Space flight isn't what it used to be. Those old enough to have watched the moon landings on live television might remember the drama, and perhaps the tension, as we wondered whether the crew would make it back to earth.
Before then it was the Mercury, Gemini and Soyuz missions, some of them so short you could watch the entire proceedings from launch to landing in a single sitting. Our primary school teachers used to stand a television at the front of the room so we could watch history being made.
Now the notion of space travel seems more like hopping on a commuter flight to London or Zurich, only you get a better view out the window. After a full generation of watching Star Wars and Star Trek, we all expect life in space to be routine and ordinary.
It is this public apathy which the world's space agencies are attempting to overcome as they prepare to establish a long-term outpost in space, the International Space Station (ISS). Assembly in space of the ISS began two years ago and next week the first three crew, two Russians and an American, will begin a human presence in orbit that is expected to last for years.
Yet, in every sense, it is a dramatic and overwhelming undertaking. The station, once fully assembled, will cover an area larger than several football fields. In orbit almost 200 miles overhead, it will serve as home for up to seven crew for months at a time.
The three main ISS components already in place are just the beginning of a mammoth effort to put more than 450 tonnes of hardware into orbit. Its internal volume will be roughly equal to that of a 747 jumbo jet.
Along with living quarters there will be six full-scale laboratories for all types of research. There will be recreation and exercise areas and a revolving section which will provide artificial gravity.
Russian Soyuz and Proton rockets and the US space shuttle have been serving as pack mules to get the station up in orbit and will continue to ferry up to 100 components in the course of more than 40 flights over the next four years. Hooking everything together will take dozens of highly dangerous but necessary space walks by a succession of crews.
If the engineering effort needed to get so much into orbit, keep it there and allow safe human habitation doesn't impress, then consider the political effort that has made the ISS happen. The station is a global partnership of 16 nations including the US, the Russians, 11 member-states of the European Space Agency, Canada, Japan and Brazil.
Not only did everyone have to agree on it, but they also had to come up with their share of the funding. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration had to absorb a $1,000 million budget cut this year as it continued to prepare for the first crew to move into the ISS.
Russia struggled to keep its space programme going last year despite the collapse of its economy. Its heavy-lift rockets were essential for the success of the ISS but the economic collapse caused months of delay. There were real fears that the station project was a dead letter but, with a little help from its friends, the rockets flew and the show kept going.
All of this struggle has got the partner countries only over the initial hump. Just three of about 40 main sections are in place, so there is still an overwhelming amount to do.
The hardware and the politics describe nothing of the human side of the ISS. The first permanent crew for the station takes flight on Monday. They include space station commander Bill Shepherd from the US, Soyuz commander Yuri Gidzenko and flight engineer Sergei Krikalev, both Russians.
They blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazahkstan and two days later will dock with their still-under-construction new home. They start their four-month visit on November 1st, but they are just the advance guard: a succession of astronauts and cosmonauts, Europeans and Japanese, will keep the station permanently occupied for the next decade and beyond.
Theirs is one of the most dangerous occupations a person might pursue. The possibility of something going wrong is very strong. There are the obvious hazards of getting there aboard a huge metal firework. Once in orbit they will be living in oversized, pressurised tin cans. The failure of a mechanical seal or a puncture caused by an impacting meteor would be enough to cause rapid loss of air and pressure and huge risk to the crew.
There will be near-monthly visits through to 2004 by the space shuttle and Soyuz as they cart up chunks of the growing station. Each trip represents a fresh opportunity for an accidental collision or runaway component breaking something off the station. And there will be a succession of space walks to enable the ISS to take shape, each one a genuine risk to the participant.
Space flight as portrayed by Hollywood is a comfortable and leisurely enterprise - at least until the monsters inevitably show up to threaten the fun. The film-makers kindly provide instant and unexplained gravity which allows the crew to walk about as if they are strolling through a hotel lobby. Computers control everything and can solve any technical hitch that presents itself and nothing goes wrong for long.
The reality, as reported by real space travellers, is very different. The first day or two is spent getting ill into a (carefully sealed) bag as zero gravity plays havoc with the inner ear. The crew struggle like underwater swimmers as they manoeuvre through their living quarters.
With nothing other than Velcro to keep their heads on the pillow, they have to learn a whole new way of sleeping. Vigorous and boring daily exercise is necessary to keep bones and muscles from wasting away at zero gravity. Dealing with both personal hygiene and other bodily functions has its own challenges when there is no gravity to keep things in their place.
Tedium and discomfort are a large part of space travel as we know it. The space agencies also make extreme efforts to ensure there are no injuries or deaths to mar future budget allocations. So how do they bring back the drama and adventure that was such a part of the early manned space programme?
This is no small consideration. The space agencies must maintain a high profile to protect their funding against legislators who, like the public they represent, alternate between two poles. One is a fascination with any journey into the unknown. The other asks why so much money is being spent on such obscure science when taxes are high and there are hungry people in the world.
There is no easy prescription for this public relations challenge. Space travel is neither new enough to keep an easily bored television audience entertained, nor is it dramatic enough to keep it engaged.
Perhaps the answer lies in bringing home to people how difficult space travel can be. Then, once in orbit, allow them to see what an astronaut can see from the spacecraft's port-holes. Show people that the object is to open up a view of ourselves that can only be achieved by being there, 200 miles up, in the silent void of space.