It was a challenge to find a neat photo to use today, one that I hadn’t used last year on the “big” anniversary. 41 years ago today, man first set foot on the lunar surface. As Pars3c pointed out, it’s good to remember this stuff more often than just the “fives” and “tens”.

It’s hard to know how to feel on this anniversary. A year ago, NASA was still going to the Moon (in a human way.) The public was watching WeChooseTheMoon.org as it counted down the milestones of Apollo 11 in real-time. On a very microscopic level, in the grand scheme of things, I was still figuring out this blog and had not yet rebranded and moved to a fabulous new domain. Also, my theme dictated that my pictures be smaller than they are now. (Hooray for bigger pictures!)

Now, it seems to me that all of NASA is up in the air, seemingly doomed by a statement from the current NASA administrator that we can’t leave LEO without international help. Really? We can’t? If you say so…. At this moment, people are gathered at a conference, presenting the myriad of reasons why the Moon is a great place to go — a fascinating collection of mysteries begging for human hands to explore them. Yet, by our current president’s statement, “we’ve already been there.” Really? It’s over, just like that? Well, if you say so….

And so I find myself hunkering down in the past, the way I’ve always been. I was asked this weekend to contribute to a podcast — and sadly I couldn’t — about how Apollo affected me personally. It’s a hard question. I was born in 1978, so I missed the whole thing by a matter of years. Still, I had the space bug from a very young age, and although I was a child of the Space Shuttle, the moon landings particularly fascinated me. Apollo made me want to become an astronaut, and although things didn’t go that way, it still has a profound effect on me. I dreamed, and still do dream, of the Moon. I’ll probably always be stuck in the past, between Apollo and the Shuttle. Certainly I see no reason to stick my head out into the future. At the moment, NASA gives me no hope at all. Perhaps commercial endeavors will, in time. We’ll see.

Image Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi

I’ve seen and heard snippets of this poem, but never read it in entirety before this week. It is a beautiful thing. (Hat tip to John C. Wright for posting it!) It seems to fit well with this lovely launch photo — the rocket in question delivered three individuals into orbit on Wednesday, and to the ISS yesterday.

High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds…and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of…wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

This video of spacecraft Hayabusa’s reentry is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a long, long time. It’s one minute of your day, and it’s VERY MUCH worth watching.

A group of astronomers from NASA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and other organizations had a front row seat to observe the Hayabusa spacecraft’s fiery plunge into Earth’s atmosphere. The team flew aboard NASA’s DC-8 airborne laboratory, packed with cameras and other imaging instruments, to capture the high-speed re-entry over an unpopulated area of central Australia on June 13, 2010. The Japanese spacecraft completed its seven-year, 1.25 billion mile journey to return a sample of the asteroid Itokawa.

Credit: Lavochkin Association

I have to admit, when I saw this photo of Lunokhod 1, my first reaction was “oh, HOW CUTE!” (My second reaction was to wonder how much better it would look if recreated in brass, steampunk-style. Mmm. Appealing.) A small version of this little guy could follow me around the house, and I would not mind one bit. Or maybe I’m just insane. Eep.

It may look like some sort of cute alien robot, but it was created here on Earth, launched to the Moon in 1970, and now reflects laser light in a scientifically useful way. On November 17, 1970 the Soviet Luna 17 spacecraft landed the first roving remote-controlled robot on the Moon. Known as Lunokhod 1, it weighed just under 2,000 pounds and was designed to operate for 90 days while guided in real-time by a five person team near Moscow, USSR. Lunokhod 1 toured the lunar Sea of Rains (Mare Imbrium) for 11 months in one of the greatest successes of the Soviet lunar exploration program. This Lunokhod’s operations officially ceased in 1971. Earlier this year, however, the position of the rover was recovered by NASA’s moon-orbiting Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Given that position, laser pulses from Earth were successfully bounced off the old robot’s reflector. Bouncing laser pulses off of this and other lunar reflectors could yield range data to the moon accurate enough to track millimeter-sized deviations in the Moon’s orbit, effectively probing lunar composition and testing gravitational theories.

Credit: SpaceX/Chris Thompson

This is but one of many spectacular photos of SpaceX’s successful first launch of the Falcon 9 rocket:

At 2:45 p.m. EDT on Friday, June 4, 2010, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) successfully launched its first Falcon 9 rocket from Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The inaugural liftoff, which placed a mockup of the company’s Dragon crew and cargo spacecraft into orbit, came on the second launch attempt of the day after a last-second scrub.

“We put our Falcon 9 rocket into orbit, it achieved a near bullseye on the target. We would have been excited even to have the first stage work or get some of the way through the second stage burn,” said SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk. “It has been a great day.”

Let us hope this heralds the dawn of a bright new era of commercial spaceflight. (Thanks to collectSPACE/Robert Z. Pearlman for the lovely photo gallery!)

VSS Enterprise First Flight, The Triumph of Private “Enterprise”. Photo by Mark Greenberg

In an effort to avoid all the “last” pictures I keep stumbling across (in reference to the Space Shuttle program), here’s a cheerful “first” instead: Virgin Galactic VSS Enterprise’s first ‘captive carry’ flight.

Virgin Galactic announced today that VSS Enterprise has completed her inaugural captive carry flight from Mojave Air and Spaceport.

This very first captive carry was a huge success and both the mothership and spaceship looked absolutely stunning against the blue back drop of the Mojave skies.

