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I have what I like to call main character syndrome where anyone who has authority and a required level of charisma I end up at least slightly attracted to and anyway the more I learn about Sally Ride the more I fall in love with her. She was truly an astronaut's astronaut in every sense of the position.

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Please consider signing the petition for the Planetary Society.

"The current administration's 2026 budget request includes a staggering 47% cut to NASA's science programs as part of a 25% cut to NASA overall. This is an extinction-level event for the Earth and space science communities, upending decades of work and tens of billions in taxpayers' investment. But there is still time to stop these cuts from taking effect.

The public has an important opportunity to tell Congress to reject these cuts and restore proper funding to NASA science before the budget for 2026 is written. Add your name now to tell Congress: Save NASA Science."

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"This test conducted in May 1988 shows what happens during launch if a space shuttle main engine fails. The test was conducted in the 10X10 supersonic wind tunnel at the John H. Glenn Research Center."

Date: April 15, 1988

NASA ID: GRC-1988-C-03840

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Liftoff of Space Shuttle Discovery from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida was at 6:21 a.m. (EDT) on the STS-131 mission.

"Onboard are NASA astronauts Alan Poindexter, commander; James P. Dutton Jr., pilot; Rick Mastracchio, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson and Clayton Anderson; along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Naoko Yamazaki, all mission specialists. The seven-member crew will deliver the multi-purpose logistics module Leonardo, filled with supplies, a new crew sleeping quarters and science racks that will be transferred to the International Space Station's laboratories. The crew also will switch out a gyroscope on the station's truss structure, install a spare ammonia storage tank and retrieve a Japanese experiment from the station's exterior. STS-131 is the 33rd shuttle mission to the station and the 131st shuttle mission overall."

Date: April 5, 2010

NASA ID: KSC-310D-0338

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"Inside the Mission Control Center, flight controllers work during the Gemini I mission, an orbital test of the Titan-II launch vehicle.

The Mercury Mission Control Center in Florida played a key role in the United States' early spaceflight program. Located at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the original part of the building was constructed between 1956 and 1958, with additions in 1959 and 1963. The facility officially was transferred to NASA on Dec. 26, 1963, and served as mission control during all the Project Mercury missions, as well as the first three flights of the Gemini Program, when it was renamed Mission Control Center. With its operational days behind, on June 1, 1967, the Mission Control Center became a stop on the public tour of NASA facilities until the mid-90s. In 1999, much of the equipment and furnishings from the Flight Control Area were moved to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex where they became part of the exhibit there. The building was demolished in spring 2010."

Date: April 8, 1964

NASA ID: KSC-64C-861, S64-0408

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There's this sort of anthropomorphizing that inherently happens in language that really gets me sometimes. I'm still not over the terminology of "gravity assist," the technique where we launch satellites into the orbit of other planets so that we can build momentum via the astounding and literally astronomical strength of their gravitational forces, to "slingshot" them into the direction we need with a speed that we could never, ever, ever create ourselves. I mean, some of these slingshots easily get probes hurtling through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour. Wikipedia has a handy diagram of the Voyager 1 satellite doing such a thing.

"Gravity assist." "Slingshot." Of course, on a very basic and objective level, yes, we are taking advantage of forces generated by outside objects to specifically help in our goals. We're getting help from objects in the same way a river can power a mill. And of course we call it a "slingshot," because the motion is very similar (mentally at least; I can't be sure about the exact physics).

Plus, especially compared to the other sciences, the terminology for astrophysics is like, really straightforward. "Black hole?" Damn yeah it sure is. "Big bang?" It sure was. "Galactic cluster?" Buddy you're never gonna guess what this is. I think it's an effect of the fact that language is generally developed for life on earth and all the strange variances that happen on its surface, that applying it to something as alien and vast as space, general terms tend to suffice very well in a lot more places than, like... idk, botany.

But, like. "Gravity assist." I still can't get the notion out of my head that such language implies us receiving active help from our celestial neighbors. They come to our aid. We are working together. We are assisted. Jupiter and the other planets saw our little messengers coming from its pale blue molecular cousin, and we set up the physics just right, so that they could help us send them out to far stranger places than this, to tell us all about what they find out there.

We are assisted.

And there is no better way to illustrate my feelings on the matter than to just show you guys one of my favorite paintings, this 1973 NASA art by Rick Guidice to show the Pioneer probe doing this exact thing:

"... You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. ..."

Gravity assist.

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From a corporate annual report for CONDEC, the conglomerate owner of Unimation, the world’s first company dedicated to manufacturing industrial robots, July 31, 1969. Via @salem_elzway

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Diagram showing the various components of an Apollo space mission.

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A Kenworth K100 moving the space shuttle Enterprise in 1977. 📸 @kenworthtruckco #kenworthk100 #k100 #1977 #spaceshuttle #spaceshuttleenterprise #cdlhunter @cdlhunter — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/3cg0ZGF

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NASA Mission Control Center, 1961 / Alan Shepard waits to become the first American in space, 1961

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sounds fake. this is where i post from btw

I didn’t think I’d need to clarify this because I’ve had this username for like a decade, but I’m a 28 year old lesbian and Neil Armstrong passed away in 2012

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View of Earth, Atlantic Ocean, MR-3/Freedom 7.

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LIFE Magazine following the completion of Apollo 9, March 14, 1969

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March 6, 2009 — The Kepler Space Telescope launches from Cape Canaveral

Kepler, named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, was NASA's first planet-hunting mission and searched for Earth-sized planets outside the solar system. During its nine years of operations, it discovered over 2,600 exoplanets before retiring in October 2018.

image credit: NASA/USAF

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Docking module, ASTP