Science and Technology Research Directions for the International Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) is a unique and unprecedented space research facility. Never before have scientists and engineers had access to such a robust, multidisciplinary, long-duration microgravity laboratory. To date, the research community has enjoyed success aboard such platforms as Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and the Russian Mir space station. However, these platforms were and are limited in ways that the ISS is not. Encompassing four times the volume of Mir, the ISS will support dedicated research facilities for at least a dozen scientific and engineering disciplines. Unlike the Space Shuttle, which must return to Earth after less than three weeks in space, the ISS will accommodate experiments that require many weeks even months to complete. Continual access to a microgravity laboratory will allow selected scientific disciplines to progress at a rate far greater than that obtainable with current space vehicles.