今年11月2日是个特殊的日子，它标志着人们常驻国际空间站已满5周年。但是，在国际空间站上工作和生活的宇航员却没有太多时间为此而庆祝。

    据美联社11月2日报道，现在，驻扎在国际空间站上的两位居民分别是美国宇航员威廉·麦克阿瑟和俄罗斯宇航员瓦勒利·图卡瑞夫。在这个特殊的日子里，这两名宇航员把时间花在了清理空气过滤器、改良训练设施以及其它一些空间站维护事宜上。另外，他们还在为下周即将进行的太空行走做准备。

    对此，麦克阿瑟表示，“不是我们不想庆祝，是由于现在航天飞机没有飞行，而我们要计算出未来4年内如何完成航天飞机的飞行任务，同时要像曾经保证的那样，完成对空间站的修建工作”。他说：“这确实值得庆祝，我们做的这些事情是50年前人们难以想象的。”麦克阿瑟和图卡瑞夫是于今年10月3日抵达国际空间站的，按计划他们将在这里工作和生活6个月。

    报道说，国际空间站的修建工作只完成了一半左右。现在它相当于一个3居室的房屋，其中包括供宇航员休息用的住宅舱、一个锻炼室和一个厨房。大约有来自10个国家的100人到访过国际空间站，其中有29人曾在这里生活，每次生活时间通常为6个月。

    报道说， 国际空间站是世界上最大的航天合作工程，由美、俄等16个国家联合参与。2000年11月2日，建设中的国际空间站与俄罗斯“联盟TM－31”号宇宙飞船成功对接，迎来了这个“太空城市”的第一批常驻居民——美国人谢泼德、俄罗斯人吉德津科和克里卡廖夫。自从2000年11月2日之后，国际空间站上就保持至少有两名成员至今。

    The international space station Wednesday marked five continuous years of people living and working aboard it. But there wasn't much time for celebration.

    The station's two residents spent the day cleaning air filters, upgrading exercise equipment and doing other maintenance. Astronaut William McArthur Jr. and cosmonaut Valery Tokarev, who arrived Oct. 3 for a six-month stay, also prepared for a spacewalk next week.

    "It's not that we're not feeling celebratory," McArthur said. "The space shuttle isn't flying right now. And we got to figure out how to finish flying the space shuttle in the next four years and to finish building the space station like we promised to."

    People first began living on the orbiting science lab on Nov. 2, 2000, after 16 countries joined to construct it.

    "It absolutely calls for celebration," the astronaut said from orbit during a series of broadcast interviews. "We have done things that were absolutely inconceivable 50 years ago."

    The 15,000-foot space station, about half complete, includes living quarters, an exercise room and a galley and is now the equivalent of a three-bedroom house. Nearly 100 people from 10 countries have visited the station, and 29 have lived aboard, often for six months at a time.

    NASA partnered with the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in building the station.

    "It's not the pristine world that you see on Star Trek, where you see the neatly pressed uniforms," McArthur said. "What we have is perhaps, from a storage and organization standpoint, is well-managed chaos."

    Dr. Paul Cloutier, a Rice University professor of physics and astronomy, said when people first started living in space, many were optimistic, but also naive about the challenges of long-term orbital trips.

    "Just the fact that it is up there is a major accomplishment," he said.