Cordwainer Smith, Les Seigneurs de l’Instrumentalité, Ed. or. 1955-1966, illustration des voiles solaires par Manchu pour l’édition de Folio SF, 2003
(via themodernclassics)
It is Official: We are Not Coming Back
NASA chief rules out manned Moon mission in the foreseeable future. NASA administrator Charles Bolden has dismissed the idea that the space agency will attempt another manned Moon mission. Speaking with contemporaries, Bolden said “NASA will not take the lead on a human lunar mission… probably in my lifetime.”
Credit: Charles Conrad, Apollo 12, NASA.
Oof.
A PEEK INTO THE CONTROL ROOM OF SPACE SHUTTLES
Although many of us have fantasized about becoming an astronaut when we “grow up”, making rocket ships out of cardboard refrigerator boxes, very few people actually went through with it. But lucky for us common folk, photographer Ben Cooper gives us all a chance to relive our space fantasies. Cooper brings us an insider look at the Flight Decks of the Endeavour, Discovery, and Atlantis space shuttles. The fact that there are people who actually know how to operate all of these switches is pretty phenomenal.
(via itsfullofstars)
In the early years of space flight, both Russians and Americans used pencils in space. Unfortunately, pencil lead is made of graphite, a highly conductive material. Snapped graphite leads and particles in zero gravity are hugely problematic, as they will get sucked into the air ventilation or electronic equipment, easily causing shorts or fires in the pure oxygen environment of a capsule.
After the fire in Apollo 1 which killed all the astronauts on board, NASA required a writing instrument that wasn’t a fire hazard. Fisher spent over a million dollars (of his own money) creating a pressurized ball point pen, which NASA bought at $2.95 each. The Russian space program also switched over from pencils shortly after.
40 years later snide morons on the internet still snigger about it, because snide morons on the internet never know what they are talking about.
Does Aaron Sorkin know what he’s talking about?
(Source: yourresidentginger, via theuppitynegras)
Earth, Jupiter and Venus from the skyline of Mars!
(Source: theweeklyansible, via pullingmetowardsmyself)
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