May. 9th, 2004 08:29 am
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[personal profile] peteryoung


It's always morning somewhere in the world



Today's sunrise, 4am, 37000 feet over Irkutsk, Siberia, 9 May 2004

We entered into shadow. Contact with Moscow was gone. Japan floated by beneath us and I could clearly see its cities ablaze with lights. We left Japan behind to face the dark emptiness of the Pacific Ocean. No moon. Only stars, bright and far away. I gripped the handle like a man hanging onto a streetcar. Very slowly, agonisingly, half an hour passed, and with that, dawn on Earth. First a slim, greenish-blue line on the farthest horizon turning within a couple of minutes into a rainbow that hugged the Earth and in turn exploded into a golden Sun. You’re out of your mind, I told myself, hanging onto a ship in space, and to your life, and getting ready to admire a sunrise.
Valeri Ryumin, Russian cosmonaut

Date: 2004-05-09 01:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bugshaw.livejournal.com
Beautiful (words and picture).

Date: 2004-05-09 06:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] peteyoung.livejournal.com
I was wondering my friends were up to at 10pm on a Saturday night, while I was suspended over the middle-of-nowhere watching the sun come up. You'd think I'd be used to this weirdness by now.

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