Adactio: Links

SpaceWarps

Zooniverse have done it again. Now you can help in the hunt for sources of gravitational lensing.

It’s informative. It’s fun. It has genuine scientific value.

Science Fiction Film as Design Scenario Exercise for Psychological Habitability: Production Designs 1955-2009

A white paper that looks to sci-fi films as potential prototypes for habitats for humans in space, with an emphasis on dealing with the psychological issues involved.

Flickr: ugordan’s Photostream

Gorgeous colour-processed images from NASA probes. I could stare at the fountains of Enceladus all day.

Interstellar Hard Drive - The Morning News

Investigating the options for off-world backups.

Data is only as safe as the planet it sits on. It only takes one rock, not too big, not moving that fast, to hit the Earth at a certain angle and: WHAM! Most living species are done for.

How the hell is your Twitter archive supposed to survive that?

Black Marble - City Lights 2012 - a set on Flickr

Gorgeous pictures from the Suomi satellite, just released by NASA

You, A Rocket Scientist? | Fast Company

Nice! A feature on Ariel and her spacehacking ways.

Space Elevator Science - Climb to the Sky - A Tethered Tower by Michael Laine — Kickstarter

A Kickstarter project for space elevator research? Oh, hell yes!

greg.org: the making of: The Satelloons Of Project Echo: Must. Find. Satelloons.

Bomp. bomp. bomp. Satelloon of love. Bomp. bomp. bomp. Satelloon of love.

ServerSky - Server Sky

Orbiting data centers. Fuck yeah!

Earth can return to what it is good at – green and growing things – while space can be filled with gray and computing things.

Kosmograd: The death of Kosmograd

The Ballardian beauty of a dying Baikonour.

SkyCube: The First Satellite Launched by You! by Tim DeBenedictis — Kickstarter

If this Kickstarter project gets launched, it will literally get launched.

View from the ISS at Night on Vimeo

Another beautiful timelapse video made from photographs taken from the International Space Station.

The music from Sunshine gets me every time.

The Myth of Cyberspace – The New Inquiry

There is a there there after all.

ISS Star Trails - a set on Flickr

Beautiful time-lapse photography from Don “we’ve got a Dragon by the tail” Pettit, taken from the International Space Station.

0x10 ͨ

The premise of the next game from the creator of Minecraft sounds insane and great: a far-future Elite where everything you do is powered by a 16-bit computer.

The computer in the game is a fully functioning emulated 16 bit CPU that can be used to control your entire ship, or just to play games on while waiting for a large mining operation to finish.

Sci-Fi Airshow :: Home

I want to go to there!

This is what Photoshop is for. Be sure to watch the slideshow.

Earth Station: The Afterlife of Technology at the End of the World - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic

The wonderful story of an odd place:

The Jamesburg Earth Station is a massive satellite receiver in a remote valley in California. It played a central role in satellite communications for three decades, but had been forgotten until the current owner put it up for sale, promoting it as a great place to spend the apocalypse.

Lets Imagine Greater - Ariel “Spotlight” - YouTube

How awesome is this!? Ariel is on TV in a promo spot for the Syfy channel …all thanks to Spacehack.org.

Science!

BibliOdyssey: Channelling Martian Maps

Beautiful 19th century maps of Mars.

Lego Man in Space | Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad

They did it. Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad fulfilled that age-old dream: to put a Lego man into space. They have done Canada—and the world—proud.

Travis Schmeisser: We Used To Build Forts on Vimeo

I loved this talk from Travis at New Adventures in Web Design, especially when he talked of the importance of Geocities and MySpace in democratising creative expression on the web.

We may have later bonded over that Ze Frank quote while in the toilet at the after-party …there may have even been hugs.

Vintage Space | A work in progress as I read, research, and write in pursuit of the still-unclear path towards professional spaceflight historian.

A terrific blog devoted to the space race.

The Fermi Paradox, Self-Replicating Probes, and the Interstellar Transportation Bandwidth

Re-examining Von Neumann probes, reconciling their apparent scarcity with the Fermi paradox.

BBC News - Hackers plan space satellites to combat censorship

The network will interpret SOPA as damage and route around it …with SCIENCE!

A masterplan for the moon as a global cemetery. Launch the ashes of your loved ones to the moon (leaving the buckyball container in lunarstationary orbit). Given enough ashes and enough buckyballs, the result is a fertile surface and a atmosphere-trapping layer of fullerine. Terraforming via recycled humans.

Or, if that’s too long-term for you, you can buy a scale-model moon jewel.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS on Vimeo

Gorgeous time-lapse footage from the astronauts in the International Space Station.

