Grande dame of cooking still going strong at 90: Julia Child celebrates in San Francisco. How does it feel to turn 90 and have attained the status of an icon, a living legend? "It feels just like it felt before," Julia Child says with the throaty laugh familiar to millions who cut their culinary teeth on her "French Chef" television series. The show, along with her seminal book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (1961), revolutionized the way America cooks and eats. While making light of the difference a day -- or another decade -- makes, Child intends to enjoy her birthday thoroughly. First, there will be all the public observances, including a sold-out dinner Thursday at San Francisco's tony Fifth Floor restaurant, which -- like dinners that night at 19 other venues across the country -- will benefit the scholarship fund of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (which Child co-founded). Friday to Sunday, the action moves to Napa, with both members-only and public events at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, of which she is an honorary board member. Aug. 15, her actual birthday, will see her in Maine at an annual gathering of nieces, nephews, their offspring and friends, who for many years have rolled a joined birthday celebration for several members of the group into a jolly reunion. The schedule Child and her assistant of 14 years, former pastry chef Stephanie Hersh, have laid out is not exactly a senior-citizen routine, even though Child has always been candid about her age and realistic in assessing her own capabilities. When the Pasadena native moved back to California from her long-time home in the Boston area last year, she also made the move from a condominium she and her late husband, Paul, had purchased many years ago to a progressive retirement home. She is in the most active of the four levels available, but should the need arise, she can move on to assisted living facilities within the same complex.

How old is Julia Child?

We were cornered in a sort of way already. But these butchers up the cavern had been surprised, they were probably scared, and they had no special weapons, only those little hatchets of theirs. And that way lay escape. Their sturdy little forms--ever so much shorter and thicker than the mooncalf herds--were scattered up the slope in a way that was eloquent of indecision. I had the moral advantage of a mad bull in a street. But for all that, there seemed a tremendous crowd of them. Very probably there was. Those Selenites down the cleft had certainly some infernally long spears. It might be they had other surprises for us.... But, confound it! if we charged up the cave we should let them up behind us, and if we didn't those little brutes up the cave would probably get reinforced. Heaven alone knew what tremendous engines of warfare--guns, bombs, terrestrial torpedoes--this unknown world below our feet, this vaster world of which we had only pricked the outer cuticle, might not presently send up to our destruction. It became clear the only thing to do was to charge! It became clearer as the legs of a number of fresh Selenites appeared running down the cavern towards us.

Where are the Selenites in relation to the narrator?

Alien Planet starts out with an interstellar spacecraft named Von Braun , leaving Earth's orbit . Traveling at 20 % the speed of light , it reaches Darwin IV in 42 years . Upon reaching orbit , it deploys the Darwin Reconnaissance Orbiter , Which looks for potential landing sites for the probes . The first probe , Balboa , explodes along with its lifting body transport during entry , because one of its wings failed to unfold . Two backup probes , Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton , successfully land on the planet , and learn much about its bizarre indigenous lifeforms , including an apparently sapient species . The robotic probes sent out to research on Darwin IV are called Horus Probes . Each Horus probe consists of an { { convert } } long inflatable , hydrogen-filled balloon , Which is covered with solar receptors , a computer ' brain ' , a ' head ' covered with sensors , and several smaller robots that can be sent to places too dangerous for the probes themselves . The probes have a limited degree of artificial intelligence , very similar to the ' processing power ' of a 4-year-old . All the real thinking is done by a supercomputer in the orbiting Von Braun . The probes are programmed with different personalities ; Ike is more cautious , while Leo is the risk-taker . The two probes are also equipped with a holographic message that will be projected to any sentient life found on Darwin . After the two probes inflate their gas-bags , they encounter a voracious Arrowtongue and watch it pursue a Gyrosprinter .
Where does the Von Braun spacecraft deploy upon reaching orbit?