An interesting report landed on my desk the other day, it was by American astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a year orbiting the Earth as commander of the International Space Station. There are many fascinating features about living at zero gravity. Breakfast, for example, is a packet of dehydrated egg rehydrated with a squirt from the hot water container on the wall; coffee comes in the same way. The only way to know whether you are upside-down or the right way up is by hooking a foot under a handrail, which are everywhere because what is the ceiling now will become the floor soon. In zero gravity you have to swallow the toothpaste because, quote, “There isn’t really a good way to spit in space”.
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To me, though, the most interesting part is this, “It’s hard to explain to people how much we start to miss nature. We all like to listen to recordings of nature – rain forests, bird calls, wind in the trees”. A Russian cosmonaut even had a recording of mosquitoes. Scott points out that from up there they are able to get, quite literally, a global view of the Earth, the coastlines, terrain, mountains and rivers. “The vibrant, deep blue of the ocean mixes with the much brighter turquoise, swirls with something almost like gold, where the sun bounces off the sandy shallows and reefs”. There are good impressions, and bad, he says “Some parts of the world, especially Asia, are so blanketed by air pollution that they appear sick”.
What an interesting perspective that even up there, hundreds of kilometres above the Earth, there should be a need for a link with our natural environment down here. Thank you, Scott.
Staying in space, one of the most successful space missions ever has ended after a programme covering 20 years. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft finally ran out of fuel (don’t we all know the feeling!) and it had to make a controlled crash landing on the ringed planet, Saturn, which it had been orbiting for the past 16 years. The mission has greatly enhanced NASA’s understanding of Saturn and in particular its two moons.*
We have had a personal experience of Saturn, one of the more spectacular planets in our solar system. Years ago we were invited out to a lodge in the Magaliesberg which had installed a very powerful telescope.
It had been focused on Saturn for the evening and we took it in turns to gaze at that splendid planet and its unforgettable rings, seemingly just an arm’s length away.
And finally, a café in London has become the first in Europe to serve ‘selfieccinos’, a cappuccino coffee with an image of the customer’s face on the froth. The patron provides the café with a selfie, which is computerised then projected onto the flavourless food colouring in the coffee’s foam. A cup of coffee costs about R95.*
Just as a matter of interest about eight percent of Britain’s population, that’s well over 5-million people, live in poverty.** I wonder what they would say to a cup of selfieccino?
*The Week: The Best of the British and Foreign Media. ** Internet.
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