“Into the great wide open
Under them skies of blue”
Out in the great wide open….Tom Petty & Heartbreakers
A traveller puts his head under the edge of the firmament in the original (1888) printing of the Flammarion engraving.
The engraving depicts a man, clothed in a long robe and carrying a staff, who kneels down and passes his head, shoulders, and right arm through a gap between the star-studded sky and the earth, discovering a marvellous realm of circling clouds, fires and suns beyond the heavens. One of the elements of the cosmic machinery bears a strong resemblance to traditional pictorial representations of the “wheel in the middle of a wheel” described in the visions of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel. The caption that accompanies the engraving in Flammarion’s book reads:
A missionary of the Middle Ages tells that he had found the point where the sky and the Earth touch…
Bron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammarion_engraving
Fifty years ago, on June 3, 1965, Edward White stepped out of the orbiting Gemini 4 spacecraft to become the first US astronaut to walk in space. White is captured in this photo taken by mission commander James McDivit from inside the capsule as White’s spacewalk began over the Pacific Ocean on Gemini 4’s third orbit. Planet Earth, spacecraft, and tether are reflected in White’s gold tinted helmet visor. White later described his historic spacewalk as the most comfortable part of the mission, and said the order to end it was the “saddest moment” of his life.