station project was started in 1998 by Russia sending the "Zaria" unit as the first part of the International Space Station, and then dozens of countries around the world launched the largest man-made space station. The structure began to be built.

Perhaps the most surprising partnership since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union was between two bitter rivals, the United States and Russia.

"It was a huge project," said Wendy Whitman Cobb, a space policy expert at the U.S. Air Force Academy. "This was a great story of post-Cold War cooperation. The Russian space industry was in decline. This was an opportunity for the United States and Russia to begin this new era of cooperation." "

The result of this collaboration was a massive space station the size of a football field and weighing more than 400 tons, costing $150 billion to orbit the planet at a speed of 18,000 mph (28,980 km/h).

The station has been inhabited by astronauts since the first crewed entry in November 2000.

But the station's components are old, and therefore it was decided to end its service by ejecting it into the Earth's atmosphere in 2031.
The construction of the International Space Station began in 1998 and the first part was the Zarya module of Russia.
Thousands of scientific experiments have been conducted on the International Space Station by the United States and Russia. The Europeans and Japanese also built additional modules that were later added to the International Space Station.

The experiments included research on complex diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, as well as studies aimed at growing food crops such as lettuce and radish in space.

Living and working on the International Space Station was "an amazing experience," says Belgian astronaut Frank de Wien, who visited the station on two visits from the European Space Agency in 2002 and 2009.

However, not everyone recognizes the success of the International Space Station on this scale. British astronaut Lord Martin Rees says the price was just too high for science.

Lord Rice suggests countries focus more on robotic missions, such as the highly successful James Webb Space Telescope, or those now on their way to Mars.

In this, Lord Race says: Sending humans into space is a very expensive task. I think the future of space travel will be limited to billionaires and heroes.

In addition to scientific research, some believe that the main achievement of the International Space Station was the development of human civilization as astronauts, and long-duration spaceflight was attempted before the launch of the International Space Station, including by Russia. Star Trek. The Mir spacecraft takes about a year. But with the International Space Station, the industry has taken the industry to the next level, according to Laura Worchak of satellite consultancy Australite. "[The International Space Station] has changed our view of what space travel means for civilization," Laura says.

Belgian astronaut Frank de Wien admitted: "It would never have been possible to do this without the International Space Station stage; we learned a lot. It will be a sad day when it is removed from orbit."

As it is, the demise of the International Space Station ends an impressive chapter of human cooperation that has spanned years of conflict and conflict on our planet.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine dealt the hardest blow to this cooperation project, and it still exists today. Unfortunately, such a partnership seems unlikely in the near future.

"The Russians are no longer involved," says Cathy Lewis, a historian at the US National Air and Space Museum. They just talk about going.

In fact, work is underway on the project to replace the International Space Station.

The money that NASA will save after the end of the ISS service will go to other projects like the Artemis program.

And in Earth orbit, there are hopes that new commercial space stations will replace the International Space Station. In fact, NASA has commissioned SpaceX and Boeing in the United States to launch humans into low Earth orbit.

NASA has also begun awarding multi-million dollar contracts to companies for submersibles.