The Earth from Space

I've been monitoring the shuttle Discovery's mission with interest. I hope they have a safe return to Earth on Monday. I also would like to applaud shuttle commander Eileen Collins who made some pertinent comments about the state of our planet's environment. As reported from BBC News (see here):

"Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation.

"It's very widespread in some parts of the world. We would like to see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used.

"The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it's so very thin. We know that we don't have much air - we need to protect what we have."

[Listening to: Thunderball - John Barry]