lin·gua·phile

spaceporn:

Our Gorgeous Sky |

I feel like this can’t actually be real

but only because if things like this really exist in the world and I haven’t seen them life is just REALLY NOT FAIR

(via rustingroses)

Title: To the Stars

Author: ladylunas

Pairing: mild OFC/OFC

Rating: PG

Word count: ~2800

Summary: When humanity goes to the stars, the Lone Power is there to hinder it. It is up to one wizard to make a choice that will change everything. For Caitlin, there is no choice. 

This was first written and posted for a fic challenge at dai_stiho in the lead-up to the last shuttle launch back in July. In my barrage of space shuttle feelings, it came back to mind and I re-read it. It’s just as beautiful as, and even more poignant than, I remembered it. I typically don’t go in for stories with original characters but this one just works. Read it, you will not be disappointed.

The more I think about the space shuttle program ending, the sadder I am about it.

When I was little, I dreamed about going to space. I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to set foot on the moon. And if I couldn’t do that, I wanted to help and support those who did. The girl who gave up on being an astronaut so that she could, instead, be a writer, did so because she believed not just in the sky but in the fictions that compelled us upward and outward.

She thought she could get a PR internship with NASA, or maybe work at JPL for a summer (she didn’t have a car, but Pasadena wasn’t so far away). She wanted nothing quite so much as to be at the Cape one day to see a shuttle take off. She wanted to have been a teen in the sixties, to know the moon landing as memory rather than history, but barring that she wanted the chance to make memories like that one, only her own. She wanted to sit in a room crowded with friends and family, everyone’s eyes on the TV screen as some new pathmaker set foot on some new world.

She wanted—I wanted—to see these craft in use. A ship that can’t sail is just as sad as a violin that no one ever plays. I’ll go see the OV101 at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum, once it’s been installed there, but it won’t be the same. It won’t be in flight.

I wonder if the shuttle is sad, too. It won’t feel vacuum again, won’t delight in weightlessness, won’t scream through the sky on trails of fire, leaping right out of this world toward the next one. It won’t ever sail its personal sea again. It will lie, like a beached whale, or like a meteorite, a long way from home.

The little girl who wanted to be an astronaut is so happy to have finally seen her first space shuttle in flight, but so sad to know that it’s also her last.

jtotheizzoe:

A Final Flight for Enterprise

This morning, the space shuttle prototype Enterprise flew over NYC en route to her final resting place at the Intrepid Air & Space Museum on the Hudson River.

This wasn’t the first time Enterprise has flown over NYC. Up top, there she is in 1983 on the way back from the Paris Air Show. Below, today’s final flight over the Big Apple.

(pictures via @Brosner85 and NBCNews)

Reblog because I was there! (Well. Not “there” as in “in that exact part of the city,” but I did get down to Riverside Park just in time to see the flyover!)

dduane:

usagov:

Image description: An Expedition 30 crew member aboard the International Space Station took this nighttime photograph of the Atlantic coast. Large metropolitan areas and other easily recognizable sites from the Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. area are visible. Long Island and the New York City area can be seen in lower right area. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are near the center. 

Photo by NASA

My old stomping grounds. How gorgeous.

(waves at the Island)

(hugs Manhattan)

(chucks Philly under the chin)

My first thought on seeing this image was that it was a string of neural pathways firing. Then, I saw the space station. Woah. 

Then, I realized, this is home. This neural network of manmade fire arcing out through the night, this web of life strung out on pinpricks. This planet of mine. This city, newly-mine in some senses but also so very deeply a part of who I am, long before I realized that it was. This world defined by light and not by borders.

heyoscarwilde:

modern Russian space program posters illustrated by Spiritius :: via spiritius.net

So you know that post I made recently about how beautiful Soviet space exploration propaganda is? Apparently, all Russian-related space propaganda is beautiful.

(via vinnyn)

jtotheizzoe:

Soviet Space Propaganda of the ‘50’s and 60’s

Via Retronaut, we are treated to a brilliant collection of Soviet space propaganda posters from the peak days of the space race. Hot on the heels of Sputnik in 1957, the Soviet Glory Machine was on full tilt. There’s something about artwork from this era of the USSR that is just stunning. 

We may have beat them to the moon, but I think they beat us in the “National Pride Artwork” category. I highly recommend perusing the whole collection. Goodness knows, after the failure of Phobos-Grunt, the modern Russian space program might benefit from a little propaganda pat on the back.

But hey, at least our astronauts like to skip and sing! WHEEEE!!!!

It feels a little weird saying this, but I love Soviet propaganda art. The bold colors, the shapes, the geometry — there’s something about it that works. Though maybe that’s just because it’s old, and because I can’t read Russian…

(via soulsuckingisaacnewton)

nudityandnerdery:

You know, the idea that I might never actually go into outer space, let alone visit another planet, is really depressing when I think about it. I mean, I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it shouldn’t bother me that much, but it does.

(via gwenfrankenstien)

birdhead:

thefoxrider:

imgfavepopular:

★ discovered on imgfave.com (social image bookmarking)

See a universe in a grain of sand…

and infinity in an hour.

This make anyone else think of Dairine Callahan a little?

TOTALLY makes me think of Dairine. Also, it’s gorgeous.