Nice long piece in Aviation Week about the history of ISS. It got started under Ronald Reagan back in 1984, 36 years ago. At the time the project was viewed as US-Russia cooperation deal intended to generate some friendship between the two countries. And the Russians were allocated some of the early important and expensive modules, on the theory it would keep them out of trouble. The original planning was to use the US Space Shuttle to lift the bigger chunks into orbit. Good thing we got that part done before a second disaster grounded the Shuttle fleet for good. As it was the Shuttles flew 37 missions to the ISS.
The major bit of information we learned from operating ISS is the bad effects of long term living in zero G. As it was, the ISS astronauts were required to exercise like crazy every day, and even with all this effort, they all returned to earth seriously weakened. They all recovered after return to Earth, but thinking about a crew returning from a long mission too weak to even fasten their seat belts is worrisome, to put it mildly. Any long duration space missions, like to Mars or the asteroid belt will need space craft that supply artificial gravity. Presumable this will be done with hoop shaped sections that rotate to provide centrifugal force as a substitute for gravity.
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