"I want to be an astronaut when I grow up." Huge numbers of little boys, and slightly smaller numbers of little girls (though they're catching up fast) still dream of becoming an astronaut and exploring space, the final frontier. Some dream of visiting the International Space Station (ISS), where Russians, Japanese, Europeans and US astronauts work together. For almost a decade - since 2 November 2000 - a crew has been aboard the space station orbiting planet Earth.

By Sigrid Deters and Willemien Groot

The astronauts divide their time between maintaining the station, doing scientific research and communicating with people on earth. The time of 'splendid isolation' ended a long time ago; astronauts send photos home, have Twitter accounts and have direct internet connections to classrooms across the globe.