Sixteen different countries are working on the ISS including the U.S., Canada, Japan, Russia, Norway and the European Union. This is an artist's impression of the proposed finished structure for the international space station. As you can see it's a huge piece of engineering. It's one of the most ambitious projects yet to be planned and assembled in space. Most of the fabrication work has taken place on the ground. The first and second stages of taking Zarya and Unity upstairs and linking them together have already taken place.

Zarya is the Russian part of the ISS. Zarya means something like "dawning of a new era" or "Sunrise". This module will provide Unity with the power and communications that it will need. Zarya is about 42 feet long and 13 feet wide. Three kilowatts of power is generated by its solar panels. The third part of the station will be the Russian service module. This will improve or replace the Zarya modules many functions. Zarya will eventually be used for storage and for its fuel tanks. The first ISS full-time crew is planned for January 2000. At that time things should be reasonably friendly inside the station.

For more info about the Linux software that is used on the ISS project click on the link below. You can also find info about economic and cultural considerations by clicking on the other link. This is much more interesting than it sounds and is well worth a visit.