The First Residents of the Space Station Move In

After a flawless automated docking Thursday, the first residents of the international space station moved in, set up camp and promptly chose a bold name for their new home.

The space station has gone without a name for years because administrators could not find a politically, culturally and linguistically correct name for a station run by 16 nations. The name coined by the Reagan administration in 1984, Freedom, was unceremoniously dropped by the Clinton regime.

Those planning the station in the past decade, including the current expedition’s commander, Bill Shepherd, wanted to call it Alpha. But the Russians, emphasizing that they’d been first to live in space aboard Mir, said they’d rather call it Beta, or Mir II. And derisive critics of the $60-billion station’s cost overruns had started to call it “Ralpha.”

On Thursday, in a space-to-ground transmission with NASA chief Daniel S. Goldin, Shepherd leapfrogged those political concerns and radioed down for permission to dub the station “Alpha.” A stunned Goldin, who was standing among Russian dignitaries, paused--and then agreed.

“Temporarily, take it as Alpha,” he said.

The Russians weren’t miffed at all. A round of spontaneous applause broke out at Mission Control Center near Moscow.

Shepherd seemed content. A former Navy SEAL, he had expressed mild displeasure before the launch that the “ship” he was going up to sail hadn’t been christened.

The Soyuz capsule holding Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev docked with the station at 1:21 a.m. Pacific time. About 240 miles above Kazakhstan, the Soyuz nudged toward the station, and they clasped in a robotic embrace. An hour later, after checking pressure seals, the crew floated into its new living quarters, the Russian Zvezda (Star) habitation module.

Even in space, there were the usual moving-day headaches. An early order of business, after enduring two days in the cramped Soyuz, was making sure that the toilet worked. (The device looks essentially like those on Earth, but it flushes waste using pressurized air instead of water. The waste will be disposed of back on Earth.)

There were decisions over what to do with the stacks of supplies clogging the passageways. Perhaps most important was the decision on who would sleep where. That’s a bigger question than it seems: Right now there are only two bunks for three men.

“We can flip a coin in space,” Krikalev quipped shortly before the launch. “It’s not going to fall, though.”

The crew said that it would probably find private space for the third crew member in another module, or that one man will stay awake on watch while the others sleep. Future modules will contain sleeping space for larger crews.

This group faces a busy few weeks as it sets up camp and conducts the station’s shakedown cruise. It will re-stow supplies to make it easier to move through the submarine-like corridors. It will also deploy computers and life-support components.

A planned spacewalk to alter docking ports has been postponed because supplies needed for the walk are not aboard because of delays in Russia, said Jeff Hanley, lead flight director for the mission.

The station does contain enough equipment for two spacewalks, but those are kept for emergencies. Postponing the walk will not be detrimental to station development, officials said, but it is likely to be a disappointment for the crew members.

Next month, the station denizens will help a visiting shuttle crew install additional power systems so that more modules can be used. In January, another shuttle crew will help install a U.S. lab module called Destiny for zero-gravity experiments.

The current crew is scheduled to return to Earth in February, when it will be replaced by three new members.

“You would hope that from this point on,” said Jim Van Laak, the space station manager, “we will never have a period when humans are not living in space.”