Thank you very much. Goldin did not answer, shaking his head from side to side as he listened to the translator. On a more upbeat note, Semenov reported Zvezda was in good shape after its ground-shaking climb to space. In an unexpected development, Koptev told a reporter the international space station, currently known simply by the acronym ISS, will be formally named after Zvezda docks with the lab complex. Since then, the station has been nameless, presumably because of the difficulty getting all of the project's international partners to reach agreement.
Problems come, problems go, people change, governments change, leadership changes.
But my friend, Yuri Koptev, never, never looked any other way but forward. They went through terrible, terrible economic changes for the worst, they went through a number of governments, they went through a series of problems and yet they persevered. I don't know any other group that has the toughness that I see from our Russian colleagues. Without you, we can really do business together. Launch preview - The international space station's future riding on Zvezda.