Posts Tagged space shuttle
7 Fully Funded Kickstarter Projects We’re Looking Forward to Watching/Reading
Dropped below the cut, in no particular order, are seven successfully funded Kickstarter projects that are on their way to becoming reality or are ready to be in your hands. It covers projects from HOMEWARD BOUND with zombies, a cat that fights The Devil, Wonder Woman, comics, apps for comics, and the end of space trucking.
Have a look, why don’t you?
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Our Strange Sky: Snapshots of Endeavours Last Mission in Space. Also, Hot Space Docking Action.
Posted by mistergroonk in Space, Technology on June 9, 2011
Up above the sky so blue, astronauts are working hard on their experiments and observations.
Sidenote: Of all the things that have been written on this site, we swear “Hot Space Docking Action” is what we may future regret the most.
Endeavour’s Starry Night
Orbiting this island earth at 17,000 miles per hour.
Space Shuttle and Space Station Photographed Together
Thanks to a Russian supply ship, Space Bastards(like us) get the photograph we always imagined and have always seen in fiction.
If you want more of these images be sure to check out the NASA’s ISS gallery.
The supply ship was the Russian Soyuz TMA-20 which landed in Kazakhstan later that day. The above spectacular image well captures the relative sizes of the station and docked shuttle. Far below, clouds of Earth are seen above a blue sea.
A Last Landing for Space Shuttle Endeavour
Sad now.
All told, space shuttle Endeavour flew 25 flights since being deployed by NASA in 1992, spending a total of 299 days in space. Endeavour’s next mission will be a stationary one in the California Science Center.
Our Strange Sky: The Many Views of Endeavour’s Last Launch
Posted by mistergroonk in Photography, Space, USA on May 31, 2011
The Space Shuttle Endeavour launched for the sky for the last time 15 days ago. Trey Ratcliff scoped an inspiring shot of Endeavour worm-holing into the clouds. Stefanie Gordon with her handy futurephone caught the awesome sight of Endeavour blasting free from the top layer of clouds and shared with the world. And NASA shared a shot of their own from a shuttle training aircraft. You can watch a video of the launch here.
Endeavour returns to Earth Wednesday June 1, 2011.
Trey Ratcliff’s Dream of Endeavour
Even though I had my Nikon D3X set up on a tripod with my 28-300 lens, I actually shot this picture with my 50mm prime lens on my Nikon D3S! Everything did go according to plan, and I had run through the routine a few times before the launch. The plan was to fire away on my main body during the first 15 seconds or so. At that point, the D3X starts to have bufferring problems, so I switched to my Chewbacca-bandolier D3S. I pulled it up into a vertical orientation and rapid-fired just as the shuttle tore into the clouds.
As soon as the Endeavour worm-holed into the cloud layer, the strange staccato-bass of torn air came skipping across the water into the press area. The sound was not at all what I expected, but it was awesome dot com.
Stefanie Gordon’s Space Shuttle Twitpic
APOD’s Space Shuttle Rising Tribute
If you looked out the window of an airplane at just the right place and time last week, you could have seen something very unusual — the space shuttle Endeavour launching to orbit. Images of the rising shuttle and its plume became widely circulated over the web shortly after Endeavour’s final launch.
The Atlantic’s Photo Essay on Dismantling the Space Shuttle Program or How to Make a Space Bastard Cry
Posted by mistergroonk in Photography, Space, USA on May 31, 2011
Focus: 30 years of the Space Shuttle Program Celebrated, Infogragphed. To End.
Posted by mistergroonk in Holiday, Science, Space, USA on April 12, 2011
That fancy patch you see above is to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Space Shuttle program and, sadly, its coming retirement.
On the morning of April 12, 1981, the shuttle Columbia, strapped to an enormous external fuel tank and a pair of solid rocket boosters, lifted off on its maiden voyage–and launched a new era in the Space Age. Never before had there been a spacecraft that could be used over and over again, that could land on Earth like an airplane–a glider, specifically.
That flight lasted 2 days, 6 hours, 20 minutes, and 53 seconds, in which time Columbia traveled 1.07 million miles, reaching an orbital altitude of 166 nautical miles. The two-man crew consisted of shuttle commander John Young and pilot Robert Crippen.
To date, the five spacecraft in the shuttle fleet have conducted more than 130 missions and traveled a cumulative half-billion miles–that’s a lot of commuting into Earth’s orbit and back.
- STS 1 Historical Press Kit (PDF)
- NASA’s Space Shuttle section
- When the space shuttle was new (photos)
Informative infographic below the cut.
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Our Strange Sky: Above Hungary, Time Lapse of Discovery Separating from the ISS
Posted by mistergroonk in Photography, Space on March 10, 2011
“What’s happening here?” you ask. “Why is this so important?”
What you’re seeing below is a time lapse of the Space Shuttle Discovery separating from the International Space Station in the sky over Lake Bakonybél in Hungary. Being city(ish) bound it is rare we get to see the majesty of a non-light polluted sky. Any time something humans made is visible from the ground we can’t help but to smile and dream of a time we’ll be able to fly our own rocket ship to the moon and beyond.
Check out a video of these sequence below the jump.
Along with stars setting in the west, the two bright celestial beacons, Moon above and Jupiter below, leave short trails in this well-planned time exposure, a composite of 54 individual frames each 4 seconds long. On its final flight, the Space Shuttle Discovery and International Space Station form the second close pairing in the night skyscape. Still glinting in the sunlight in low Earth orbit, they gracefully trace overlapping arcs from lower right to upper left. Moon, Jupiter, Discovery, and ISS are reflected in the calm waters of Lake Bakonybél, Hungary.
Saturday Afternoon Theater: “The Open Road Still Softly Calls” 3 Videos on Space Exploration & Wonder.
Posted by mistergroonk in Movies, Science, Space on January 15, 2011
Gathered here are three videos on the wonders of space exploration. The two below are short films. The video below the jump is the 30 years of the Space Shuttle commemorative film documenting shuttle launches.
Reid Gower’s: NASA – The Frontier Is Everywhere
A man, frustrated with NASA’s poor publicity skills, creates kick-ass video of his own.
With crazy credit to Michael Marantz.
MAVEN Mission to Investigate How Sun Steals Martian Atmosphere
NASA release October 5, 2010
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN), set to launch in 2013, will explore the planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the sun and solar wind. Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN’s Principal Investigator discusses the mission.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Chris Smith
Freefall below the cut for the main event:
Our Strange Sky: STS-131 Discovery Launch
Posted by mistergroonk in Photography, Space on September 9, 2010
On Flickr, NASA on The Commons has opened. Creative Commons photos made available to generate more exposure for NASA and, we’re guessing, space travel in general.
Obviously, we’re all for this.
“Sad shuttle launch is sad”
Posted by mistergroonk in LOL, Photography, Space on August 30, 2009
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