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**Update**  Terrific Photo Spread in Boston Globe - Big Picture

Did SF become irrelevant after the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969?  This panel explored the relationship between the Apollo program and SF, and the ways in which SF did or didn’t live up to its visionary potentials after manned space flight became a reality.  Paul De Fillippo kicked things off by asking to what extent SF inspired the space program?  And to what extent did the eventual breakdown of the manned space program affect SF?

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By far the most downloaded images from Yunchtime are the astronaut and cosmonaut photos from the 1960 edition of Das Bildbuch der Weltraum Fahrt that I picked up in Vienna.  So I thought I should scan a few more.   This series features the extreme temperature tests conducted on U.S. spacesuits during the 1950s, and an astronaut getting the feel for handling the controls from his rocket seat.   The rubber gloves don’t look especially good for handling those knobs and switches, and the fact that the astronaut is stretched out like Plastic Man just to reach the controls shows you the state of ergonomics in those days.   The greatest thing about the rocket seat photo are the pilot’s lace-up shiny leather shoes.  DOH!  Mission Control, do you read?  I left my space boots in the locker at Canaveral, over!

If you’re into this sort of thing, check out our friends at SpaceFacts.   And some miscellaneous galleries:  Appollo Mission Photos,  NASA images, Today in Space History.

Successful launch of the Shenzhou 7 mission…    Taikonauts walk the walk…   and float back down to mother Earth at Siziwang Qi, Inner Mongolia.

The countdown has begun for tonight’s scheduled liftoff of the Shenzhou 7 mission, which includes the first EVA space-walk by Chinese Taikonauts.  The intrepid crew will be wearing Chinese made “Feitian” spacesuits, appropriately named for the flying genii figures that are one of the most pervasive art motifs in China since their introduction from Central Asia some 1,500 years ago.   Up up and away, Taikonoauts!   See you after a few whirls…

On a trip to Vienna last week, I was happy as a clam to find a copy of “Das Bildbuch der Welt Raum Fahrt,” [Picture Book of Space Travel] which documents the latest advances in Space Travel up to the year it was published, 1960. Directly across the street from the Sigmund Freud Museum was a second hand store where I scored this odd picture book for only 0.70 Euros.

That night at the hotel they were airing television programs about the 50th anniversary of Sputnik’s launch, which made the find even juicier. In addition to more than 40 pages of detailed histories of the early space race, the second half of the book features some really high quality black and white photos. For example, a curious picture shows Werhner Von Braun, age 18, carrying a rocket model on his shoulder out to the test launching pad…

It looks as if Werhnie’s shirt is a little mussed up from earlier tests….So that’s how it all started!Another intriguing shot depicts an early prototype spacesuit from 1952. Looks like they sort of ran out of time on the boots and grabbed some waders off a local fisherman, doesn’t it? And those hoses? I’m not sure I’d want to bet my life on something pilfered from the office vacuum cleaner… Then again, the US space program was still a decade away from getting someone into orbit.

Meanwhile, the Soviet space program was hard at work. If you compare the images of the Soviet cosmonaut practicing for space with that of the American astronauts practicing, you can guess why the Soviets made it into orbit first!

Cosmonaut Practice:	Astronaut Practice: