Astronaut Leroy Chiao If has anything to say about the Apple iPhone may be the first smartphone in space.

Former NASA astronaut, who has four space missions under his belt, including a six and a half month stint on the international space station, has been a Mac nut since 1985. He is currently Executive Vice President of Excalibur Almaz, a commercial venture that aims to be putting tourists in space into true space journeys by sometime in the next few years.

Chiao was disappointed to have to abandon his preference for the Mac during his time as an employee of NASA (NASA, because it was a PC-only shop) but says his first purchase after leaving the United States government space program was a new Mac.

He is an iPhone user, too – ever if he relies mostly on his 3 year-old twins for app selection so far – but he is sure Mac and the iPhone have a role in plans for your business – as long as they “play well with the systems on board.”

This three-month holiday quarter, iPod touch sales saw a 55% year-over-year increase. Though iPod sales dropped to about 21 million, the average iPod selling price increased by 9 percent, and revenue increased 1%. Those increases were driven by a higher mix of sales favoring the iPod touch.

Apple’s share of the MP3 player market remains about 70 %, and the company continues to see share gains internationally. The platform is connected to iTunes had a record quarter for sales.

In last month, one study found that use of the iPod touch was outpacing the iPhone in average use. It’s believed the iPod touch could transition youth to the iPhone when they grow older. The study estimated that just more than 40 % of 58 million iPhone OS devices sold global through Sep. 2009 were the iPod touch.

International trade is playing a much more important now than for Apple it did in the past. Particularly, the Mac platform, which still doesn’t crack the top 5 worldwide vendors in terms of market share, saw significant gains in Apple’s first financial quarter of 2010.

Last quarter, 58 % of Apple’s revenue came from international sales. The Mac only grew by over 40 % in Italy, France, Switzerland and Spain. Growth in Australia was up over 70 %, while China has reached almost 100 %.

Sales of education for the Mac has been strong as well. At a news conference Monday, Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook revealed that the MacBook and Mac sales grew 16 % a year to education. The company had new Dec. records for its K-12 and higher education businesses.

Cook said the last quarter represented the best growth rate Apple has seen since before the recession began.

International and educational sales helped Apple to sell a record 3.36 million Macs during the Dec. quarter. About 1.1 million Macs sold in Europe, 313,000 in Asia and the Pacific, and 105,000 in Japan.