With all scheduled tasks accomplished, International Space
Station Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Sunita
Williams ended a nearly seven hour spacewalk at 2:06 p.m. CST
Thursday.

It was the last in a series of three spacewalks in nine days from the
Quest airlock. Major tasks of this spacewalk included removing and
jettisoning two large shrouds and installing an attachment for cargo
carriers.

http://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/archive/sarex/48hour/msg00331.html

The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) team received a thank you note from the coordinating teacher at Romeo Elementary School for its January contact. She gave special thanks to ARISS mentor, Gene Chapline, who prepared the school for the event. The teacher remarked, "What child will become a physicist, what child will walk on Mars, what child will work with communications... all because of something very, very special that happened at Romeo Elementary School on January 17, 2007. Thank you."

http://www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm

Youngsters at a museum in Ottawa, Canada, and an Indian Reservation school in Nebraska joined a long and growing list of students who've had the chance to speak with the International Space Station crew via Amateur Radio. The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program arranged the contacts between NA1SS and VE3JW at the Canada Science and Technology Museum on January 24, and KB0GEH at Winnebago Public School on January 25. Expedition 14 Flight Engineer Suni Williams, KD5PLB, greeted the students from École Élémentaire Publique Le Prélude in both English and French. One of the kindergarten through sixth graders wondered what Williams enjoyed most about being in space.

Complete story and audio at:

hi,
would I like know for waht reson it is not always possible to see to naked eye the nighttime passages of the international station when the sky is clear?
Regards Giordano

The posted ISS pass times for my QTH (Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada) on this site are early by about 15 to 20 minutes compared to the NASA site and other sites. I have confirmed this discrepancy visually.

Does anyone have an explanation for this difference? All times are UT. I would be most grateful.

Howard