Happy Birthday: Space station celebrates 10 years

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In this Dec. 6, 1998 file photo, the robot arm of the Endeavour moves away from the docked Unity (bottom) and Zarya modules (top, with solar panels) as the first orbital assembly of the International Space Station was completed in a view from television. On Nov. 20, 1998, the first part of the space station was launched by the Russians from Kazakhstan. NASA followed up two weeks later with piece No. 2 carried up by a space shuttle. Astronauts and cosmonauts moved in two years later, and the rest, as they say, is history. (AP Photo/NASA TV)

(AP) -- NASA couldn't have staged it any better: 10 people in orbit for Thursday's 10th anniversary of the world's most elaborate and expensive housing project, the international space station.