Update: Awesome submissions from everyone today - a great #FFD as always! This #FFD is now closed (we won't be altering the post anymore), so stay tuned for next Friday :)
What's some of the best space-related street or sweet (culinary) art you've come across? Post a link and share what you've seen in the comments or by @-replying us on Twitter (@glxp). We'll embed the photos into this post as the day goes on.
If you've yet to see some great space street or culinary art - have a search around Google Images or Flickr and show us what you find! From space invaders to Darth Vader, we're sure there's great stuff out there we've yet to see.
We'll start you off with a couple of our favorites:
Alien Spaceship Crashing Into Palo Alto Building
Alien Cupcakes
Courtesy of our own @Pomerantz, a space-themed mural at the Culver City DMV
Passed along via @ad_astra2, here's a sad little NASA cake.
From @geosteph, a vintage lunchbox. It's part of a nice space display that can be found at the San Francisco Airport!
Also from @geosteph, an Earth- and Space-art themed ceiling fan. As @mactavish points out, it must be from the Pre-Copernican Era! ; )
Courtesy of @LouisS, a video of a nice mural created for the International Year of Astronomy (back story here)
Chris Radcliffe posts a found photo of found street art. We're still looking for the original authors of either--please pass them along if you know them, so we can provide credit where credit is due!
From @FlorianBoyd (via @TaviGreiner), a photo of a space themed mural that's on the side of many, may U-Haul vans. Tavi writes "I was really impressed with U-Haul's Iowa Meteor graphic, recently spotted by @FlorianBoyd. And it's not just a picture. The graphic includes an equation detailing the ejacta trajectory! Go UHaul!"
From @skysketcher, childrens' mural of walking on the Moon.
From @aggieastronaut, an entire gallery of awesome cakes she has made including this astronaut one!
@QuarkSpin pointed us to the Mars Phoenix mural!
@KeithCowing took a photo of a painting of weightless monkeys!
@Pomerantz goes for two with some space graffiti!
@absolutspacegrl submitted Peeps in Space!
@tim846 shows us some incredibly impressive "shuttle butter" from his wedding reception in 2005.
Another great space cake I (@arielwaldman) found!
Great space street art on Hollywood Freeway found by @matt808 using Google Maps Street View! Some additional photos of it follow below:
@SDspace submitted chocolate Daleks!
@aggieastronaut hooks us up with some MoonPies to fill the void!
@keithcowing links us to shuttle station crews autographing the station.
@revrev (we miss you!) took a photo of a MoonPie over Hollywood.
Chris Radcliff remembered the starry cupcakes at his friend's wedding.
Originally pointed to from one of our space geek crushes (the NASA Lunar Science Institute), take a few seconds and scroll through the amazing GigaPans in detail of the lunar environment taken from Apollo landing sites!
What is GigaPan, you ask? From their site:
"GigaPan consists of three technological developments: a robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera; custom software for constructing very high-resolution gigapixel panoramas; and, a new type of website for exploring, sharing and commenting on gigapixel panoramas and the detail our users will discover within them."
The Space Shuttle program is winding down. Portions of NASA's funding are being cut or rearranged. Critics are debating if we should bother to send humans to the Moon and beyond at all. These news-bites are hitting the airwaves each day, often times failing to mention why this seemingly bad news is actually incredibly exciting.
The world has seen NASA as their only space and lunar luminary for a long time, but a lot has changed within even the last year. NASA no longer has a monopoly on space exploration, and citizens are beginning to take notice. From other spacefaring nations to commercial entities such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, people are watching and waiting for a dark horse to be the spark that makes space exploration accessible to all.
As former U.S. Congressman Nick Lampson (D-TX) stated in the Houston Chronicle this week,
"...an emerging commercial space flight industry made up of proven and established entrepreneurs is now able to provide many of the launch and cargo services, equipment and infrastructure needed to expand our economy and improve our security here on Earth."
Why is this exciting? Collaboration between NASA and commercial entities keeps space exploration on a competitive schedule, something the world has been lacking since the days of the space race. Collaboration also costs less money to taxpayers, allowing for more money to be invested in new innovations that would otherwise get cut. Most exciting of all, we no longer will need to depend on one entity to move our civilization, knowledge, inspiration and understanding of our place in the Universe forward.
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, stated,
"decentralization and tolerance are the life and breath of Internet".
The same holds true for the survival of space exploration.
(credit: NASA)
Turning their dial to adventure, NASA is currently crunching numbers and working through the logistics of how to build a lunar outpost by 2020. Instead of coming up to the Moon for a quick night cap as we have in the past, we intend to extend our stay by inhabiting it.
Missions such as LCROSS, which are sending an SUV-size payload to literally impact the Moon in October in order to analyze the resulting plume of regolith for ice crystals (a substance which could prove useful for people living on the Moon), are already helping advance our understanding for what a lunar outpost requires.
The latest in lunar gadgetry hit the news today, being positioned as a Swiss army knife of sorts, in the words of the Space Review's Taylor Dinerman. Called the Lunar Surface Manipulator System (LSMS), this lightweight crane is capable of various cargo unloading and construction tasks that a lunar lander would otherwise have difficulty with.
With the LSMS's powers combined, similar to something out of Captain Planet or a Power Rangers Megazord, it can produce more monumental tasks. NASA's lunar vehicles such as ATHLETE (All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer) and Chariot (a 12-wheeled lunar truck) could be configured to give the robotic arm more bang for the buck.
In order to make our lunar outpost a reality, the expedition will require collaboration between NASA, Google Lunar X PRIZE and major spacefaring nations. As Taylor Dinerman writes:
[The LSMS's] essential role, however, is logistical: unloading supplies from the Altair lander or even from a commercial lunar surface delivery service derived from the technology that is now being devoted to the Google Lunar X PRIZE systems. At some point soon standardization of sizes, coupling devices, and weights of space supply containers is going to be needed. NASA cannot do this alone: it needs to negotiate agreements with the other major spacefaring nations, particularly those who have announced that they want to join in the lunar development process.
Recapping some of the space-related stuff to get excited about today, in case you missed it:
Team FREDNET posted a video of their LEGO picorover. The mockup is a round NXT robot built inside an 11" hamster ball, controlled remotely by another NXT via Bluetooth.
Team SELENE posted their first artist's impressions of the new rocket sled.
MIT OpenCourseWare is providing online lectures about aerospace engineering for free.
LIFE Magazine has created a gallery of "weirdly beautiful spacecraft models".
Last, but certainly not least, we have a few open positions at X PRIZE Foundation, including a couple within Google Lunar X PRIZE!
Greetings Launch Paddies! Ever wonder what the Intergalactic Federation King Almighty does when she's not a) Commanding the Universe, or b) launching incredible new products of great scientific and educational value like "Moon in Google Earth, " which you should all immediately check out here: http://earth.google.com/moon/ ???
Well, I'll tell you. I generally like to right wrongs, and help old ladies cross the street. But mostly, I like to peruse the vast array of space-themed videos on YouTube, which is how I found this gem. It's perfect for Friday Fun Day, and ....I'm pretty sure you'll thank me later. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIRQf0S3oD0
Have a great weekend.
Yours Truly,
I.F.K.A. and C. of the U.
We're bringing back the captioning party for Friday Funday today!
Caption this image in the comments, or photoshop it with a link.
