Houston, we have a podcast.

Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 195, trail-blazing international partnerships.

I'm Pat Ryan.

On this podcast, we talk with scientists, engineers, astronauts, all kinds of

experts about their part in America's space exploration program. Today the world comes to

Houston to talk about the Confederation of Nations behind the success

that is the International Space Station.

There have been people on board the International Space Station for more than 20 years now without

interruption but the story of the beginnings of the project goes back years

before that short version not from the very beginning.

In his State of the Union message in 1984, President Reagan announced that he had directed

NASA to develop a permanently manned space station.

Less than two years later, Europe, Japan, and Canada had agreed to participate.

The Soviet Union, which flew one joint mission with NASA in 1975, had flown a series of space stations all on its own before launching the first

components of the Mir station in 1986.

And after the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s,

the Russian Federation agreed to team up with the US and the others.

It was an unprecedented global partnership,

dependent on the contributions of all and providing benefits to all.

Today representatives from each of the five partner space agencies discuss how they've stayed together all these years

and what they've gained from a generation of international cooperation

...