Crew sets up shop on space station 'Alpha'

From left: Sergei Krikalev, Yuri Gidzenko and Bill Shepherd clasp hands after boarding the space station     WEB EXCLUSIVE On the scene with Miles O'Brien in Moscow

KOROLYOV, Russia -- Before going to sleep for the first time in their new home, the inaugural residents of the International Space Station decided to give it a new name. The crew of three arrived at the $60 billion orbiting outpost earlier Thursday, beginning what NASA hopes is the permanent habitation of space.

U.S. astronaut Bill Shepherd, the station's skipper, and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev floated into the space station about one and a half hours after their Russian Soyuz capsule docked.

Hours before turning in for an 11-hour rest at about 11:45 EST, the crew succeeded in one task that was not on the schedule. In a phone call with NASA chief Daniel Goldin, Shepherd said that the crew had one request.

"The first expedition on the space station requests permission to take the radio call sign Alpha," Shepherd said, punching the air with his right fist. All three men, dressed in identical white jerseys and blue jumpsuits, beamed and clasped their hands.

Making their new house a home

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The first week of their four-month stay should keep them busy. They started their residency with no working toilet, no air conditioning, no way to cook their food and only enough oxygen for two days.

They will spend the first few days bringing life support systems on line, turning on the alarm systems and creating a network to help run the station's systems from laptop computers. For Friday, battery repair work is on the agenda.

NASA expects it will take a while before the "Expedition One" crew feels truly at home. The trio will be confined to two of the space station's three rooms until space shuttle Endeavour arrives in early December with giant solar panels that will provide all the necessary power.

"It's essentially a shakedown of the station for living and working in the future," Hanley said. "We're really treating Expedition One as a verification test flight if you will," said Jeff Hanley, a flight director in NASA's Mission Control in Houston.

NASA, the Russian Space Agency and the 14 other countries involved in project have high hopes for the space station. At least 15 years of scientific operation are planned, with crews eventually expanding from three to seven.

And now, 'the fun part'

The ISS, already one of the brightest objects in the night sky, will weigh 418 tons, spread out almost an acre and have as much living space as a Boeing 747 jetliner when completed, perhaps as early as 2005.

After training nearly five years for this mission in two countries and enduring two years of delay because of Russia's ailing economy, Shepherd was ready to enjoy himself in orbit, said his wife, Beth Stringham-Shepherd.

"This will definitely be the fun part," she said.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

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October 31, 2000
Crew blasts off for International Space Station
October 30, 2000
Discovery docks at International Space Station
October 13, 2000
Cargo ship docks with International Space Station
August 8, 2000
Russia launches crucial International Space Station module
July 12, 2000

NASA
Boeing: International Space Station
NASA: Human Spaceflight
Russian Space Agency

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