LIFE   IN   SPACE
      Life in space is almost the same as on earth.The original seven astronauts selected for the Mercury program are: (front row, left to right) Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Donald K. Slayton, John H. Glenn, Jr., and M. Scott Carpenter, (back row, left to right) Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Virgil I. Grissom and L. Gordon Cooper.cloud a mass of tiny water drops or ice crystals that float in the air above the earth.

      Did you know that the first African-American woman in space was Dr. Mae Jemison? She was selected for the astronaut program in June 1987 and served as the science mission specialist on STS-47 Spacelab-J (September 12-20, 1992). Apollo 10's command module was called "Charlie Brown" and the lunar module was called "Snoopy."

       The third human to walk on the surface of the Moon was Charles P. "Pete" Conrad -- during the Apollo 12 MissionColumbia was the first Space Shuttle that traveled to Earth orbit. The next crew to call the International Space Station home is slated to arrive onboard Oct. 20. After relieving the Expedition 7 crew, Expedition 8 Commander and NASA ISS Science Officer Michael Foale and Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri are scheduled to spend about six months aboard the orbital outpost maintaining ISS operations and continuing science investigations.

        Team Stardust, NASA's first dedicated sample return mission to a comet,passed a huge milestone today by successfully navigating through theparticle and gas-laden coma around comet Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt-2").
During the hazardous traverse, the spacecraft flew within 240 kilometers
(149 miles) of the comet, catching samples of comet particles and
scoring detailed pictures of Wild 2's pockmarked surface.

        "Things couldn't have worked better in a fairy tale," said Tom Duxbury,Stardust project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,Calif.

        "These images are better than we had hoped for in our wildest dreams,"said Ray Newburn of JPL, a co-investigator for Stardust. "They will helpus better understand the mechanisms that drive conditions on comets."

         "These are the best pictures ever taken of a comet," said PrincipalInvestigator Dr. Don Brownlee of the University of Washington, Seattle."Although Stardust was designed to be a comet sample return mission, the fantastic details shown in these images greatly exceed our expectations."

           The collected particles, stowed in a sample return capsule onboardStardust, will be returned to Earth for in-depth analysis. That dramaticevent will occur on January 15, 2006, when the capsule makes a soft landing at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range. The microscopic particle samples of comet and interstellar dust collected by Stardust will be taken to the planetary material curatorial facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, for analysis.

            Stardust has traveled about 3.22 billion kilometers (2 billion miles)since its launch on February 7, 1999. As it closed the final gap with its cometary quarry, it endured a bombardment of particles surrounding the nucleus of comet Wild 2. To protect Stardust against the blast of expected cometary particles and rocks, the spacecraft rotated so it was flying in the shadow of its "Whipple Shields." The shields are named for American astronomer Dr. Fred L. Whipple, who, in the 1950s, came up with the idea of shielding spacecraft from high-speed collisions with the bits and pieces ejected from comets. The system includes two bumpers at the front of the spacecraft -- which protect Stardust's solar panels --and another shield protecting the main spacecraft body. Each shield is built around composite panels designed to disperse particles as they impact, augmented by blankets of a ceramic cloth called Nextel that further dissipate and spread particle debris.

            "Everything occurred pretty much to the minute," said Duxbury. "And with our cometary encounter complete, we invite everybody to tune in about one million, 71 thousand minutes from now when Stardust returns to Earth, bringing with it the first comet samples in the history of space exploration."

              Scientists believe in-depth terrestrial analysis of the samples will reveal much about comets and the earliest history of the solar system.Chemical and physical information locked within the cometary particles could be the record of the formation of the planets and the materials from which they were made. More information on the Stardust mission is available at       http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov .

              Stardust, a part of NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, highly focused science missions, was built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, Colo., and is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science,Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

              As each day passes during the remainder of his stay aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 8 Commander Michael Foale will continue to add to an impressive U.S. space flight record. At 1:47 p.m. EST Dec. 8, Foale surpassed Carl Walz with the most cumulative time in space for a U.S. astronaut. Walz has spent 230 days, 13 hours, 3 minutes and 37 seconds in space.

