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Students of all ages, educators and pre-service teachers will gather at Eastern Kentucky University to speak with International Space Station astronaut Tom Marshburn on Friday, Jan. 11. The long-distance conversation is scheduled to begin at 9:45 a.m. EST and can be seen live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

Students will ask Marshburn, a member of the space station's Expedition 34 crew, about his experiences living, working and conducting research aboard the orbiting laboratory. He arrived at the station last month to begin a six-month stay.

Media representatives interested in attending the event should contact Marc Whitt at marc.whitt@eku.edu or 859-200-6976. Eastern Kentucky University is located at 521 Lancaster Avenue in Richmond.

In anticipation of the downlink conversation with Marshburn, educators have been preparing students by incorporating NASA activities into the classroom, creating awareness about the station, and encouraging students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.

This in-flight education downlink is one in a series with educational organizations in the United States and abroad to improve teaching and learning. It is an integral component of NASA's Teaching from Space education program, which promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of space and NASA's human spaceflight program.

The exact time of the event could change because of real-time operational activities. For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For information about NASA's education programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/education

For information about the International Space Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station

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Kentucky Students to Speak with Space Station's Tom Marshburn

Chris Hadfield via Google+

Australian wildfire: Look closely, you can see the flames from orbit ...

By Alan Boyle

Astronaut Chris Hadfield is making a name for himself as the International Space Station's first Canadian commander, the "Singing Spaceman" and Star Trek skipper William Shatner's Twitter buddy but he's also one heck of a photographer.

Since his arrival at the station on Dec. 21, Hadfield has posted more than 100 pictures to Twitterand Google+, most of them showing amazing views of Earth below. Between his official duties and his unofficial Earth-watching sessions, how does he find time to sleep?

"Yes,I should sleep more on station," he told one follower, "but the view from the window is like a perpetual magnet, too wondrous to ignore."

The space station's six residents all take turns behind the lens, but some astronauts take the job way more seriously than others: Notable shooters from past orbital stints include NASA's Scott Kelly,Douglas Wheelock,Ron Garan andDon Pettit, as well as Japan's Soichi Noguchi and Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers. Hadfield is sure to take his place among them.

His favorite hangout is the seven-windowed Cupola observation deck, which provides an unparalleled view of Earth. His favorite camera? "We use primarily Nikon F2s and F3s, with a variety of lenses," he said on Twitter. "We even take them out on spacewalks, into the hard vacuum."

To get those awesome pictures of Earth landscapes, he brings out the Big Lens. "The big lens is Nikkor 600 mm, used with a 2-fold converter = 1200 mm," he tweeted. "Available for just US$10,300."

When you consider that the space station's crew is delivering pictures that no one on Earth can, that seems like a small price to pay. Check out a few of the recent masterpieces from outer space:

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Space station skipper beams down beautiful views

WASHINGTON NASA and Bigelow Aerospace have reached an agreement that could pave the way for attaching a Bigelow-built inflatable space habitat to the International Space Station, a NASA spokesman said.

The $17.8 million contract was signed in late December, NASA spokesman Trent Perrotto told SpaceNews Monday (Jan. 7). Perrotto declined to provide other terms of the agreement, except to say that it centers around the Bigelow Expanded Aerospace Module(BEAM). He said a formal announcement is in the works.

That inflatable space habitat, which is similar to the Genesis-model prototypes Bigelow launched in 2006 and 2007, could be used for extra storage at the space station and provide flight data on the on-orbit durability of Bigelows inflatable modulescompared to the outposts existing metallic modules.

Bigelow and NASA have been discussing an inflatable addition to the space station for years.

The deal signed in December follows a nonpaying NASA contract Bigelow got in 2011, under which the North Las Vegas, Nev., company worked up a list of procedures and protocols for adding BEAM to the space station. Bigelow got that contract, which did not call for any flight hardware, in response to a 2010 NASA Broad Agency Announcement seeking ideas for support equipment and services meant to help the U.S. portion of the International Space Station live up to its billing as a national laboratory.

Last March, NASA spokesman Josh Buck said the agency would tap one of its Commercial Resupply Services contractors, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) or Orbital Sciences Corp., to get BEAM to the space station.

SpaceX and Orbital are under contract for space station cargo deliveries through 2016. So far, only SpaceX has flown to the station. The company, which flies Dragon cargo capsulesatop Falcon 9 rockets, completed its first contracted run in October. Orbital, which is developing a cargo freighter called Cygnus for launch aboard its new Antares rocket, is now scheduled to launch a demonstration cargo run in February from NASAs Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia.

SpaceX and Orbital both signed Commercial Resupply Services contracts in 2008. SpaceXs $1.6 billion resupply pact calls for 12 flights. Orbitals $1.9 billion deal is for eight flights.

This story was provided bySpace News, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.

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NASA Deal May Put Inflatable Private Module on Space Station