Recent comments in /f/space

abslte23 OP t1_j4a4yaa wrote

Reply to comment by SpaceInMyBrain in space themed room by abslte23

I loved them and used to be able to shoot them off at a local school. Years later I took my son to shoot them off there. A lot had changed the woods were turned into a development. We shit off a 6' rocket and a gust of wind grabbed it. Took it over a soccer field, two baseball fields, and a street or two into the new development. I was worried about recovering the rocket cut my son loved it. So we went looking for it and found a nice black gentleman mowing his yard with his son playing with it. I asked for it back his words were "I'm black I thought Obama was targeting me with a drone. I didn't think he would do this to me." It was funny in the moment anyway

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SpaceInMyBrain t1_j4a3km5 wrote

Reply to comment by abslte23 in space themed room by abslte23

I appreciate being appreciated. :)

Check again, I just added some stuff about specific pics of Earth taken by Apollo missions.

My brothers and I tried a few small Estes rocket but didn't catch the bug.

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abslte23 OP t1_j4a2mcz wrote

Reply to comment by SpaceInMyBrain in space themed room by abslte23

Thanks for putting the effort into this post. It's helped organize some of my thoughts around rockets. I remember watching the Tesla launch hard to believe it was 4 years ago.

Model rockets (Estes) were a hobby of mine as a child. I wonder if they have any SpaceX models. I think I saw a few in the past from other suppliers but they were pretty pricey. Off to Google I go

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SpaceInMyBrain t1_j4a0x20 wrote

Reply to comment by abslte23 in space themed room by abslte23

A poster of the solar system is always good. A long one with good detailed renderings of the planets, maybe with facts next to them. She can get into the facts at her own pace. There are almost too many to choose from when "posters of the solar system" is googled. Here's one, although there may easily be others with more visual impact.

You can't go wrong with the classic full photo of Earth taken by Apollo 17, or "Earthrise over the Moon" by Apollo 8. A less frequently seen one includes the Apollo 11 lunar module as it ascends from the 1st Moon landing. That odd looking spacecraft could spark questions over the years that'll lead to many long answers.

For rockets and spacecraft I suggest the forward looking ones that will be around while she's growing up. The newest current one is the Dragon capsule on top of the Falcon 9 rocket. It will be flying crews for the coming years. Photos of it are not rare. The forward looking one is the SpaceX Starship, it's trying to leap two generations of design and technology. It also looks awesome. The SpaceX official Flickr site has some crazy good recent photos. Afaik the file size is good enough to print, if you know someone/some store with a largish format photo printer. Yes, those are real photos, not CGI. If you're not familiar with Starship: it's the tallest and most powerful rocket ever, it's fully reusable (both parts come back to land), and the first flight will be by March.

An iconic picture or two from the Apollo era will be nice but she should be looking forward. The Artemis program will be unfolding into her teen years but I'd downplay the SLS rocket and Orion capsule. They won't be flying for long if Starship is successful. They're here for the present but in design and concept they're old tech, backward looking tech.

My favorite source is Tony Bela, an awesome old-school illustrator who is very up to date. His site has plenty of infographic posters, not too large. I used to love the infographic illustrations in magazines when I was a kid during the Space Race, at 9 or 10 years old and onward. I'd pore over them over and over. Maybe good for her now, or maybe better for later.

If you're not into rockets you can still leave one Easter egg for later. She'll think it's just a cool imaginative picture - and be very surprised to learn at some point it's for real and launched in 2018. Actual astronaut not included, lol.

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