A comprehensive, highly readable account of complex, technical, political and human endeavor and a worthy successor to Creating the International Space Station (Springer Praxis, January 2002) by David Harland and John Catchpole. This volume details for the first time the construction and occupation of the International Space Station from 2002 through to 2008, when it should reach American “Core Complete”.

John Catchpole is a freelance writer specialising in human spaceflight history. In addition to co-authoring Creating the International Space Station, he is also the author of Project Mercury - NASA's First Manned Space Programme and has published over 150 magazine articles on the subject of human spaceflight and spaceflight history, including many in Spaceflight, a monthly magazine published by the British Interplanetary Society.