I think Lileks likes Spiderman. Guess I’ve gotta go see it…

Captain den Beste has an interesting speculation on what the world would look like to the ancient Egyptians–if they lived on Europa.

Captain den Beste has an interesting speculation on what the world would look like to the ancient Egyptians–if they lived on Europa.

Captain den Beste has an interesting speculation on what the world would look like to the ancient Egyptians–if they lived on Europa.

There’s a nice story over at MSNBC. Hey, NASA, you want to get young people excited about space again? Here’s how.

Krieff said he was amazed at how Bass? space dreams have captured the imagination of the younger generation.

?Kids have been trying to send us checks ? which we don?t accept ? thinking that they can actually help pay for this flight,? he said. ?For 10-year-old kids … I just couldn?t get over that. If the space gods out there are listening, the kids out there are just totally into this. … I?ve been in business 20 years and I?ve never seen anything like it.?

Also, Lori Garver must be really serious. The story also says that she actually had her gall bladder removed last month, because ultrasound showed a small stone, and the Russians wouldn’t allow her to fly with it. I want to go to space pretty badly, but I don’t think I’d do that, unless it had to happen anyway.

[Update at 9:03 AM PDT]

And Mark Shuttleworth says he had a great time and would do it again if he could.

A couple of astronomers have developed techniques for tracking satellites with their ground-based telescopes, using custom software. They’ve made a movie of the International Space Station from the ground. It’s (understandably) fuzzy, but clearly recognizable.

Richard Perry has an interesting analysis of the space tourism market.

[Update at 12:15 PM PDT]

Not really related to the content of this post–it’s more of a metacomment. I just noticed that this was my thousandth post. Frightening.

This is kind of cool. It’s a picture of a Shuttle launch from the space station.

Go sign the petition at this site to allow the pilots to arm themselves.

This is great. And it’s a nice poke in the eye to Bill Clinton, to boot.

Now it would be nice to unsign the socialist Moon Treaty as well, just to make a point, both about what we think of the treaty and any treaty like it, and about what we think of Jimmy Carter, the idiotarian who signed it (fortunately, the Senate never ratified).

And as long as they’re in the process of undoing a lot of this nonsense, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to redo the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, another Cold War/decolonialism relic, and make it more friendly to sovereignty and private enterprise.