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Right now, as you read this sentence, a small group of people is living about 400 kilometres above your head. They are the crew of the International Space Station, or ISS, a huge laboratory that travels around the Earth. People have lived on the station without a break since November 2000, so most teenagers today have never known a world without humans in space.

The station is not the work of one country. The United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada built it together, piece by piece, and astronauts from many other countries have visited it. The first Israeli in space was Ilan Ramon, in 2003. In 2022, Eytan Stibbe became the second. He spent more than two weeks on the station and carried out experiments that Israeli scientists had planned.

Life on the ISS is very different from life at home. The station moves at about 28,000 kilometres an hour and goes around the Earth every 90 minutes. As a result, the crew sees about sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets every day. Because everything floats, astronauts sleep in sleeping bags that are tied to the wall, and they eat food from special packages. Even water is precious: the station cleans most of its water and uses it again, even the sweat from the astronauts' bodies.

Floating may sound like fun, but it is hard on the body. Without gravity, muscles and bones get weaker, because they do not have to work. For this reason, every astronaut exercises for about two hours a day on special machines. Even so, when they return to Earth after six months, many of them need some time before they can walk normally again.

What will happen next? The ISS is getting old, and the space agencies plan to bring it down around 2030. But that will not be the end of life in space. Private companies are already building new stations, and NASA plans to send people back to the Moon. By the time today's teenagers are in their thirties, some of them may be working far above the clouds, too.

Right now, as you read this sentence, a small group of people is living about 400 kilometres above your head. They are the crew of the International Space Station, or ISS, a huge laboratory that travels around the Earth. People have lived on the station without a break since November 2000, so most teenagers today have never known a world without humans in space.

The station is not the work of one country. The United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada built it together, piece by piece, and astronauts from many other countries have visited it. The first Israeli in space was Ilan Ramon, in 2003. In 2022, Eytan Stibbe became the second. He spent more than two weeks on the station and carried out experiments that Israeli scientists had planned.

Life on the ISS is very different from life at home. The station moves at about 28,000 kilometres an hour and goes around the Earth every 90 minutes. As a result, the crew sees about sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets every day. Because everything floats, astronauts sleep in sleeping bags that are tied to the wall, and they eat food from special packages. Even water is precious: the station cleans most of its water and uses it again, even the sweat from the astronauts' bodies.

Floating may sound like fun, but it is hard on the body. Without gravity, muscles and bones get weaker, because they do not have to work. For this reason, every astronaut exercises for about two hours a day on special machines. Even so, when they return to Earth after six months, many of them need some time before they can walk normally again.

What will happen next? The ISS is getting old, and the space agencies plan to bring it down around 2030. But that will not be the end of life in space. Private companies are already building new stations, and NASA plans to send people back to the Moon. By the time today's teenagers are in their thirties, some of them may be working far above the clouds, too.

Right now, as you read this sentence, a small group of people is living about 400 kilometres above your head. They are the crew of the International Space Station, or ISS, a huge laboratory that travels around the Earth. People have lived on the station without a break since November 2000, so most teenagers today have never known a world without humans in space.

The station is not the work of one country. The United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada built it together, piece by piece, and astronauts from many other countries have visited it. The first Israeli in space was Ilan Ramon, in 2003. In 2022, Eytan Stibbe became the second. He spent more than two weeks on the station and carried out experiments that Israeli scientists had planned.

Life on the ISS is very different from life at home. The station moves at about 28,000 kilometres an hour and goes around the Earth every 90 minutes. As a result, the crew sees about sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets every day. Because everything floats, astronauts sleep in sleeping bags that are tied to the wall, and they eat food from special packages. Even water is precious: the station cleans most of its water and uses it again, even the sweat from the astronauts' bodies.

Floating may sound like fun, but it is hard on the body. Without gravity, muscles and bones get weaker, because they do not have to work. For this reason, every astronaut exercises for about two hours a day on special machines. Even so, when they return to Earth after six months, many of them need some time before they can walk normally again.

What will happen next? The ISS is getting old, and the space agencies plan to bring it down around 2030. But that will not be the end of life in space. Private companies are already building new stations, and NASA plans to send people back to the Moon. By the time today's teenagers are in their thirties, some of them may be working far above the clouds, too.