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Tag: space

Sciencegeek Advent Calendar Extravaganza! – Day 10

day10

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS
You can watch the movie in its entirety at Youtube.

SantaClausConquers

Here is the plot as described on Wikipedia. Note that there is no mention of Curiosity or of NASA generally. Presumably, the sequel will rectify this…

“The story involves the people of Mars, including Momar (“Mom Martian”) and Kimar (“King Martian”). They’re worried that their children Girmar (“Girl Martian”) and Bomar (“Boy Martian”) are watching too much Earth television, most notably station KID-TV’s interview with Santa Claus in his workshop at the North Pole. Consulting the ancient 800-year-old Martian sage Chochem (a Yiddish word meaning “genius”), they are advised that the children of Mars are growing distracted due to the society’s overly rigid structure; from infancy, all their education is fed into their brains through machines and they are not allowed individuality or freedom of thought.

Chochem notes that he had seen this coming “for centuries”, and says the only way to help the children is to allow them their freedom and be allowed to have fun. To do this, they need a Santa Claus figure, like on Earth. Leaving the Chochem’s cave, the Martian leaders decide to abduct Santa Claus from Earth and bring him to Mars. As the Martians could not distinguish between all the fakes Santas, they kidnapped two children to find the real one. Once this is accomplished, one Martian, Voldar, who strongly disagrees with the idea, repeatedly tries to kill Santa Claus along with two kidnapped Earth children. He believes that Santa is corrupting the children of Mars and turning them away from the race’s original glory.

When they arrive on Mars, Santa and the children build a factory to make toys for the children. However, Voldar and his assistants, Stobo and Shim, sabotage the factory and change the programming so that it makes the toys incorrectly. Meanwhile, Dropo, Kimar’s assistant, has taken a great liking to Santa Claus and Christmas, puts on one of Santa’s spare suits and starts acting like Santa Claus. He goes to the toy factory to make toys, but Voldar mistakes him for Santa and kidnaps him.

When Santa and the children come back to the factory to make more toys, they discover the machines have been tampered with. Voldar and Stobo come back to the factory to make a deal with Kimar, but when they see the real Santa Claus they realize that their plan has been foiled. Dropo, held hostage in a cave, tricks his guard Shim and escapes. Kimar then arrests Voldar, Stobo and Shim. Santa notices Dropo acts like him, and says that Dropo would make a good Martian Santa. Kimar agrees to let Dropo be the Martian Santa Claus and sends Santa and the children back to Earth.”

(see more of Popperfont’s Sciencegeek Advent Calendar Extravanganza here)

Some stats if you’re thinking of towing the Space Shuttle with your truck

Click image to see full size.

“Endeavour will be towed 12 miles from Los Angeles International Airport to the museum on October 13, and the Tundra will hitch up to the shuttle for the last quarter mile of the trip. The towing rig was made specifically for this event, allowing the full-size Toyota Tundra to pull almost 30 times its regular towing capacity. Toyota says that the truck used to tow Endeavour will be a stock V8 Tundra with no enhancements or modifications.”

From AutoBlog.

Conceptual space colony art from the 1970s: Kinda want to live there.

Address: Toroidal Colonies (in the vicinity of Earth’s orbit)

“NASA commissioned much conceptual work focused on moving people to space, both for habitation and travel. The artwork featured here come from three summer studies by NASA Ames, conducted in California during the 70s. They feature beautifully fantastic landscapes inside massive structures… a vision of a utopian life inside an artificial atmosphere.”

From NASA Ames Research Center, via Visual News (text by Benjamin Starr)

Hello again, Halley’s Comet… #strangelymoving

Via Reddit (original source unknown)

When a Crocodile Hunter Becomes a Planet Hunter

By DAVID NG

Cor Crikey! And g’day mate! Right now we’re walking up to Hawaii’s Gemini Observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea. It’s got a beaut of a telescope inside, and we’re hoping to find a new planet today.

(Whispering) Here we are at the front door. But we should first give it a bit of space. Patience is important when dealing with telescopes. And we’ve got to be careful with that door. It’s locked! Looks like the observatory doesn’t open for another 20 minutes.

