On Nov. 2, 2000, the International Space Station welcomed its first long-term residents: NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. The mission was called Expedition 1.Before this expedition, NASA had launched five, one-week-long Space Shuttle missions to help build the space station and bring up supplies. But this time, the crew would be staying for four and a half months, and they weren't taking the shuttle. Instead, they took a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and this was the first Soyuz to ever dock at the space station. During their stay at the space station, they unpacked supplies and installed new equipment, including the first solar arrays. They left on the space shuttle Discovery, which brought up the Expedition 2 crew that would take their place.Expedition 1 crewmates Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev pose with a model of the space station as it appeared in 2000. (Image credit: NASA)Why it matteredAs of today, there has been a continuous astronaut presence in space aboard the International Space Station for 26 years. For all of these years, not a day has gone by without someone living in space, orbiting our planet from aboard the space station. While the ISS was not the first space station, it has been the longest-running space statin by far. This first crew were pioneers, showing how humans could actually live and work aboard this station. This exploratory mission proved that the station could successfully support astronaut crews. Since this mission 26 years ago, there have been literally hundreds of astronauts from around the world who have flown to and lived aboard the ISS. While NASA has stated that the station might be decommissioned in the coming years, these accomplishments will remain forever in spaceflight history.Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.