Today marks a significant anniversary. Twenty years ago, on October 31, 2000, the first crew launched to the International Space Station. Station crews are called "Expeditions," so Expedition 1 began on that date. We're currently on Expedition 64, with three in the pipeline and many more planned. The Expeditions overlap, so that the new crew arrives and can get acclimated before the old crew leaves. More recently, people have switched between Expeditions while aboard, to remain behind when the rest of their team goes home.
What all this means is that for twenty years now, there have been at least three humans living off Earth at all times. It's a small colony, and it's not self-sufficient, but one must crawl before learning to walk.
I called it a significant anniversary, but in time I hope "20 years in space" becomes an insignificant anniversary, as the human presence beyond Earth passes 50 years, a century, two centuries . . .
There will come a time when it is a matter of historical curiosity that there was ever a time when humans did not live off Earth. The date may someday be as obscure as the anniversary of the first time a human walked out of Beringia into North America, or when the first humans crossed the Suez isthmus to discover a whole planet beyond Africa. So let's honor the occasion in the fond hope that it will someday be forgotten.
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