Space Station

Skylab's success proved that scientific experimentation in a low gravity environment was essential to scientific progress. A more permanent structure was needed to provide this space laboratory. President Ronald Reagan, on January 25, 1984, during his State of the Union address, claimed that the United States should exploit the new frontier of space, and directed NASA to build a permanent marned space station within a decade. The idea was that the space station would not only be used as a laboratory for the advancement of science and medicine, but would also provide a staging area for building a lunar base and manned expeditions to Mars and elsewhere in the solar system. President Reagan invited the international community to join with the United States in this endeavour. NASA and several countries moved forward with this concept. By December 1985, the first phase of the space station was well underway with the design concept for the crew compartments and laboratories. Pictured are two NASA astronauts, at Marshall Space Flight Center's (MSFC) Neutral Buoyancy Simulator (NBS), practicing construction techniques they later used to construct the space station after it was deployed.