NASA space shuttle Atlantis is prepared on the Vehicle Assembly Building floor at the Kennedy Space Center May 18, 2011 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The space shuttle program ends with Atlantis mission STS-135 scheduled for early July. Space shuttle Atlantis will carry the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module to deliver supplies, logistics and spare parts to the International Space Station. Atlantis also will fly a system to investigate the potential for robotically refueling existing spacecraft and return a failed ammonia pump module. (Photo by Roberto Gonzalez/Getty Images)

In this handout image provided by NASA, the space shuttle Endeavour is seen on launch pad 39a as a storm passes by prior to the rollback of the Rotating Service Structure (RSS) April 28, 2011, at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. During the 14-day mission, Endeavour and the STS-134 crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts, including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre. Launch is targeted for April 29 at 3:47 p.m. EDT.

A handout photo made available by the NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA's Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun, from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, USA, 12 August 2018. Parker Solar Probe is humanity’s first-ever mission into a part of the Sun’s atmosphere called the corona. Here it will directly explore solar processes that are key to understanding and forecasting space weather events that can impact life on Earth. (Photo by Bill Ingalls/EPA-EFE/NASA)

“Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American space transport company founded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. It has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets, both of which are built with a goal of being reusable launch vehicles. SpaceX is also developing the Dragon spacecraft to be carried to orbit by Falcon 9 launch vehicles. SpaceX designs, tests and fabricates the majority of their components in-house, including the Merlin, Kestrel, and Draco rocket engines. In December 2010, SpaceX became the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft (a Dragon)”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp, speaks during a news conference at the National Press Club April 5, 2011 in Washington, DC. Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) and Tesla Motors, held the news conference to announce SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket which could complete missions to the International Space Station and Moon and should be ready for use by the end of 2012. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

China has sent its first woman into space on a mission to dock with an orbiting station, the latest step in an ambitious programme to go to the moon and on to Mars.

Photo: China's first female astronaut Liu Yang, waves during a sending off ceremony before she departs for the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft rocket launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China, Saturday, June 16, 2012. China will send its first woman and two other astronauts into space Saturday to work on a temporary space station for about a week, in a key step toward becoming only the third nation to set up a permanent base in orbit. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

Indian Runner ducks march past farm buildings at the Vergenoegd wine estate near Cape Town, South Africa, May 16, 2016. Each day, a quack squad of killer ducks are released for the first of two sorties at South Africa's Vergenoegd wine farm in Stellenbosch. Their mission – seek and destroy thousands of pests out to ruin the season's harvest. Fanning out across the vineyards, some 1,000 Indian Runner ducks hone in on their hidden targets with uncanny precision, locating the tiny white dune snails feasting on budding vines. (Photo by Mike Hutchings/Reuters)

“The scientists behind NASA's $2.5 billion Curiosity rover mission on Mars on Tuesday explained the nature of a tiny, gleaming "flower" embedded in Red Planet rock, and revealed where they'll be using the SUV-sized robot's drill for the first time”. – Alan Boyle via NBCNews.com

Photo: Scientists say that a “Martian flower”, seen here in an image from the Curiosity rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager, is a 2-millimeter-wide grain or pebble that's embedded in the surrounding rock. Another, darker-colored mineral grain can be seen above and to the left. (Photo by NASA)

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.