What do astronauts do on the space station? - question from Jimmy Spencer
Because operating the ISS with a permanent crew is still relatively new (the first crew came aboard in
November 2000), a lot of what the astronauts do is routine maintenance and operational tasks that need to be done
to keep the Station running "smoothly" (taken with a large block of salt). It will be quite a while before
operations are "routine" enough on the Station that the astronauts can focus most of their efforts on accomplishing
one of the main objectives of having the ISS in the first place: running a wide range of extended micro-gravity
research experiements for the benefit human kind. You can follow the latest news about the ISS at NASA's
Space Station site.
- answer by Aaron Brown, 3 June 2001
