NASA
NASA
Just lighting things on fire and seeing how high they’ll go since 1958.
(Space Shuttle Launch)
picture: dunno source, via our lol builder. lol caption: Byrd
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TOO SOON!
*sobs*
lol
One of my favorite lines in a movie: “Do you realize we’re sitting in a bomb with two-hundred-fifty-thousand moving parts all built by the lowest bidder?”
my favorite space quote… “russian components, american components, all made in taiwan!”
Also Armageddon…
Didn’t like that film… apart from the fact that Bruce Willis died -it was about time considering he hardly ever does, no matter how many times random evildoers shoot him…
I liked the blowing-up-asteroids part but they had to put the sappy love story in, too….sappy love stories do not belong in action or scifi movies. Period.
the sappy love story was only marginally improved by the appearance of liv tyler…
And completely destroyed by the perpetually annoying Ben Affleck. And the whole melodramatic death scene for Bruce Willis was beyond my tolerance. But Steve Buscemi is awesome.
Crap science too… and the only characters I liked were the huge black guy and the crazy Russian…
When the Russian is like “I VANT TO GO HOME” and is beating the machine like a red headed stepchild I laugh my ass off. That’s great.
Steve Buscemi riding the nuke was made of win too.
I like the Russian mightily. Peter Stormare does those roles well. (Alas, he gets to do only those roles. (Then again, that’s probably as well, he might have forgotten how to do anything else. (I know he’s done other stuff but I’ve not felt inclined to see those flicks.)))
He’s Swedish! I didn’t know that…. cool! I’m a quarter Swedish, btw. Must be why I’m tall…
Anyhoo, Peter Stormare had a fabulous role in “Prison Break”. Dunno if he’s still on the show because once they broke out, what was the point in continuing to watch?
he was on the show until about halfway through the second season. that’s the season when they were on the run… he met up with the FBI and they made him look a bit like swiss cheese.
You’re more Swedish than I am then.
Yeah, I heard that he was in Prison Break, but I could never be arsed to follow that show.
I like him in the VW commercials. I suspect he would kill in a comedic role.
He has a tendency to make almost all his roles a little bit comedic, like the one in Armageddon. or the one in Fargo. Or the nihilist in Big Lebowski. (I guess I’d say all those movies are comedies.)
I haven’t seen Fargo and forgot about the Big Lebowski.
That carpet really pulled the room together.
Great movie, that!
Reading through Peter Stormare’s page on imdb I find we have one thing in common (apart from being born in Sweden :p):
“His favorite actor is Gary Oldman.”
.
I think that’s my favourite actor too. Varies a bit depending on my mood, but most of the time, yes.
*tangles up in triple parentheticals; dies*
I could’ve gone on! And on. And on and on and on and
*starts foaming at the corners of the mouth*
Sappy love story = Barfing emoticon (do you get those?)
And the “you-random-civilians-have-5-and-a-half-seconds-to-save-the-world-ZOMG” kind of bored me. Like everyone really was going to die. Maybe they should make more films like those so when the world does get saved it’s more fun…
did you like deep impact more?
That’s a rather personal question. We barely know each other!
The science was less painful, but David Duchovny’s squeeze always looks like she has a sinus infection and can’t actually act…
She sounds like she has a sinus infection too.
since the ‘random evil doer’ is seldom as good a shot as my mother, I don’t think I’ve seen him shot… although he may have been in ‘Last Man Standing’
he got shot a couple times in that movie… but i don’t think he died… he did get shot AND die in the sixth sense though…
He couldn’t die in LMS… he had to kill Christopher Walken in the last reel
He was dead at the start of sixth sense
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY, Fester, WHY???????? *sobs* Tooo sooooooon!!!! I hadn’t seen the ending yet!!! ARGH!!! *runs off into the sunset, screaming*
Good old M Night “It’s a twist!” Shamalamadingdong. Yeah, schmoopydoop, it sure is! Ten minutes into the movie and I’m thinking, “Bruce Willis is dead. Ooookay, should I just leave now?” Turns out I should have.
He actually said he was afraid smart people in the audience would catch it, but thankfully for him, not enough people did
I’m usually pretty good at picking up on clues like he was waving in front of me, but it took me watching it a second time to figure out the use of color and placement on everything. Now, Unbreakable, that one I had figured out in 5 minutes 
Bad froofrou! Stop making me remember horrible movies!
*blushes* I kind of liked Unbreakable, AND Lady in the Water
I liked Sixth Sense, even though it’s pretty clear he’s a ghost; I will also admit that I liked Signs a LOT, even though it doesn’t really hold up to logical inpection well at all (“They can’t touch water, so they come to a planet that’s 71% covered in it without any protective gear? Really?”). The first breaking news clip where they show the home video shot of the alien may well be the last time I actually yelped out loud in a movie theater — it really startled me!
