“After placing Laika in the container and before closing the hatch, we kissed her nose and wished her bon voyage, knowing that she would not survive the flight.”
Rest in peace space pupper.
a good girl a best girl a girl who deserved better.
Looking southeast from near the Chilean coast, the structures of the Andes are obvious from the space station. The Altiplano (aka Puna), sitting between 3 and 5,000 metres is visible in the foreground, graced by a line of young volcanoes. Between the upthrust blocks of the mountains gleam the salty white salares, seasonal salt lakes where rain gathers in outlet free basins and evaporates, leaving its cargo of minerals dissolved from the mountains behind. Near the centre of the picture a geological transition between the Altiplano and the lower altitude Sierras Pampeanas is visible. Far away to the upper left, the Atlantic coast, near Buenos Aires in Argentina. The colours reflect climate, with the nearby red-brown deserts of the western coast contrasting with the green agricultural plains of the distant pampas. The salares between them indicate a semi arid region between the two.
“Here in the Pacific, 200 metres down, we enter an alien world… This is barreleye a fish with a transparent head filled with jelly so that it can look up through its skull.”- Sir David Attenborough
