Design Wish - Apollo 11 Table

This accurate model of the surface of the moon around where the Apollo 11 LEM module touched down make for one of the most gorgeous furniture pieces around.

APOLLO 11 / Table

85 cm x 85 cm x 50 cm.
60 kg.
Fiber glass / Epoxy Resin.
Gloss varnish finish.
Cupro-Aluminium alloy / Steel.
Numbered models / Limited edition of 8 + 4 Ap.

From the project at Harow:
"Digital files from the NASA archives were needed in order to recreate the topology of real surfaces of the Moon, which constitute an artistic and poetic landscape. The craters are sculpted on a fibreglass slab and covered with a layer of resin, the transparency of which allows shadows to play over the lunar surface. The physico-chemical, dynamic, and thermal properties of this resin require a regular delay between each layer for perfect polymerisation, and the creation of the slab demands a confined and sterile environment. The feet, a contemporary representation of those of the LEM module, require precision manufacturing. Each piece is sculpted to the micro-millimetre, delicately and directly from the block, which is composed of a brass and aluminium alloy."

Mars Desert Research Station - Photos by Jim Urquhart

Photojournalist Jim Urquhart has this great set of photos from the Mars Desert Research Station,  which conducts dry runs for future Mars missions in the Utah desert.

From the Project Page:

"Mars is the great challenge of our time.

In order to help develop key knowledge needed to prepare for human Mars exploration, and to inspire the public by making sensuous the vision of human exploration of Mars, the Mars Society has initiated the Mars Analog Research Station (MARS) project. A global program of Mars exploration operations research, the MARS project will include four Mars base-like habitats located in deserts in the Canadian Arctic, the American southwest, the Australian outback, and Iceland. In these Mars-like environments, we will launch a program of extensive long-duration geology and biology field exploration operations conducted in the same style and under many of the same constraints as they would on the Red Planet. By doing so, we will start the process of learning how to explore on Mars."