The International Space Station maybe not be international for much longer. According to an NASA email leaked (by an undetermined source) to the Orlando Sentinel, the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2010 will cede de facto control of the ISS to Russia. That control will come just as NASA finishes assembling the ISS in 2011.

Space Adventures, the broker of the first tourist flights to space celebrated its ten-year anniversary today here at the Explorer's Club in New York with the announcement that it had scored a deal with the Russian Federal Space Agency, or RKA, to buy an entire flight to the International Space Station.

Taking beer-making to a whole new sphere, Japan's famous Sapporo Holdings Ltd. plans to launch a beer in November that's literally from out of this world. The brewery will collaborate with scientists at the Okayama University in Japan to concoct this unearthly beverage from a third generation of barley grains that spent five months on the International Space Station in 2006.

Of all of the sophisticated technology powering the International Space Station, nothing brings the frustration of modern living back home to those of us on Earth more than a report of a broken toilet. Only the astronauts can't make an after-work run to the home repair store; they have to devise creative solutions while they wait for Saturday's launch of the space shuttle Discovery to bring them repair parts.

All reports suggest that the International Space Stations new robotic handyman will survive, and not freeze into a $209 million junk pile due to a power problem. Astronauts bypassed a faulty cable on Friday, and managed to get power to the robot arm, which will keep it warm, and ready for duty, in the deep cold of space.

The International Space Stations new robotic repairman, a $200 million Canadian robot called Dextre, should end up working just fine despite some early glitches, officials say. Dextre, an incredibly dexterous ‘bot with two flexible three-meter arms (hence, of course, the name), is designed to be a kind of maintenance machine on the outside of the ISS.

There are only ten shuttle missions to the International Space Station remaining, and trunk space is pretty tight. This week, NASA plans to launch the $1 billion Columbus module, a scientific laboratory that will enable scientists to conduct a variety of materials science and biological research.

But that doesn't mean space researchers and scientists are entirely happy. Some are still lamenting the expected loss of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a $1.5 billion cosmic-ray detector that probably won't ever find its way up to the station. NASA looked into different ways of delivering the AMS as late as last year, but each option proved too expensive.—Gregory Mone

(Image credit: ESA)

Via The Washington Post

The zeroHouse, a concept home designed by the New York architecture firm Specht Harpman, would run on solar power and rain water, use gravity-fed plumbing instead of traditional energy-demanding pumps, and recycle its waste.

SF site Technovelgy.com likens it to the advanced abodes described in the Arthur C. Clarke novel Childhood's End, which could be anywhere on land, or even in the sea. The zeroHouse isn't quite there yet, but it certainly would make its occupants feel like the characters in an SF novel. Even the winged solar panel design is reminiscient of the International Space Station. Unfortunately, though, the couches don't look very comfortable.—Gregory Mone

NASA is planning an emergency repair of the damaged solar panel astronauts discovered recently outside the International Space Station. Set to take place on Saturday, just a few days before the shuttle returns home, the plan will require two spacewalking astronauts, and it's risky but necessary.

If NASA does nothing, the tear could worsen and the entire panel might have to be jettisoned. Yes, the ISS does have a few more at its disposal, but this panel provides 15% of the station's electricity, and the ISS needs every bit of that to incorporate the planned new modules. The fix will require some ingenuity, as the ripped panel is far from an anchoring point for the spacewalking repairman. But NASA has pulled off plenty of feats like this before.—Gregory Mone

Astronauts working outside the International Space Station just noticed a tear in one of its solar panels. Two of these 110-foot-long panels were due to be unfurled, and the first unrolled without a hitch, but NASA halted the second one when its spacewalkers saw the damage.

This caps a tough few days for the station, as astronauts also confirmed a problem with one of the motorized joints that turns the panels to face the Sun. NASA had suspected there was a problem, and astronaut Dan Tani confirmed it up close, noticing shards of metal scrapings throughout the joint. Next up: figuring out where they came from.—Gregory Mone

(Image credit: NASA)