Peter Bond describes the development and evolution of space stations, with particular emphasis on the International Space Station, beginning with the revolution that began in 1970, when Salyut 1, the world's first space station was sent into orbit by the Soviet Union. Defeated in the race to the Moon, the Soviets redirected their efforts towards the conquest of near-Earth space. In the next three decades, their increasingly large and sophisticated structures rewrote the history books as cosmonauts continued to push back all space endurance records. Only the U.S. Skylab, a technological cul-de-sac based on surplus Apollo hardware, interrupted this era of Soviet domination. By the mid-1990's, Russian physician Valeri Poliakov had lived continuously for 14 months on board the Mir space station, long enough to travel to Mars and back. The book explains how the human exploitation of low-Earth orbit is about to change. With Mir no longer in existence, all eyes are on the next generation, the International Space Station (ISS).