31.   Israel will soon send its first astronaut into space on a US shuttle following an agreement with NASA, an Israeli space official announced Tuesday.

32.   Japanese food consumed in the Columbia, which carried the first Japanese female astronaut, Chiaki Mukai, included potato and beef cooked in soy sauce and octopus pancakes.

33.   On his last flight before retirement he will become the first astronaut to have flown on all five NASA space shuttles.

34.   Pilots Carl Meade and Mark Lee will become the first astronauts to make a free-flying spacewalk in ten years in the test to be held Friday.

35.   The first Israeli astronaut is to join the NASA program in the United States for an eventual flight in space, a report said here Monday,