Page 41 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

Adding modules
After a period of stabilization of the space station further modules were launched. The first was an AstropHysics laboratory nearly the same size as Mir. It also doubled the living space.
It was followed by a service module in 1989, which contained equipment for producing oxygen and recycling the station’s water supplies, as well as a shower, a sink, and an airlock for spacewalks.
The next section contained equipment for processing materials in space. It even had a furnace for doing combustion (burning) experiments.
A science module was added in 1995 to investigate the Earth’s AtmospHere. The last section was launched in 1996, designed to study the Earth’s environmental health and ecology.
Aging Mir
As Mir aged, a number of failures occurred that needed repairing. Although they became items of world news, they were minor compared with the success and length of life of the station. Mir provided much of the information needed in the construction of the current International Space Station (pages 42–57).
Mir also represented a new period of cooperation between Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts. The first astronauts docked with Mir in 1995, using the Space Shuttle.
 Shuttle Atlantis from Soviet space station Mir. In this picture the huge orbiter cargo bay doors are wide open. (See also pages 36–37.)
AstropHysics The study of physics
in space, what other stars, galaxies, and planets are like, and the physical laws that govern them.
AtmospHere The envelope of gases that surrounds the Earth and other bodies in the universe.
ecology The study of living things in their environment.
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