Jan 30 1996
From The Space Library
NASA and the Russian Space Agency announced that the United States and Russia had reached an agreement to extend the Shuttle-Mir collaboration until 1998, with both countries reaffirming their commitments to building the ISS. At the time of the agreement, Russia was continuing to negotiate with the international space community to maintain the Russian station Mir as a long-term portal to the ISS. Through additional Shuttle flights to the Mir outpost, the United States planned to deliver thousands of pounds of materials to space, which otherwise would have required Russian launches. The United States offered Russia this significant assistance in the hope that the cash-strapped country would be able to keep its commitments to the ISS project. Vice President Albert A. Gore Jr. and Russian Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin announced concurrently that U.S. astronaut William M. Shepherd and Russian cosmonaut Sergei K. Krikalev would be the first crew members to live aboard the ISS.
NASA announced completion of the exterior of the U.S. modules constructed to house the astronauts aboard the ISS, as well as more than 80,000 pounds (36,000 kilograms) of flight hardware for the station. With the completion of the modules, the United States successfully attained the first benchmark in the long and expensive process to complete its part of the ISS. Boeing workers had completed the project at MSFC. NASA planned to launch the first node of the ISS in December 1997.
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