Sunday, May 22, 2011

50th anniversary of the first manned flight into space ...
























Yuri Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human being to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961.

Gagarin became an international celebrity, and was awarded many medals and honours, including Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation's highest honour. Vostok 1 marked his only spaceflight, but he served as backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission (which ended in a fatal crash). Gagarin later became deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow, which was later named after him. Gagarin died in 1968 when a MiG 15 training jet he was piloting crashed.

Postcard from Qatar ...







Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Friday, May 6, 2011

An amazing cover from TAAF ...














































The French Southern and Antarctic Lands (French: Terres australes et antarctiques françaises, abbreviated TAAF), consist of:

1. a group of volcanic islands in the southern Indian Ocean, southeast of Africa, approximately equidistant between Africa, Antarctica and Australia;
2. Adélie Land, the French claim on the Antarctica continent;
3. the Scattered islands in the Indian Ocean.

The territory has no permanent population; the population consists of military personnel, civilian officials, scientific researchers and support staff. Some of the territory's exclusive economic zone is of great importance for fishing.