In Brief:

Alpha captain's log goes online

(CNN) -- Rebooting a pesky computer. Taking out the trash. Juggling a busy schedule to exercise. Life on the international space station can resemble life on Earth.

Just check out the log of its first commander, astronaut Bill Shepherd, as he and two cosmonaut pals spend four months making Alpha a home. It can be found at the following URL: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp1/ex1logs.html

NASA edited some entrees so Shepherd could write with "absolute candor." But his diary still contains interesting tidbits about the daily grind. Some seems familiar, some out of this world.

Besides watching tons of movies and talking long distance with friends, the crew wears enough electrodes to look like octopuses and designates unofficial "plankowners" who can claim pieces of Alpha when it retires. Shepherd also discusses a peculiar odor in one part of the complex.

"It did have kind of a burnt toast odor," the Alpha skipper observed.

Ion-drive probe keeps on going

(CNN) -- An innovative engine propelling a spacecraft toward a comet rendezvous has run 50 times beyond its originally required lifetime, NASA said this week.

Mission managers considered the Deep Space I ship a success when its experimental ion engine reached 200 hours of total flight time. But the craft reached 10,000 hours in late March and should exceed 14,000 by the time it completes it flight.

The propulsion system works by using electrically charged grids to shoot ionized xenon gas out at more than 35,000 meters per second (78,000 mph).

Deep Space I launched in October 1998 and completed its mission in September 1999. Engineers then extended the flight so the craft could visit the Comet Borrelly.

The probe should reach the primordial ice chunk by October, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the $150 million project.

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