Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 169, 20 Continuous Years. I'm Gary Jordan and I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists,

engineers, astronauts all to let you know what's going on in the world of human

spaceflight. We did it. 20 continuous years of human presence.

The International Space Station has been continuously occupied for 20 years straight.

On October 31st, 2000, the first mission and crew assigned specifically to live and work on the

International Space Station called Expedition 1 launched on a Soyu spacecraft.

Once it docked to the then three-moduled International Space Station on November 2nd,

Continuous human habitation began.

20 years later, the International Space Station is the size of an American football field.

More than 240 individuals from 19 countries have visited the station

and more than 230 spacewalks have been conducted for assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.

More than 3,000 scientific investigations have taken place on board the station in every

category of science, biology, biotechnology, earth science, physical science, and more.

Not only are we improving our understanding of how to live and work

in space to extend human presence to the moon and Mars, but we've opened up the station as a national

laboratory to benefit life on Earth and even for commercial

businesses to conduct activities and build an economy in low-Earth orbit.

There's a lot to celebrate on the special anniversary, so coming on the podcast today is Joel Montebono,

manager of the International Space Station program here at the Johnson Space Center.

Joel has spent much of his career working on the International Space Station,

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