(20 minutes later) Alright mate! Let’s go! (running) Quickly mate! We’re already inside, but we’ve got to move fast! If you look around, you might see that there are other humans around here that will also want to use the telescope, but if you get there first, you’re in there mate. You can use one hand for the controls, and the other to fend the others off.

(Reaching the console) We’re the first here! And it looks like we’ll get to have it to ourselves too. Ripper! Looks pretty complicated, but I’ve been around telescopes all my life and this is definitely an “on” button. But before I press it, let’s first camouflage ourselves behind this adjustable office chair, just in case! I’m going to turn it on now.

(Apparatus makes a noise). Watch out mate! We’ve got to stay extra alert now. Remember – never do this without the supervision of an expert like myself around.
It’s on. And don’t forget to be on the look-out for other humans. We can scare them off by making ourselves look as big as possible – spread your arms wide and look like you’re real pissed. That’s right, like that. Beauty mate! Alright, now let’s go find us some planets…

(7 hours) Did you see that?

(12 days) Did you see that?

(4 week) Did you see that?

(6 weeks) Did you see that?

(7 weeks) Crikey! Did you see that?

(3 months and 1 week) Did you see that?

(4 months) Did you see that?

(5 months and 3 weeks) Did you see that?

(6 months later and looking weary) Well mates, that’s all we have time for in this show. It’s a shame we didn’t find a new planet but that’s sometime how it is in these observatories. See you next time!

Wall hangings of an astronomical theme, circa 1850

Via Wool and Wax, original source unknown.

Space Shuttle farewell videos. Endeavour and Atlantis

Shuttle Endeavour: A piece of space history flies by in slow motion from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

The Last Roll-Out from Philip Andrews on Vimeo.

Time to geek out a little – new “galaxy” font: as in typography created from images of real galaxies. #scie113

Go to the site, and input your own phrase (and don’t forget to click on the image produced so you can see things in greater detail). From the wonderful folks at Galaxy Zoo. Via Visual News.

Project Mercury in 8-bit

“Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States. It ran from 1959 through 1963 with two goals: putting a human in orbit around the Earth, and doing it before the Soviet Union, as part of the early space race. It succeeded in the first but not the second: in the first Mercury mission on 5 May 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space; however the Soviet Union had put Yuri Gagarin into space one month earlier. John Glenn became the first American (third overall, following Gagarin and Titov) to reach orbit on February 20, 1962, during the third manned Mercury flight.” (Wikipedia)

By Andy Rash, More about Project Mercury here. (via Hey Oscar Wilde!)

This totally made my day: An absolutely breathtaking view of the Milkyway as seen from Mars.

Source unknown (please let me know if you have this info) – via IFLS.

Lovely futuristic and space vector illustrations by Javier Arce

By Javier Arce over at Silly Inc. (Via Drawn.ca)

Lovely precise science-y art by James Boast.

By James Boast, via Fresh Photons.

Talk about an amazing coincidence: Bizarrely perfect anagram for Neil Armstrong quote.

Saw this at Futility Closet. Note that it has been said that the proper quote does include the word “a,” as it was apparently drowned out by static.

“THAT’S ONE SMALL STEP FOR A MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND — NEIL ARMSTRONG”

is an anagram of

“AN EAGLE LANDS ON EARTH’S MOON, MAKING A FIRST SMALL PERMANENT FOOTPRINT”

(Note that the sound you hear is your brain exploding…)

Where do Astronauts hang out?

Via Threadless.

This space exploration themed animation is mesmerizing to watch.

By Théo GUIGNARD, Nöé LECOMBRE, Hugo MORENO from GOBELINS, l’école de l’image. Note that that link is generally good for some great procrastinating (esp. if you admire great animation).

Via Drawn

Best Three Word Combination EVER! Solar System Lollipops

From Vintage Confections, via Dooby Brain.

Neil Armstrong: A Giant Among Men

By Zen Pencils.

Gorgeous infographic of space exploration.

Click on the image for full size

Here’s a close up of the trips to our moon and two closest neighbours

From http://www.infographicsonly.com

NASA versus AT&T: You be the judge.

From DogHouseDiaries.

O.K. I got a little teary watching this touching video about the Mars Curiosity Rover. #scienceisawesomethatisall

Via Boing Boing.