VSS Enterprise First Flight, seen from below. Photo by Mark Greenberg

15 finalists were selected on January 4, and while I agree with some of the picks (they were some of my favorites as well; more on that below), there were two designs I am really surprised to NOT see in the final 15. I’m featuring these two designs as an “editor’s choice” of sorts. Because… why not? It’s my blog, and these artists deserve a shoutout!

I guess I should disclose that I know the artist behind this patch — but really, I think this is a standout design because of its simplicity. There aren’t any words on the patch, but it doesn’t need any. In my opinion, this design expresses everything about the Shuttle program, commemorates the astronauts that fell along the way, and highlights the major achievements, all without “saying” a word. It’s beautifully done.

Here’s the artist-supplied caption:

The five orbiters shown represent Columbia, Challenger, Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour. The fourteen stars are to represent each of those who lost their lives on shuttle missions, with one of the stars having six points like a Star of David, in honor of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon (as was seen in the STS-107 patch). Also shown is the earth, because the shuttle was bound to low earth orbit. Finally, two of the shuttle program’s greatest and most recognizable accomplishments are represented- the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope.

I felt that each of the orbiters should be shown as they were all so important to the program. As someone that works on them, each seems to have its own personality, in a way. In commemorating the program, I wanted to honor the fallen astronauts. Let us never forget them and what we learned from losing them. I also thought it was important to include two shining examples of what was accomplished by the shuttle program: the International Space Station for the amazing science that has been and continues to be performed there, and the Hubble Space Telescope for bringing the heavens so much closer to earth in crisp, clear images.

And my other pick is this one:

What immediately drew me to this patch is how different it looks. The colors aren’t typical (compared to the other entries), and the design is very unique — it incorporates a sundial motif, which gives it extra awesome points in my opinion. I think the text is fantastic, I love the navy and gold, and I like the symbolism:

The concept is simple–remember life at every hour. The patch commemorates the life of the orbiter and the lives of those astronauts lost onboard Challenger and Columbia. Through life, memories are made, and the success of the Space Shuttle Program is remembered.

In graphic form, the patch is a sundial. The years 1981 (the first shuttle launch) and 2010 (the last) are fitted at the two edges. The space shuttle orbiter is shown as a blueprint–the beginning–embarking on a journey into a sunset–the end. The two gold shuttles flanking the patch represent Challenger (1986) and Columbia (2003). And the seven stars represent the crew of seven from those two flights. The center star is slightly larger to accentuate the center of the sundial. The shuttle is the main object of the sundial (the tail being the gnomon) and it pulls the seven stars forward as it flies. However, the shuttle does not cast a shadow in the design–its legacy is vivid. And the last element of the patch sums up the overall concept with the Latin verse, Tempus omnia sed memorias privat–time deprives all but memories.

That last bit bolded by me, because I like it.

As for my favorites from the 15 finalists, here’s the ones I think are particularly strong (the last one is my favorite):

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

I guess this is a Thursday? two-fer. This may not be the world’s most exciting space picture, but it happens to be one of space telescope WISE’s ‘first light’ images — the very first to be taken. Think of it as the telescope opening its “eyes”, as it were. It’s a significant moment, and I wanted to capture it here, while it’s fresh.

This infrared snapshot of a region in the constellation Carina near the Milky Way was taken shortly after NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) ejected its cover. The “first-light” picture shows thousands of stars and covers an area three times the size of the moon. WISE will take more than a million similar pictures covering the whole sky.

The image was captured as the spacecraft stared in a fixed direction, in order to help calibrate its pointing system. The mission’s survey will be done while the satellite continuously scans the sky, and an internal scan mirror counteracts the motion to create freeze-frame images. The team is working now to match the motions of the spacecraft and the scan mirror precisely.

This eight-second exposure shows infrared light from three of WISE’s four wavelength bands: Blue, green and red correspond to 3.4, 4.6, and 12 microns, respectively.

Double-posting today, too awesome not to pass on: last night, what you see above appeared over the skies of Norway. This is not an aurora, and NOT Photoshop, as there are many witnesses, videos and photos. Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy has the explanation (most likely, a rocket/missile gone awry; if you’re not convinced, watch the video at the bottom), Gizmodo has collected the pictures and a video, and The Daily Mail has eyewitness interviews and more videos (and photos with credit, which I borrowed.) I learned about this initially from Space Weather, and despite it likely being a man-made phenomenon, it’s still quite a sight to behold!

Spiral light over Norway. Photo by Jan Petter Jørgensen

What you see above is no longer just a concept:

SpaceShipTwo (VSS Enterprise), as unveiled on December 7, 2009

All I can say is the future of suborbital space travel is exciting and beautiful.

Edit, later that same day: adding a few more photographs courtesy of collectSPACE:

WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo. Credit: Robert Pearlman/collectSPACE.com

SpaceShipTwo/VSS Enterprise. Credit: Robert Pearlman/collectSPACE.com

Galactic Girl (based on Eve Branson.) Credit: Robert Pearlman/collectSPACE.com

Cosmic Log has a nice recap of last night’s unveiling, and a great quote to go along with that last photo:

VSS Enterprise is emblazoned with an image of “Galactic Girl,” a mascot who is modeled after Branson’s mother as she looked in the 1940s, but floating in zero-G. The painting was done by one of her grandsons, Ned Rocknroll.

While we were there, Eve Branson, who admits to being near her 90s, stopped by to look at her likeness. “These are your belly-dancing days,” Richard Branson joked.

“Could have made the boobs a little bit bigger,” his mother said, grinning all the while.

“Never satisfied, never satisfied,” the son replied.