Artificial Worlds Around Earth

In January 2004, President George W. Bush gave his New Vision for Space Exploration Program in which he committed the United States to (a) complete the International Space Station, and (b) to "undertake extended human missions to the moon as early as 2015, with the goal of living and working there for increasingly extended periods." Space stations and human habitation of the moon are two ways of extending life from earth to "other worlds" that orbit the earth.

As explained in Wikipedia, the first space station was the Russian Salyut 1 that was launched on April 19, 1971. Since then there have been eight additional space stations, the last of which, The International Space Station, is still in orbit. In addition to the space stations, astronauts and cosmonauts have orbited the earth on temporary missions.

In his statement, President Bush gave as one of the goals of the expanded space program the use of the moon as a "launching point for missions beyond." Not only will we have other worlds created by God in the vast Cosmos, we will have other worlds that are extensions of this world.

According to an article in The New York Times, the International Space Station has been occupied for over a decade. However, if the problem that aborted a Russian attempt in mid August to bring supplies to the station isn't identified and fixed, the 6 people in the space station will have to return to earth in September, and the space station will not be inhabited. The station, though, can be remotely controlled from earth.

Defunct satellites are a form of man-made asteroids.

Here are science articles about satellites.

The Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft was berthed to the International Space Station at 8:03 a.m. CDT Wednesday (Oct. 10, 2012), a key milestone in a new era of commercial spaceflight. The delivery flight is the first contracted resupply mission by the company under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract.

NASA managers, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) officials and international partner representatives Thursday announced Sunday, Oct. 7, as the target launch date for the first contracted cargo resupply flight to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract.