Tokyo’s Haneda Airport is home to a unique café and planetarium: the Planetarium Starry Café. Dine under the stars… in an airport! (Read more about Haneda here.)

Image courtesy of USA Today, TIAT.

I have armloads of amazing things to show and tell, but this morning, as I hang out with the remnants of our #nasatweetup crew in Florida, what I want to share is a couple of fun things. (I’m writing this at 3 am, staying up to leave for the airport at 5 am.) Above, the Space Shuttle inflatable pool toy we’ve been playing with tonight in the pool (courtesy of @herrea); below, a SILVER ROCKET I found at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure yesterday, which the rest of my party insisted I be photographed with. (I was also complemented on choosing to wear an EPCOT shirt to Universal.)

Photo by Danny Sussman (@TheSuss)

Map created by Samuel Arbesman

I have to say, I am just in AWE of this terrific concept by Samuel Arbesman. Not only does it ingeniously illustrate the relative positions of things in our galaxy, it mimics possibly my favorite map in the process (does one have such a thing as a favorite map? I hadn’t considered it until now, but yes, my statement is accurate: the Tube map is definitely my favorite map.)

This map is an attempt to approach our galaxy with a bit more familiarity than usual and get people thinking about long-term possibilities in outer space. Hopefully it can provide as a useful shorthand for our place in the Milky Way, the ‘important’ sights, and make inconceivable distances a bit less daunting. And while convenient interstellar travel is nothing more than a murky dream, and might always be that way, there is power in creating tools for beginning to wrap our minds around the interconnections of our galactic neighborhood.

Read the whole thing, it’s worthwhile.

Sky photo credit & copyright: Tony Hallas, astrophoto.com

Tony Hallas doesn’t know how his photo above thrilled me to bits on Christmas Day — I never dreamed I’d see my home-mountain — is that a term? I live at the foot of it — on APOD! I live near Mount Shasta, California, which is on the right side of his photo; I’ve cropped it above to show just Mt. Shasta, because it’s clearly better than Mt. Lassen and YES I AM EXTREMELY BIASED, I DON’T CARE! (If you don’t believe me, see for yourself. And if you like those sites, click here, eheh. Thank you.)

Anyway, all mountain-bias aside, I’d like to wish all my visitors and regular readers a very happy 2010 — may yours be especially awesome! Thanks for your (site) patronage!!

Happy holidays and merry Christmas from all of us me, here at Silver Rockets!

Somehow I missed that Hubble released two new holiday cards for this year, and I’m annoyed, so I’m posting one of them below. So there.

This cute, plushie Space Shuttle goes on your golf club? I guess? (Can you tell I know nothing about golf?) Here’s what the page says:

Space Shuttle headcover. 13″ sock to protect your graphite shafts. No numbers so that they can be put on any sized metal wood.

So if you golf… you probably know what that means! (How can something be metal AND wood? Eep.) At any rate, it’s cute!

For every version of Animal Crossing I play, one of my main game goals is to complete the Space Theme set. (Shown is the set as it is for Animal Crossing: City Folk, the Wii version.) As you can see, it has all a girl (or boy!) needs to be space-TACULAR. Also, the Lunar Surface (the carpet, with matching Lunar Horizon wallpaper) makes a lovely moon-dust crunchy sound when you walk on it.

(One of our recently-new villagers, Carmen, arrived with most of the Space Theme in her house, and matching wall and floor. Although I ran to her house during the first convenient Flea Market, alas, already she’d gotten rid of the Rocket. I don’t know who has it, or what happened to it, but I sure do know that it is NOT IN MY HOUSE, AS IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE. She did sell me her Lunar Lander though, which is something.)

Just as an added bonus, here is my house, with my recently (painstakingly) rendered flag of the Moon. Because I needed one. Free Luna.

I was never a Girl Scout (nor was I a Boy Scout, for that matter), so I had no idea there were space-oriented merit badges to be earned! This charming account by Ken Murphy describes his experience riding herd over 50 girls, helping them earn their badges. Neat stuff, definitely give it a read!

I can’t help but post a couple more pictures of this strange, strange stuff. A supreme insulator, aerogel keeps matches from lighting and crayons from melting, even with a blow-torch below!