               To mark the occasion, Foale received a call from Walz, who was at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., moments before the record fell. Walz congratulated Foale on the accomplishment.

               "Records are meant to be broken," Walz said. "I am certainly glad that after your pioneering efforts on Mir that you had a chance to break this record."

                Foale is currently in the middle of his sixth mission in space, which began Oct. 18 with the launch of the ISS Soyuz 7 spacecraft. He is on the Station with Russian Cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri, who is serving as Expedition 8's flight engineer. If his stay in space concludes as scheduled in late April 2004, Foale will have amassed 375 days in space.

                It's been three years since the first human inhabitants took up residence aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Since then, the ISS has been home to eight resident crews who have performed fantastic research in the microgravity of Earth orbit. But none of this would have been possible without America's first space station: Skylab.

                From its launch on May 14, 1973, until the return of its third and final crew on Feb. 8, 1974, the Skylab program proved that humans can live and work in outer space for extended periods of time.

                Pete Conrad, Paul Weitz and Joe Kerwin spent 28 days in orbit as the first crew of Skylab. The second crew - Alan Bean, Jack Lousma and Owen Garriott - spent 59 days in space. The final Skylab crew spent 84 days in space and consisted of Jerry Carr, Bill Pogue and Edward Gibson. Each Skylab crew set new spaceflight duration records. The record set by the
final crew was not broken by an American astronaut until the Shuttle-Mir program more than 20 years later.

                 Skylab served as the greatest solar observatory of its time, a microgravity lab, a medical lab, an Earth-observing facility, and, most importantly, a home away from home for its residents. The program also led to new technologies. Special showers, toilets, sleeping bags, exercise equipment and kitchen facilities were designed to function in microgravity.

                 As successful as the program was, the first two crews had to overcome some unexpected challenges. During the station's launch, airflow caused a meteoroid shield to come off, tearing off one of two solar panels and preventing the other from deploying. The damage resulted in reduced power for the station. When the first crew arrived 11 days later, their first task was to repair the damage. Once repairs were complete, full power was restored.


                 Anyone who finds a suspected piece of shuttle debris should call the Columbia Recovery Office at 1-866-446-6603.

                On October 14, 1947, in the rocket powered Bell X-1, Capt. Charles E. Yeager flew faster than sound for the first time.The term "aeronautics" originated in France, and was derived from the Greek words for "air" and "to sail."Since the Russian Zarya ("sunrise" in Russian) Control Module was launched in November 1998 as the first element of the International Space Station, the ISS has grown into the largest spacecraft ever to fly and a shining example of international cooperation. Less than a month later, it was joined in orbit by the first U.S. component, Node 1, which is also known as the Unity Connecting Module.

                Five years later, the Station contains more than a dozen components and weighs 415,209 pounds and is 171 feet long, 240 feet wide and 90 feet high.It contains 15,000 cubic feet of habitable volume, which is larger than a three-bedroom house.

                Sixteen nations are contributing to the ISS Program, and more than 100,000 workers around the world support ISS operations, including flight controllers at Mission Control Centers in Houston, Texas, and Moscow, Russia, and the Science Payloads Operations Center in Huntsville, Ala.

                For many of us, work involves driving to an office and sitting in front of a computer all day. Other people spend their days building or fixing things, while scientists work to study our planet and the universe around us.The crew begins each workday by looking at their schedule on one of the station's laptop computers. Any technical information they need to do their work is also on the computer.

                Before crewmembers begin working though, they talk to flight controllers at the U.S. and Russian Mission Control Centers and science experts at the Payload Operations Center. This Daily Planning Conference ensures everyone understands what they're supposed to do that day. As they go through their day, the crew continues to talk to the flight controllers and the science support staff to make sure everything is done correctly.

               Space station crewmembers work Monday through Friday and spend Saturday mornings cleaning the station. They have Saturday afternoons and all day Sunday off, though they often work on their station To Do list in their  free time.

               When a star like our Sun grows old, it becomes a red giant, expanding to more than 50 times its original diameter. Most of the carbon and particulate matter in the universe comes from red giant stars.