A makeshift spacesuit snorkel, as held up by NASA's spacewalk officer Allison Bolinger at Johnson Space Center, Dec. 18, 2013. (collectSPACE.com/Robert Z. Pearlman) HOUSTON — Astronauts preparing to spacewalk outside the International Space Station are outfitting their spacesuits with an unusual device: a makeshift snorkel. The astronauts, whose task it is to necessary for keeping the outpost fully powered, have an additional concern to the "normal" challenges of a quickly-planned extra-vehicular activity (EVA, or spacewalk). There is also a slight...

NASA has ordered up a series of urgent spacewalks to fix a broken cooling line at the International Space Station, a massive repair job that could stretch to Christmas Day. Station managers decided Tuesday to send two American astronauts out as soon as possible to replace a pump with a bad valve. The task will require two and possibly three spacewalks on Saturday, Monday and next Wednesday -- Christmas Day. "The next week will be busy with space walks so...

The Advanced Land Imagery on NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite snapped this image of a newly formed volcanic island in Japan on Dec. 8, 2013. (NASA Earth Observatory) A NASA satellite snapped a photograph of a tiny new island that rose out of the Pacific Ocean a few weeks ago after a volcanic eruption. A camera aboard the space agency's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image as it passed over the still-steaming black cone on Dec. 8. Japanese officials...