Space flight picture of the week: 26 May 2006

^{Northrop Grumman Corporation}

“Tracey Emin's mother makes her first tent.”
Mark A Wigmore, Farnham, UK.

“Ha! I see King Kong has ordered a new suit for the premiere.”
Marcel J Morneau, US.

“Marge, you bring the hot dish, I'll make the party tent.”
“My daughter wants a hoop skirt for the prom...well she will get the best one in the whole school.”
Justin Dart, Japan.

“Austin Powers designs new spacecraft interior”
Robert Northrop, Sydney, Australia.

“It was at that moment, feeling trapped, Henrietta realized she should have started in the middle and sewn toward the edge.”
Adam Lapensky, Plattsburgh, US.

“Hmm, I'm sure that the pattern for this miniskirt used millimetres, not feet before Lockheed printed it... ”
Brett Davidson, Wellington, New Zealand.

Thanks to you for supplying the captions.  The picture was correctly guessed by: Marcel J Morneau.  Robert Northrop was half way there by guessing that it was a Gemini parachute.

Thanks too to all other readers who suggested an explanation.

Last week's photo shows an Apollo space capsule recovery parachte being made. 
More than 5.6km (3.5miles) of thread and over two million individual stitches were required in the 1960s by Northrop workers to complete one of three main parachutes used on every Apollo space capsule to safely return U.S. astronauts from orbit to a gentle ocean landing. 
For 15 years, the previous Northrop Corporation, now Northrop Grumman developed and assembled all the parachute recovery systems for the Apollo and Gemini and Mercury manned space programs that preceded it at Northrop’s former Ventura Division in Newbury Park, Calif.