Astronaut

An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the terms are sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.

Starting in the 1950s up to 2002, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. With the suborbital flight of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the commercial astronaut.

Definition

The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 mi). In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) are awarded astronaut wings.

Astronaut (song)

"Astronaut" is the third single that was taken from Simple Plan's fourth studio album, Get Your Heart On!. In December 2012, the song was played in orbit in space by astronaut Chris Hadfield.

Music video

The music video was directed by Mark Staubach and premiered on 19 September 2011. It was filmed in the desert of California. The clip opens with a message that read, "Being human is the most terrible loneliness in the universe" and continues to show a lone man exploring an empty space. He keeps looking around and around for something, or rather someone, to fill a void in his heart. The female lead for the clip is Caitlin O'Connor, a model/actress, who has previously played in music videos for Michael Bublé and New Found Glory.

The song was nominated in the category Best International Video by a Canadian band to 2012 MuchMusic Video Awards.

In the video, the man is seen with a name tag that says P. Cunningham. The same name was used for the drunk driver in the music video for "Untitled."

Astronaut (Duran Duran album)

Astronaut is the 11th studio album by English pop rock band Duran Duran, first released on 11 October 2004 (see 2004 in music).

This was Duran Duran's first studio album since Pop Trash (2000), and the first (and, to date, last) full album since Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983) to be recorded by the most famous five member lineup of the band (the stand-alone 1985 single "A View to a Kill" was their last studio recording together.)

The making of the album

Duran Duran originally announced a reunion of the most famous five members in 2001, and began writing new music together in the south of France. They continued to write and record intermittently, working hard for a few months at a time, throughout 2002 and 2003. The band's friend Nile Rodgers did preliminary production work on several tracks.

Meanwhile, the search for a record label went on, complicated by the band's desire for independence, control, strong promotional support, and a commitment for more than one album, at the same time that the cash-strapped and risk-averse recording industry was unwilling to gamble on the "leftover fame" of a band best known for a series of 20-year-old hits.

Chinese martial arts

Chinese martial arts, often labeled under the umbrella terms Kung Fu (/ˈkʊŋ ˈfuː/; Chinese: 功夫; pinyin: gong fu) and Wushu (武术), are the several hundreds of fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in China. These fighting styles are often classified according to common traits, identified as "families" (家; jiā), "sects" (派; pài) or "schools" (門; mén) of martial arts. Examples of such traits include Shaolinquan (少林拳) physical exercises involving Five Animals (五形) mimicry, or training methods inspired by Chinese philosophies, religions and legends. Styles that focus on qi manipulation are called internal (内家拳; nèijiāquán), while others that concentrate on improving muscle and cardiovascular fitness are called "external" (外家拳; wàijiāquán). Geographical association, as in northern (北拳; běiquán) and "southern" (南拳; nánquán), is another popular classification method.

Terminology

Kung fu and wushu are loanwords from Chinese that, in English, are used to refer to Chinese martial arts. However, the Chinese terms kung fu and wushu ( listen (Mandarin) ; Cantonese: móuh-seuht) have distinct meanings. The Chinese equivalent of the term "Chinese martial arts" would be Zhongguo wushu (Chinese: 中國武術; pinyin: zhōngguó wǔshù) (Mandarin).

Kungfu (restaurant)

Guangzhou Real Kungfu Catering Management Co., Ltd., doing business as Kungfu (Chinese: 真功夫; pinyin: Zhēn Gōngfu "Real Kung Fu"), is a restaurant chain in China, headquartered in Tianhe District, Guangzhou. As of 2011 the company had over 300 locations in China. As of 2013 it had 479 restaurants. It sells bowls of rice with meats such as beef and pork.

In 2014 China Daily ranked Kungfu as No. 8 in its list of Top 10 Fast-food restaurants in China.

The company uses an image of Bruce Lee as a logo.

References

External links