Nerd Lord @fluff-bunnycat - Tumblr Blog

if im not a lost cause neither are you

i would die for this thing

he's called Rise (like earth rise, the best fucking space picture ever) and he's the ZGI (zero gravity indicator) for this launch

which basically means they have a plushie free floating in the shuttle and when it starts floating around they know they're in zero gravity :3

infectiouspiss

WHEEEE!!!!!! YIPPEEEE!!!!!!! SPAAAAAAACE!!!!!!!!!

were--ralph

idk if you've seen the DLSS5 memes but i think they're great, we're so back

were--ralph

for context, Nvidia or somebody showed off "photo realistic lighting" with DLSS5 and its just yassifying game characters with ai

so naturally

mrtechlab

Learned recently the Artemis II mission is carrying a 1in. x 1in. piece of the canvas used in the Wright brother’s Flyer, oohhh man. I love technology but I also adore beyond everything the sentiment for the past we attach to advancements, because a lot of people think there’s no need to remember the time we could barely figure out plane flight while blasting off to go briefly orbit the moon.

There’s sometimes a mindset of science purely for advancement, the next big thing, which feels both distinctly human and un-human (inhuman? Uhhhh) It’s our nature to go as far as we can, build until we hit something that can actually stop us. Learn and see it all. But we’re also the people that saw shapes in the stars; we have to give it all meaning. Artemis II is only one part of a much larger plan, but by itself it’s still an incredible feat. Every step of the way has meaning to the world, and taking a single square inch of fabric to make us look back is a really nice reminder of all of it.

kyraneko

"What makes one step a giant leap is all the steps before."

escuerzoresucitado

“I’ve been told by my producer not to do an impression of a peacock” 🦚

fred-the-dinosaur

i love her

ex0skeletal-undead

Digital illustrations by Runandwine

mlembug

Now if Iron Lung the movie gets a Blu-ray release, I suggest adding in the director's commentary starting with "Hello everybody, my name is Markiplier..." and also Markiplier in the corner.

mlembug

#the person behind me in the theatre offered me a tiny paper markiplier #and a toothpick and some tape so that i could tape him to my glasses #so for the entire film i had an extremely blurry tiny paper markiplier in the corner of my vision #and it actually enhanced the experience i think #shoutout to the person behind me for printing too many markipliers and offering him to my friends and I #genuinely made my night it was so wonderful LOL #iron lung

upgrading the prev's tags into a post

cityyliights

live markiplier reaction

motobug

ya...!

gokucat

feeding her stuffie must live on....

druid-for-hire

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.

ambrosial-sunshine

For the painting especially there’s a beauty in depicting some of our most advanced technology as synonymous with the most ancient. Very few people throughout history have had the privilege of seeing the face of Jupiter but many would recognize the sling thrower immediately.

sourdough-seal

hey i know i asked for constructive criticism but what i actually wanted was for you to tell me i'm extremely talented. and also pretty. sorry if that was unclear