Space Ipsum

This is officially the best lorem ipsum generator yet.

Innovation Starvation | World Policy Institute

A rallying cry from Neal Stephenson for Getting Big Stuff Done.

Gavin Rothery - Directing - Concept - VFX - Gavin Rothery Blog

This blog by the visual effects supervisor on Moon is packed full of wonderfully geeky sci-fi movie stories.

Orbital Space Colonies (in form of geometric primitives) : socks-studio

A gallery of all your standard space stations: the Stanford Torus, the Bernal Sphere and the O’Neill Cylinder.

mobilewood - a set on Flickr

We are preparing to launch.

Project Icarus

A joint effort by the Tau Zero Foundation and the British Interplanetary Society to research the design of an interstellar spacecraft.

100 Year Starship Study

Now this looks like a fascinating project …and there’s a symposium happening in Florida at the end of September with Jill Tartar, Stewart Brand and more. I want to go to there.

Atlas V Juno launch - August 5, 2011 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

So long, Juno. Call me when you get to Jupiter.

ISS-Notify by Nathan Bergey — Kickstarter

I want one! An ambient signifier (in lamp form) to let you know when the ISS is flying overhead. Geekgasm!

Setistars

Would you like SETI to resume sweeping the skies in search of extraterrestrial life? Now you can put your money behind re-kickstarting that noble mission.

YouTube - Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity Rover) Mission Animation

The plan to get Curiosity Rover onto the surface of Mars (ignore the cheesy sound effects in space).

Cosmonaut Crashed Into Earth ‘Crying In Rage’ : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR

An astonishing story from the Soviet side of the space race that is equal parts stupidity and sacrifice.

Honor Harger on Lift 11: Geneva

Honor gives a tour of sound from space.

Space stasis: What the strange persistence of rockets can teach us about innovation. - By Neal Stephenson - Slate Magazine

An excellent historical overview of rocketry by Neal Stephenson.

Facebook hype will fade - CNN.com

Douglas Rushkoff on the repeating circle of life that all big online companies live through.

Our Future in the Cosmos—Space

A speech given by Isaac Asimov on the future of humanity in space.

Nanotechnology and Space

Implications of Molecular Nanotechnology Technical Performance Parameters on Previously Defined Space System Architectures.

This paper, delivered at the 1995 Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology (sponsored by Apple Computers) shows the practical applications of diamondoid and fullerene materials not just in constructing a space elevator, but in the subsequent construction of orbital colonies

SSI Sample Slides | Space Studies Institute

The dream of SSI is of a humanity free of the constraints of the Earth. In expanding outward into space, we can not only help to preserve our present biosphere, we can also seed other independent biospheres elsewhere, ensuring the continued survival of life despite any kind of planetary disaster.

Planet Hunters

Another great Zooniverse project: find planets by looking for tell-tale signs of light distortion from distant stars.

The Milky Way Project

The latest Zooniverse project is a beauty: you can help spot bubbles in infra-red images of nebulae.

Dreams of Space - Books and Ephemera

A blog documenting printed visions of space exploration in the form of children's books.

Spacelog

This is a truly excellent project: transcribing and archiving the transmissions of historic space missions. Excellent!

The Space Game

By playing this canvas game, you can help the European Space Agency plan missions to the planets of our solar system.

BBC News - Audio slideshow: Seeing into space

I was invited along to the 2010 Astronomy Photographer of the Year awards ceremony in Greenwich but alas, I wasn't able to make it. Looks like it was fantastic.

Flickr: NASA on The Commons' Photostream

NASA is now part of Flickr Commons: loads of wonderful science-related pictures with no known copyright restrictions.

NASA Joins Web Consortium to Help Improve Universal Access - Yahoo! News

Science meets standards: NASA joins the W3C.

2010 Space Elevator Conference

I would really love to go to this. Our planet needs a space elevator.

An Archaeological Approach to SETI

The search for Dyson spheres.

Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbours again! - Sign out forever!

A quick way of leaving Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and MySpace. It uses the password anti-pattern but after using this, I guess you won't be needing that password again.

Space craft - a set on Flickr

There's some lovely Buran porn here.

How Many People Are In Space Right Now?

My new favourite single serving site.

MoonLander3D Apollo 11 40th Anniversary Edition

Celebrating the Apollo 11 anniversary with Seb's 3D lunar lander game.

Stellarium

A free open source planetarium for your computer.

Inflatable Tower Promises Easy Access to Outer Space: Discovery News

An alternative to the space elevator, an inflatable tower nine miles tall and tethered to a mountain top, could be made of commercially available materials.