Few weeks after Marcos Pontes returned from his ISS mission he attended a public speech in the city he was born: Bauru (São Paulo).
Thousands of people welcomed the Astronaut as he arrived piloting a small airplane.

Fabiano PY5RX was able to contact Pontes during his short mission, so he got invited to join the speech and receive from Marcos hands a special gift that commemorates the contact.

Pontes spent some nice words about Amateur Radio explaining how important it is for the crew to contact people on the ground.

Mark Shuttleworth, has just joined the ISS Fan Club!
I was reading an article about him when I tought about sending him an e-mail. He replied and signed up in less than one hour. Here is the message he left on our guestbook:

Just dropped by at Alain's request and am very impressed at the site! It was one of the best aspects of my 2002 flight that I could speak with amateur radio enthusiasts around the world from the ISS, and it's great to see that this community is as strong here on the web as is evident from the comments on this site. I know many of my colleagues have said they really appreciate having the ability to connect with you! Mark Shuttleworth

Mark is one of my greatest idols. Not only he flew in the ISS, but he is the leader of my favourite GNU/Linux distribution: Ubuntu.

Thank you for stopping by Mark!

- Progress 21/ Progress M-56 Docking to ISS

- Expedition 13 Training TORU docking system

- Photo-reports: Progress 21/ Progress M-56 launch

- Science Officer Jeff Williams - replacement of RPCM

- Science Officer Jeff Williams worked on the TVIS

Link: http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org