I absolutely loved all the entries for the Retro51 The System Alloy generously donated by Mike Dudek of Clicky Post. I asked readers to tell me their favorite space-related bit of trivia, quote, movie, or book to enter the giveaway and boy, did they deliver. It reminded me why I love science fiction and NASA and our collective love of what’s out there beyond the stars.
Can I share a few with you?
- Alan Shepard hit a 6 iron on the moon. (My roommate pulled a similar shenanigan at the White Sands Nuclear Test Site when we visited)
- I can’t fill up a space shuttle with geriatrics! – Space Cowboys
- The Moon has a smell. The astronauts remarked it smelled like firecrackers after they exploded on a wet day, or the smell after a carbine fired. Moon dust is especially clingy. By the time the astronauts returned to earth, the smell was gone.
From One Giant Leap by Charles Fishman - “You’re not a space ranger. You don’t shoot laser or fly.”
“Actually, I can fly”
“No, you can’t.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Can’t. “
“Can.”
“Can’t”
“I could fly around this room with my eyes closed.”
“Ok Mr Light Beer, prove it.”
“Okay then I will. [Buzz then walks to the foot of the bed and climbs the bed post.] To Infinity and beyond.”
Toy Story 1995 (quoted from memory) - Live long and prosper
- I find your lack of faith disturbing.
- 42 is the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”. — Doulas Admas
- “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
- That story about about Soviet astronauts “just using a pencil” (vs. U.S. Americans developing expensive space pens) is apocryphal. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that graphite dust floating around delicate electronics in microgravity is a terrible idea.
Also Tang was never an astronaut thing, it was just a Tang marketing campaign. (Tang is actually what we’ve named our local stray cat. He’s orange, of course) - “900 years of time and space and I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important.” Doctor Who, Time Lord
- We are all made of stars. -Moby
- Astronauts left a tiny little sculpture on the moon. (You guys are making me weepy!)
- The Fisher Space pen was independently developed with no funding from NASA. They were purchased for $6 each for the Apollo missions. This came after they used mechanical pencils that cost $128.89 each!
- Among the top adventures we’ve had as a family was being VIP guests of NASA for the next-to-last (was going to be last at the time) launch of the Space Shuttle. We sat in bleachers near the astronauts families for the launch. Unbelievable sight, sound, and core-shaking rumble along with feelings of amazement, pride, and awe. I’ve been a space fanatic since the Apollo days. These days I pull out my powerful telescope on clear nights for the neighborhood to peer into the wonders beyond our own mother earth.
- One of the biggest thrills was seeing the original Star Trek USS Enterprise NCC-1701 model, complete with running lights, at the National Air and Space Museum.
- “It’s full of stars.” – 2001: A Space Odyssey
- As of the last time I was to the Houston Space Center. Apollo 18 vehicle (canceled due to budget cuts) is still sitting fully assembled.
- June 16 is Captain Picard Day (the day this comment was posted… Make it so, Number 1)
- Klaatu barada nikto
- from the tv show PSYCH: “Did you hear about Pluto? That’s messed up, right?”
- Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!
- They left it out of the movie, but in Carl Sagan’s book “Contact” the alien tells Dr. Arroway that they have discovered that if you calculate Pi out far enough, it becomes a repeating binary code, 0s and 1s, in base 11. The theological import is staggering, that there must be some intelligent design behind the very creation of the universe for a code to have been hidden in one of the fundamental constants of space and time.
- Buzz Aldrin and I are Facebook friends
- The original Star Trek episode where Kirk and Ohura kiss still hasn’t aired in some places on network TV.
- 27% (!!!!) of the universe is dark matter. That scares the crap out of me!
- “A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars- billions upon billions of stars. Every star may be a sun to someone.” Carl Sagan – Cosmos
- Gas giants are failed stars!
For some reason, this has always struck me as a weirdly romantic way to describe planets like Jupiter and Saturn (because as gas giants, they contain some of the same elements as a star.) - “Every generation has the obligation to free men’s minds for a look at new worlds . . . to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.”
And finally, our winner:
Well, of course you won… you are my people, Brian.
My office mates approve of your quote.
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