Hauntingly fascinating is this speech by William Safire (most famous these days for his "On Language" column in the New York Times), drafted for President Richard Nixon to read in the event of a mishap during the Apollo 11 mission that would have stranded Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon:

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.
These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is
no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for
mankind in their sacrifice.
These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.
They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be
mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world;
they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons
into the unknown.
Read the full text here [via kottke.org]. —John Mahoney

It's not every day that five of the astronauts who walked on the moon and Stephen Colbert are seen chilling in the same room, but that was the scene at the New York premiere of In the Shadow of the Moon, held at the Hayden Planetarium last week. The documentary, directed by David Sington (not Ron Howard, despite the prominent placement of his name in every poster), follows the unfolding of the Apollo missions and the men who made that pipe dream possible.

If youve ever taken a look at the contemporary art world and thought to yourself, There sure seems to be a dearth of space-tourist paintings, youre in luck. Last week at his New York City studio, Peter Max, the American Pop artist whose style influenced the Beatless iconic Yellow Submarine film, unveiled his latest project: 16 DayGlo portraits of Anousheh Ansari.

Ansari made headlines last month when an eight-day stint at the International Space Station earned her the title of first female space tourist (additionally: the first Iranian, the first Muslim woman, the first to blog about it, the first to shoot homemade videos and post them online… you get the idea).

Max says hes been interested in space since his encounter with a Tibetan astronomer when he was a child living in China. When he met Buzz Aldrin (whom he has also painted), he thought to himself, Oh my god, Im standing here with a man who stood on the moon. Now Max has moved on to his next muse: I am in awe of her. What inspired me was Ansari—that she had the will, the nerve, the wherewithal.

Later I cornered Ansari at the snack table. She was awfully nice about my interrupting her coffee break and told me she liked how the paintings captured the happiness she felt in space. In each of the 16 portraits hanging on the wall, Ansari looks ecstatic—a marked change from the discomfort induced by the cameras, writers and handlers with her in Maxs studio back on terra firma. The whole time I was there, it was a joy. I certainly miss being in space, she says. I look up at the sky and think about the two people still there. I keep thinking about what theyre doing now. Its something hard. —Abby Seiff

The twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have observed more than 4,000 geographical features on the planet since they landed in January 2004. Expected to run for only three months, the rovers are still going strong, and their mission has now been extended to at least September of next year. They've been ranging for so long, in fact, that they're causing a problem for their handlers. In order to document the terrain efficiently, scientists have had to come up with unique names for all the features the rovers discover, a task that gets tougher with each passing day.

Mornings are the worst.


The coffee is too weak. The windup alarm clock is too loud. The phone rings, and it might or might not be my mom. There are no new e-mails. There is no hope for a Krispy Kreme. And man, oh man, I miss my Ambien.