A Canadian astronaut orbiting Earth received an honorary degree - a first in space - on Wednesday during a long-distance call from his college alma mater.

The University of Calgary in Alberta bestowed an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on Robert Thirsk, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency who is currently living aboard the International Space Station. Thirsk, 55, is a graduate of the university and Canada's first long-term resident of the space station.

"This is indeed a special honor for me," Thirsk said via a video link as his crewmate, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, presented him with a convocation cape aboard the station. "If I can't be in Calgary, I think the second best place to be is in space."

This Fourth of July weekend will be filled with dazzling fireworks displays for many Americans, but not for NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, who is flying high above Earth on the International Space Station.

Barratt is the only American on the space station's six-man crew, which includes two Russian cosmonauts and astronauts from Japan, Canada and Belgium. But while astronauts can see an amazing amount of detail on the Earth from the station's unique vantage point, spotting the traditional U.S. Independence Day fireworks is not among them.

"It's beyond the capability of human eye apparently to see manmade fireworks from orbit," NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told SPACE.com. "It's 200 miles away, you know."

The space station's first six-person crew is adapting to a more crowded habitat than they're used to.

The second half of the team â€" Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne of ESA, and Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk â€" arrived May 29, boosting the population of long-term residents at the International Space Station (ISS) from its usual three to six.

"It's great having everybody here," NASA astronaut Michael Barratt said during an in-space press conference today. Barratt has been serving onboard the orbiting laboratory as a flight engineer for two months already. "It's great having the extra bodies and the extra noise. And for us, it's three new crewmates to share the adventure and share the workload."

Amateur Radio Newsline reports that Frank De Winne, ON1DWN, is set to become the first European Space Agency astronaut to oversee the International Space Station.

De Winne is currently at Russia's cosmonaut training center outside of Moscow. He will leave there later this week and fly to neighboring Kazakhstan, where a Soyuz rocket is being prepared to carry him, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, VA3CSA, to the orbiting space outpost. That launch is currently scheduled for May 27 .

The arrival of these three space adventurers which will bring the total number of crew on the ISS to six for the first time. For the first four months De Winne, who is from Belgium, will be a Flight Engineer as a member of the Expedition 20 Crew. With the next crew rotation ON1DWN will take over as Commander of Expedition 21 and will serve in that position until his return to Earth in November. This will mark the first time that someone other than a Russian or an American has held that post. More is on-line at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8037431.stm

NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida will provide an opportunity for reporters to see the newest section of the International Space Station, the Tranquility module, at 2 p.m. EDT, Monday, June 8.

Tranquility is a pressurized module that will provide room for many of the station's life support systems. Attached to the node is a cupola, a unique work station with six windows on its sides and one on the top. The module will be delivered to the station during space shuttle Endeavour's STS-130 mission, targeted for launch in February 2010.

Managers from NASA, the European Space Agency, Thales Alenia Space and Boeing -- the organizations involved in building and processing the module for flight -- will be available for a question-and-answer session during the event.

NASA's Mission Control gave the Expedition 19 astronaut crew aboard the International Space Station a "go" to drink water that the station's new recycling system has purified.

Mission Control radioed the news to the crew Wednesday, following a report from the Water Recovery System team that station program managers approved. The decision is an important milestone in the development of the station's environmental and life support systems, which will begin supporting six-person crews at the end of May.

Expedition 19 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Koichi Wakata celebrated the decision with a toast in the Destiny laboratory.

NASA will discuss the inauguration of six-person crew operations aboard the International Space Station in a briefing scheduled for 1 p.m. CDT, Wednesday, May 6, at the Johnson Space Center.

The briefing will be broadcast live on NASA Television. Reporters may ask questions from participating NASA sites. International news media from Canada and Europe may ask questions from their respective agencies' headquarters.

On May 27, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Bob Thirsk will launch on a Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They will arrive at the station on May 29 to join the station's Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The six men will form the Expedition 20 crew, the station's first six-person crew. This mission also will be the first time crew members are aboard representing all five International Space Station partners.

Tired of those boring old tracking maps that show the space station going around and around the Earth, and wondering what the view from up there must be like?

Well, what better way to celebrate Earth Day than by taking a look at the Earth below from where the International Space Station is right now? Thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web (the Internet, that is), real-time tracking data beamed down from the space station and the fabulous catalog of NASA handheld orbital photography -- the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth -- you can do just that!

Here's how it works: just go to http://external.jsc.nasa.gov/events/issphotos/.

Today is Mike Barrett's birthday. Wish him a happy one on orbit.
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/birthday_barratt/

WASHINGTON -- The International Space Station module formerly known as Node 3 has a new name. After more than a million online responses, the node will be called "Tranquility."

The name Tranquility was chosen from thousands of suggestions submitted by participants on NASA's Web site, www.nasa.gov. The "Help Name Node 3" poll asked people to vote for the module's name either by choosing one of four options listed by NASA or offering their own suggestion. Tranquility was one of the top 10 suggestions submitted by respondents to the poll, which ended March 20.

"The public did a fantastic job and surprised us with the quality and volume of the suggestions," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations. "Apollo 11 landed on the moon at the Sea of Tranquility 40 years ago this July. We selected 'Tranquility' because it ties it to exploration and the moon and symbolizes the spirit of international cooperation embodied by the space station."