Taikonaut Yang Liwei becomes an Icon on the International Space Station

Editor’s note: If you look to the right of Mike Foale in this image you will see several issues of the Russian magazine “Novosti Kosmonavtiki” (Cosmonautics News) bungeed against a Service Module bulkhead.

Look closely at the one on the right and you will see a picture of Shenzhou V taikonaut Yang Liwei on the cover.

In keeping with the ancient Russian tradition of creating icons, if you look above Foales’s head you will see will see portraits of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Yuri Gagarin displayed in a group – as icons often are. Indeed, several orthodox religious icons are also located on portions of the bulkhead not visible in this photo.

Curiously, there are no icons of America’s space legends in this collection. Perhaps they are located elswhere in the ISS.

Then again an image of American Dennis Tito was bungeed to the same location in the Service Module back in 2001 ….