international space station

Perhaps it's time for Space Ghost to hand over his moniker to the International Space Station (ISS). The orbital outpost makes for an eerie blue shadow in this image taken by a German radar satellite, SPACE.com reports.

The snapshot was taken by Germany's TerraSAR-X satellite on March 13, 2008. But the German space agency only released the startling view of the then-incomplete space station this month.

In an attempt to shorten the gap between the end of the Space Shuttle and the deployment of its replacement, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) has introduced a bill that would extend the life of the Shuttle by two years. The bill directly contradicts the White House's space policy, which favors a rapid decommissioning of the Shuttle, followed by an emphasis on the private sector to maintain support of the International Space Station (ISS).

Well, it looks like Charles Simonyi might have to wait a while for a third trip, because space tourism is going on hiatus. With the shuttle's cancellation leaving Russia as the only country able to service the International Space Station (ISS), the Russian government has announced it will no longer let civilians hitch a ride on Soyuz flights.

With cuts in the manned space program and the impending retirement of the Space Shuttle, NASA will soon face the need to repair satellites without the ability to send any astronauts to do it. Fortunately, they're already working on the solution: robots.

Over the next seven months, NASA will finish installing the Dextre robot on the International Space Station (ISS). Once fully affixed to the ISS, Dextre, which previously helped astronauts repair the Hubble Space Telescope, will practice refueling satellites.

Space shuttle Endeavour has landed safely after installing a new observation deck on the International Space Station. But the Endeavour astronauts didn't leave without first checking out the new view from the cupola window.

Here we get a view of George Zamka, NASA astronaut and STS-130 commander, peeking out from the newly-installed cupola on February 19 while the space shuttle remained docked with the space station.

Twitpics from space just got even more interesting with the addition of a brand new cupola window aboard the International Space Station. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has accordingly updated his Twitter feed with a fresh Twitpic of the Sahara desert framed within the cupola.

Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has spent his time aboard the International Space Station doing much more than just making sushi to entertain his fellow crew. He's also taking full advantage of the space station's new Internet access to stream plenty of Twitpics taken from space And to give all of us Earth-bound folk some sights to remember, he's using something a bit more advanced than the camera on his iPhone.

It's a bit cliché to kick off a story about NASA with "Houston, we have a problem," but seriously, they've got a problem: the plumbing on the International Space Station is clogged, and NASA isn't exactly sure why, or how to fix it. To clarify, it's not the actual toilet component that's broken, but the $250 million system designed to recycle astronauts' urine, sweat, and exhaled vapor into clean, potable water.

Engineers working on the problem believe high concentrations of calcium in the astronauts' urine is causing deposits to build up, clogging the system that provides up to two-thirds of the water used on the station.

NASA's bold repair mission for the Hubble Space Telescope has inspired engineers to tackle another challenge -- using the robotic arm on the International Space Station to refuel a satellite. Aviation Week reports that the Canadian "Dextre" arm could use a special tool to cut into a spacecraft that was never designed to be refueled, pierce the insulation, and access the fuel plumbing.

Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has successfully lifted off from Baikonur Space Center on the steppes of Kazakhstan, bringing with him the first sushi in space.

"We had a training in Japan and I was stupid enough to train [my fellow astronauts] to be sushi lovers," he told Reuters.

To some, watching a butterfly emerge from its cocoon, transformed from larva to magnificent winged beauty, is proof of nature's great wonder. For two butterflies aboard the International Space Station, it was a wonder that they emerged at all. For the first time in history, two painted lady butterflies each survived the larvae stage, formed a chrysalis and emerged as mature butterflies.

The perils of space flight number in the hundreds, from radiation exposure to the impact of micro-asteroids. But for astronauts who spend an extended amount of time floating weightlessly in the near-endless void of space, muscle atrophy remains the most common health problem. Thankfully, a shipment of RNA-treated worms may help scientists on the International Space Station solve that issue.

Few of us can ever hope to become an astronaut in our lifetimes, so the latest iPhone app from NASA lets us enjoy the next best thing: keeping tabs on absolutely everything they do – from the International Space Station and the Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter to Mars exploration and space shuttle launches.

Every good futuristic sci-fi narrative has its version: Star Trek had the replicator that produced Picard's piping hot Earl Grey from what appeared to be thin air, and Forbidden Planet had Robbie the Robot, who generated entire luncheons from the chemical lab in his nether regions. But NASA scientists have come many real-world steps closer to creating something from nothing, via a process called electron beam freeform fabrication, and a version of the technology will soon be going to the International Space Station for testing.

A company called Astrogenetix has started the approval process for putting their salmonella vaccine through the clinical trial wringer. The outfit, based in Austin, Texas developed its vaccine through research carried out on NASA's space shuttle missions.

Scientists have long known that bacteria and viruses grow more rapidly and virulently in space. Astrogenetix took advantage of that fast-growing, super-active state to home in on the salmonella genes responsible for infectiousness, and then removed said genes to create a weak vaccine strain.