The Boston Globe Online has an article about NASA paperworkpoor found by latest audit demanded by the post-Columbia safety review.
The report offered no actual examples of safety risks, but indicated that Nasa's analysis of trends is seriously lacking, with inadequately trained personnel.

Space.com reported that during latest EVA (interrupted earlier than planned due to a space suit malfunction) the ISS crew installed a radiation dummy composed of actual bones surrounded by other tissues simulating artificial organs and synthetic skin.
The experiments wants to study the effects of radiations on the human body.

For safety reasons, the amateur radio equipment aboard the International Space Station will be shut down during Thursday's spacewalk (EVA). The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 3pm CST or 2100 UTC. The equipment will be shut off prior to the EVA and turned on sometime after the EVA is completed.

The extended text has the full posting but I thought it might be good to note this part down near the end.

"Please be aware that the packet system will be inoperable during a school contact. However, it should be available soon afterward."

73,
Kenneth

As many of you have noticed. the ISS has been silent for the past few days. In actuality it has been operational but listening on another uplink frequency. It is currently configured for uplink on 145.825 and downlink remains 145.800.
In addition, due to the upcoming EVA, the crew's time has become very restrictive. This demanding schedule will cause lesser priority items to be postponed and at some point will mean the amateur radio equipment will be turned off for a time.
After the EVA, it is expected that ISS operations will return to normal frequency pairing and operatiions.
Enjoy the ISS!
Kenneth - N5VHO

Hello ISS Fan Club members!

Last night after I got home from work, I was hoping to see some ISS Packet activity at my station. Seeing none for the past 3 days, I didn't even waste my time hoping that Packet was ON again. Instead, I took my Panasonic Palmcorder up to the roof with me in hopes to take some photos. It was a Twilight pass for me in California. WX was CLEAR, and one of the last visible evening time passes for me.

I know that ISS is still up there! Have pictures! I don't know if anyone has ever seen ISS before. Unfortunately I can not post it here. If you want to see what I took go to http://groups.msn.com/wa6lie/issvisualsightings.msnw

Hope to hear you Via ISS!!

73, Scott WA6LIE Salinas, Ca.

Hi all.

At 1227 gmt , on Sunday , Feb 8 I was lucky enough to be right on the
centre line for a solar transit by ISS.
The station was nearly 900 kilometres downrange , weather conditions here ,
broken cloud , winds gusting 50 mph plus.

Fortunately , a break in the cloud just at the right time allowed me to capture the transit as ISS shot straight through Sunspot group NOAA 0551 !

Result for broad band users can be seen here on my webpage , or here, which is a direct link to the gif animation ( 1.8 mb)

A smaller size file is up and running at :
http://www.satcom.freeserve.co.uk/isstrans.htm (bottom of the page )

Enjoy your visit .

Best wishes,

John.

Living in the Northeastern part on th US has good times about every 6 weeks, when it it possible to see ISS with the naked eye for about 3 weeks on the early evening passes. Been doing this for several years now and its fantastic, just standing out in the cold early evening watching the Station go across the sky.