This is a picture of, according to the UK’s Daily Telegraph, ‘The Eye Of God’.
The 'Eye Of God'
Which would be great except; a) it is not an eye, it is a cloud of gas, and b) there is of course no God.
Other than those two small holes in the theory of what the photo is actually of, I have to agree that it is at least a nice looking image.
NASA’s idea of ‘safe’ and mine seem to be, well, worlds apart.
“Nasa officials scrutinising footage of the space shuttle Atlantis’ launch say some debris did hit the orbiter, but that there was no visible damage”.
I think I would describe that as ‘lucky’, rather than ‘safe’, personally.
“Virgin Galactic is a company established by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group to undertake the challenge of developing space tourism for everybody. Virgin Galactic will own and operate privately built spaceships, modelled on the history-making SpaceShipOne craft. These spaceships will allow affordable sub-orbital space tourism for the first time in our history.”
Virgin Galactic have their website up, and so now I’m just waiting for them to begin selling the tickets. Oh, yes.
“In a harrowing feat high over the Utah desert Wednesday, two helicopter stunt pilots will try to snatch a floating space capsule that holds “a piece of the sun” and bring it safely down. “It’s like flying in formation with a giant floating jellyfish,” says pilot Dan Rudert. The stuntmen will be trying to hook the 400-pound Genesis capsule as it hurtles 400 feet a minute. Inside it are fragile solar wind particles which scientists hope will reveal clues about the origin of our solar system.”
Stuntmen. Helicopters. A spaceship. And bits of the sun. Seems like a good reason to find a television to watch on Wednesday, methinks.
Two dates for my diary then: the 29th of September and the 4th of October, when SpaceShipOne will attempt to win the Ansari X-Prize. Go! Space! Ship! One!