The International Space Station (ISS) is a scientific and technological wonder. It is a dream being realized by a multinational partnership. The ISS provides a permanent human presence in space and a symbol of advancement for humankind.^* There is great promise and discovery awaiting those who will use the space station.

Just as the global explorers of the fifteenth century circled the globe in their square-sailed schooners in search of riches—gold, spices, fountains of youth, and other precious resources—so too is the space station a wind-jammer plowing the waves of space, exploration the riches it holds. The space station brings together the adventure of fifteenth-century explorers with twenty-first-century technology and industry. The space station is, at its essence, an infrastructure that will facilitate and transmit new knowledge, much like that provided through the virtual world of the Internet. In regard to the...