Life is sweet

Tilda Swinton - Vogue Italia by Craig McDean, February 2003

Jon Foster

http://www.jonfoster.com/#home

Basement Cat. Movie star.

Sunrise at Pad 39A

The sun begins to rise in the east overlooking Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with newly arrived space shuttle Discovery. Discovery arrived at the launch pad on Feb. 1, 2011 for its next launch opportunity to the International Space Station on the STS-133 mission, currently targeted for liftoff on Feb. 24.

Image credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller

The Jets of Enceladus

On Jan. 31, 2011, NASA's Cassini spacecraft passed by several of Saturn's intriguing moons, snapping images along the way. Cassini passed within about 37,282 miles of Enceladus and 17,398 miles of Helene. It also caught a glimpse of Mimas in front of Saturn's rings. In this image, Cassini snapped a picture of the famous jets erupting from the south polar terrain of Enceladus.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

Bai Yalin

http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/3872837/post146891134

Biography

David Edward Kucera

http://www.kucerafineart.com/index.htm

Houses

Photo: Zubin Shroff; Dwell

Life is sweet

Angelina Jolie by Mark Seliger, 1999

Voyage

On the craft's maiden voyage, the crew of space shuttle Columbia took this image that showcases the blackness of space and a blue and white Earth, as well as the cargo bay and aft section of the shuttle. The image was photographed through the flight deck's aft windows. In the lower right corner is one of the vehicle's radiator panels. The pentagon-shaped object in the upper left is glare caused by window reflection.

STS-1, Columbia's maiden voyage, launched on April 12, 1981, and was the inaugural flight in the Space Shuttle Program. Columbia and its crew were lost during STS-107 mission in 2003. As the shuttle lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 16, a small portion of foam broke away from the external fuel tank and struck the orbiter's left wing. The resulting damage created a hole in the wing's leading edge, which caused the vehicle to break apart during reentry on Feb. 1.

Image Credit: NASA

The Glare of the Sun

This view of Antares, the Apollo 14 Lunar Module as it sat on the moon's Fra Mauro Highlands, reflects a circular flare caused by the brilliant sun. The unusual ball of light was said by the astronauts to have a jewel-like appearance. At extreme left, the lower slope of Cone Crater can be seen.

Image Credit: NASA

Poem of the week

Stowaways by Lawrence Sail

Blind passengers, reduced
to pure anxiety, their spirits
rise and fall with each lift
and plunge of the butting hull:
bracing themselves, they test
the strength of their old visions.

Some, discovered after food
has gone missing from the galley,
or given away by a whiff
of tobacco seeping through a bulkhead,
are simply tipped overboard
as if they were so much trash.

Others, airborne, are undone
by cold – cold which unpicks,
finger by numbed finger,
their hold on a strut, slides them,
helpless, out from the wheelbay
into a shroud of thin air.

Falling through cloud or water,
perhaps their last recall
is the iron taste of blood,
the danger of not leaving,
or the far horizon bright
and burnished as New Jerusalem.

What is certain becomes so
only late on, when the stowaways
re-emerge, insistent phantoms,
at the point where memory rounds
on experience, and well within sight
of the dark relief of land.