The Heights

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uk_viH4Unw&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Besides being incredibly beautiful, this video of a rocket launcher falling from space back into the Earth’s atmosphere takes up several threads running throughout Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: clouds, pioneering air-travel (in hot-air balloons and via the first parachute), silence and minimalist artwork (to my mind, anyway). A rocket booster on the STS-124 shuttle had a tiny camera attached to it. When it detaches from the shuttle and falls the thousands of feet back towards our planet, the results are spectacular. (But not until after the 1 minute 55 second mark, so fast-forward a bit.)