Welcome to The Deep science and technology column where we cover topics from the deep sea to deep space and beyond.

Last week, in the second half of my article, I proposed a couple of new heroes for your children.  I said “Don’t you think our kids would be a lot better off if they followed the exploits of Suni and Tim instead of the exploits of K-Fed and Brittany?”  Suni and Tim are Sunita Williams and Tim Shank.  Sunita Williams is currently aboard the International Space Station and she made a phone call to Tim Shank, a marine biologist who just happened to be on the ocean floor in the East Pacific rise when he talked to her. Sunita Williams is certainly much more qualified to be a role model for your little girls (and little boys) than Brittany Spears, Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton put together.  For one thing, she doesn’t do drugs and she has an actual job.  And she was doing that job three hundred miles over your head while you were watching the super bowl.  Sunita Williams is building the International Space Station.

Sunita William’s message to everyone.  “Believe in your dreams.”
She was born in 1965 in Euclid, Ohio.  Her father, Deepak Pandya is Indian and she’s the second woman of Indian heritage to become a NASA astronaut.  (The first was Kalpana Chawla).  And as of last Sunday, she has spent more time spacewalking than any other female astronaut with a total of 22 hours and 27 minutes in a space suit.

She’ll have plenty more opportunities to best that record.  The United States and Russia have at least 24 spacewalks planned from the International Space Station in 2007.  Sunita Williams will also be the Flight Engineer for Expedition 15 and when she returns to Earth in July, she will hold the NASA astronaut record for the longest time spent in space.

Michael Lopez-Alegria is also a hero and a much better role model for your boys than K-Fed or any rapper you can name.  He was born in Madrid Spain and raised in Mission Viejo California.  He has been a NASA astronaut since 1992 and has served on at least four Shuttle missions.  By the time the Expedition 14 astronauts return in April, Michael Lopez-Alegria will hold the all-time astronaut record for the number of spacewalks and the amount of time spent in the infinite cold of space with nothing separating him from it but a spacesuit.

Michael Lopez-Alegria

So . . . . what are they doing up there?  They’re building the International Space Station, the first permanent human habitation in space.
	We’re taking our first toddler steps out of the cradle.  And it truly is an “International” Space Station.  This year, in addition to the control centers located in the United States, Russia and Canada, control centers for the station also will be activated in France, Germany and Japan, allowing NASA's partners to oversee their contributions to the station.
The ISS today

Also this year, the electricity generated and used on the station will more than double.  By the end of 2007, the station's solar panels will extend to almost three-quarters of an acre of surface area.  The extra power and cooling will allow the station's living and working space to expand by more than one-third and the complex will grow from its current size of a two-bedroom apartment to the size of a four-bedroom house by year's end.
	The ISS when it is completed

So what will the three astronauts who typically inhabit the ISS do with all that room?  Well, the laboratories on board will triple, with the addition of the European Space Agency's Columbus lab and the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo.  A shuttle mission targeted for October will deliver the Columbus lab, while another mission targeted for December will carry Kibo.  These additions will mark the first increase in the station's interior space in more than six years.

And should there be, heaven forefend, another accident, and the US grows too paranoid and introspective to allow the Shuttle fleet to fly, the people aboard the ISS don’t have to worry about being stranded.  A new European cargo vehicle, called the Automated Transfer Vehicle, is set to make its first trip to the station in July.  Currently, only the US Space Shuttle and Russian Progress cargo craft are capable of delivering supplies to the International Space Station.

And are your kids into robots?  They don’t have to rely on transformers and TV robots for their entertainment.  This year marks an unparalleled increase of robotic operations aboard the ISS.  For the first time, the station's robotic arm will be used to assemble large, pressurized components without a Shuttle present. This fall, the Canadarm2 , the gigantic robotic crane attached to the ISS will be used to move mating adapters and a large connecting module, called Node 2, into place on the station.  Node 2 will provide the pressurized pathways for crewmembers, air, electricity and water to the new international laboratories.

The robotics systems aboard the station will also increase this year.  The Canadian Space Agency's Dextre robotic system will be delivered on the same mission that delivers the first section of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo lab.  Dextre is an almost human-shaped two-armed robotic system that’s designed to work with Canadarm2.  Dextre will enable the robotics to perform even more intricate maintenance and servicing tasks, which previously would have required spacewalks.  Robots may not be taking over your living room yet, but they are becoming routine aboard the International Space Station.

A painting of Dextre on the Canadarm

Your kids don’t have to rely on R2D2 or C3PO for their robot fix or on K-Fed and Brittany to be their heroes.  They also don’t have to wait for humans to go to space.  Thanks to Dextre and Suni and Michael, we’re already there 24/7, 365 days a year.  Perhaps we shouldn’t be shouting “Go Bears! or Go Colts!”; maybe we should be shouting “Go ISS!”