The International Space Station, an amazing sky laboratory, will celebrate its 10th anniversary Nov. 20.

Built 210 miles above the ground while traveling at 17,500 miles an hour, the space station has grown steadily, and will reach full size in 2010, just before the space shuttle fleet retires.

Although the space station is being built mostly with U.S. funds totaling $100 billion, and has been hoisted to orbit mostly on muscular American space shuttles, it began its existence aloft when a Russian Proton rocket launched the Zarya module from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Nov. 20, 1998.

During the last 10 years, 76 flights have launched to the complex, NASA noted. The orbiting laboratory, now about three-fourths complete, has grown to a mass of almost 600,000 pounds and an inside volume larger than a four-bedroom house.

Two U.S. astronauts, Expedition 18 Commander E. Michael Fincke and Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff, and Russian Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov, are beaming down a message celebrating the tenth anniversary, which can be viewed starting today on NASA TV.

As well, the two NASA astronauts have a message urging Americans to vote in the presidential election next week.