Anoek Mensink @anoekmensink - Tumblr Blog

The man who flew into space from his apartment, Ilya & Amelia Kabakov, 1985

Painting for the wind, Yoko Ono, 1961

David Iggulden, Condor 1, Nazca, 1975

The Nazca people lived in Peru and they may already have flown some type of hot air balloon in the first century BC. This supposition is based upon designs on a pottery artefact found in Lima, and upon the puzzling lines and piles of stones stretching across 200 square miles of the Plain of Nazca. The stones look meaningless until seen form the air, when they form patterns of massive birds and directional markings. In 1975 The International Explorers Society build a primitive hot air balloon copying the pottery design and using only materials available to this pre-Inca civilisation. The pilot Briton Julian Nott successfully flew the hot air balloon up to 300 feet.

#inspiration #history #nazca #flying

The fall of Icarus, Paul Peter Ruben, 1636

A painting based on the Greek mythologie about Icarus and his dad Daedalus. Daedalus was a great architect and sculptor in Athens. One of the biggest of his time. A student of his who was also his nephew had great potential and seemed to surpass the achievements of Daedalus. So Daedalus killed him but got caught and was banned from Athens. With his son Icarus Daedalus fled to Kreta. King Minos gave him the task to build a labyrinth to keep the minotaurs prison. After the labyrinth was finished Daedalus was kept prisoner on the island because he knew the secret of the labyrinth. In order to escape Daedalus build himself and his son wings. He told Icarus “don’t fly too close to the sun or the wax in the wings will melt and don’t fly too close to the water because if the wings get wet they will be too heavy to fly”. However, Icarus gets reckless and flies too close to the sun causing the wax to melt. He falls into the water and drowns. Over the course of time Icarus became a symbol for the desire of humans to fly.

#greek mythology #icarus #the fall of icarus #flying

From the documentary: Leaning into the wind, Andy Goldsworthy

#andy goldsworthy #inspiration #art

Fern orchestra in their publication: Change

#fern orchestra #change

The Galileo space mission was to drop a probe into the atmosphere of Jupiter and then tour the Jovian system for two years gathering data. The spacecraft was launched on October 18, 1989. The spacecraft had three communication antennas for commanding and returning. Two of the antennas were low gain, one of which was only used when the spacecraft was inside Earth’s orbit. This antenna faced the opposite direction of the other two and was deployable and retractable. While on this mission it occurred that this antenna couldn’t be completely brought to its deployed position. After some time the reason for this malfunction was discovered. The coating on the pins used for the ribs were destroyed during the four transports on Earth this due to motion between the pins and the sockets they were in. Also during testing this coating got even more effected. By launch the coating was probably completely gone. In space the spacecraft was exposed to a vibration environment which caused more motion between the pins and the sockets. Since this now occurred in a vacuum environment, the pins and sockets fused together due to a process called cold welding. This resulted in the antenna not being fully functional because there was more force necessary to deploy the ribs than that could be generated by the MDS.

#galileo space mission #space #cold welding

Cold welding

The process of joining two pieces of metal together without fusion or heating the parts. Two similar surfaces of metal will strongly adhere when they are brought into contact under vacuum. The reason this happens is because the atoms are all of the same kind and under vacuum they simply can't tell that they belong to two different parts. So, they become one. On the ground this is unusual to happen, because the surfaces of metal are re-oxidised after each opening. In space however the oxide layers are broken irreversibly often due to high impact resulting in them wearing down.

#cold welding #cold metal fusing #space

A short master class in which you learn how to make a baquette

#bread

The lightning field, 1977, Walter de Maria

The lighting field is a land art work situated in a remote area of the high desert of western New Mexico. It is comprised of 400 polished stainless steel poles installed in a grid array measuring one mile by one kilometer. In a thunderstorm the steel attracts the lightning, resulting in a beautiful confrontation with the power of nature.

#walter de maria #nature #lightning #land art