Number 100 spaceman Oleg Kotov, a Hero of the Russian Federation, was in London last week to see the photo exhibition put together by Russia's news agency RIA and Britain's Science Photo Library. The display that was opened in early June at the Royal Albert Hall, was dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the first-ever space flight of Yuri Gagarin.

A physician by education and a great follower of Gagarin, Oleg Kotov, made 2 flights to the International Space Station in 2007 and 2009. Of late he has been often travelling around the world to speak to foreign audiences about Yuri Gagarin, whom, he says, many in the West view as a man belonging to the whole world rather than solely his native Russia.

Now, 50 years since the first-ever space flight, space crews and their tasks are much more different than before.

If in the past, space exploration programs were based on national ambitions of the states which conducted those programs, at present the situation is totally different.

According to the official space exploration program of the Russian Federation, the nation's space agency, Roskosmos, does not see activities outside Earth's orbit without cooperation with other countries.

The International Space Station - ISS - the largest space station ever constructed, is an internationally-developed research facility assembled in low Earth orbit. On-orbit construction of the station began in 1998 and is scheduled to be completed next year. The station is expected to remain in operation until at least 2020, and potentially to 2028. Like many artificial satellites, the ISS can be seen from Earth with the naked eye.

The ISS serves as a research laboratory of microgravity environment where crews conduct experiments in biology, astronomy and meteorology. They also test spacecraft systems to prepare future missions to the Moon and Mars. It is operated by expedition crews, and has been continuously staffed since 2 November 2000-an uninterrupted human presence in space for more than a decade. As of June 2011, the crew of Expedition 28 is aboard.

The recent session of the UN General Assembly declared April 12, the date of Yuri Gagarin's flight, to be marked internationally as the First Space Flight Day. Oleg Kotov who attended the session, speaking on UN Radio, said that 50 years after that first-ever flight the mankind stands on the threshold of a new breakthrough in space.

The results of space flights, he also said, form the base for armies of specialists who work out uniform technology standards that help to overcome differences in technological, cultural and scientific approaches, so that they can be used in future both in space and on Earth. "It's not just working in space, we live there, with the scheduled working hours, days off and all the subtleties of the environment," he said.

Speaking to journalists after the Gagarin exhibition closed last Monday, spaceman Kotov stressed that if previously ISS exploitation rules, principles of engine designs, their controls as well as after-flight rehabilitation and health saving procedures were mainly based on the Soviet and Russian expertise, at present foreign partners add up to these.

"During my first flight in 2007 we were happy to work in the interests of the U.S. science, while U.S. researchers did their bit to assist in our work. National interests and the necessity of working together are no longer antagonistic," concluded Oleg Kotov, Russia's spaceman 100 last week in London.