I didn’t watch it but hearing the twist made me lose interest. Then again, I live in Iowa and know how damp a cornfield is at night…
I loved Signs, and I loved the fact that it was universally panned mainly because it had ‘too Christian of a theme’.
@DWN: Yeah, stupid twist but I thought an enjoyable movie. (With the caveat that the part where his wife dies, seen in flashbacks, makes me cry like a little bitch…*sigh* I’m easily manipulated by stuff like that.)
Huh? Explain to the Cretin King, he is confuzzled.
… *has an urge to bite a Diss*
I need to learn to keep that impulse down better. If it makes you feel better, I get misty eyed in Braveheart. He says that closing line about warrior poets, like Scotsmen and I choke up. Sad really.
@DWN: the main character was a minister in a small town, who loses his faith after his wife is killed in a freak accident. Part of the plot centers around his move from “hating God” to an acceptance that possibly what he blamed God for was part of a larger plan, if that makes sense at all.
That, and the notion that everything, I mean EVERYTHING, bad and good, happens for a reason that goes toward the greater good.
Well color the Cretin King enlightened… *adds to reasons not to watch Signs*
i can’t believe that no one brought up the village… now there is a mind bogglingly terrible movie…
*liked The Village too * *slinks away*
It looked stupid so I avoided it. I like to pretend that M Night only made Unbreakable and Sixth Sense…
I didn’t think it was terrible, but I figured it out way, way too quickly. I also thought it was oddly similar in concept to a book one of my kids read a few years before that, “Running Out of Time”. [link]
You have to understand that my tastes in movies run far and wide. I like movies that make you think, make you cry, make you lose a few IQ points in the watching, make you horny, make you smarter, make you wonder why the guy directing even has a job……it really depends on my mood. I love Shaymalan (or whatever) because he’s found a niche and has stayed in it. Now, granted, it’s not always the greatest niche in the world, but you always know what to expect with his movies. Except for his latest. That sucked such major ass that I can’t even remember the title.
The lady in the water or was there yet another after that?
There was another. I liked LITW. The last one about the trees getting pissed and attacking in such ways as to make people kill themselves made me want to kill myself.
LITW seemed to be making fun of itself as it went along. I can always respect that in ANY kind of movie. Or actor (i.e. Christopher Walken
)
@Froofrou: We are very similar in that regard. I actually like a number of movies that people call dumb simply because I found something to like about the movie or something redeeming. Then again, I am mercurial enough where I just hate some movies to the bones for ruining what should be a slamdunk wad of awesome. Like Dragon Wars… How they screwed up the idea of awesome dragon destroying the world action, I will never know but they did and I hope they die in a fire screaming about how their STDs are eating a hole in their flesh while midgets in flame resistant clothing hit them with sticks that bear nails from the blood of the Phelps clan…
*nails RUSTED from the blood of the Phelps clan.
You guys can add me to the list of people that like movies that are not exactly…acclaimed. I….liked Cloverfield. Kind of a lot.
None of the aforementioned Shamalamadingdong movies are NEARLY as horrible as his most recent “film,” The Happening. It’s almost so terrible as to be awesome, but not quite. Seriously. He should be deeply ashamed.
I also enjoy watching movies that others find “beneath” them, as I know movies are mostly made for entertainment. I can usually tell if a movie will be dumb o I check my brain at the door, sometimes I’m wrong and get sorely disappointed. Like with Cloverfield (sorry diss). But other movies I can usually suspend the disbelief and enjoy the brain (or eye) candy.
But yeah, The Village was pretty bad.
*SO I check my brain at the door.
I loved The Village, hehe. But that’s probably only because of Adrian Brody. I also loved ‘Half Baked’. Go figure
I enjoy the Ben n Jerry’s Half Baked ice cream.
Chunky Monkey. Yeah buddy
@DWN
In the ‘films I like but no one else did, not even the actors’… Hudson Hawk…
I had a ball when we saw “Snakes on a Plane”. I had no expectations for the moive and so was not disappointed when it met them or, once in a while, exceeded them. I had way too many expectations for the latest Indiana Jones movie and was very disappointed in that one.
Count me as stupid, though, ’cause I totally missed that BW was dead in the Sixth Sense. I was so into that movie that if someone had sneezed around me, i would have shot out of my seat like, well, like that space shuttle up there!!!
froofrou,
I loved both of those movies.
And now that I’ve read a bit more of the comments…
I loved both of THOSE movies too!
The Happening – I watched the whole movie waiting for it. Nothing happened. WTF?
Least this means I get to keep my title as Cretin King since I didn’t have it figured out in the first five minutes on those movies and actually liked them. Then again, I was just enjoying the story and wasn’t trying to piece things together fervently or I really am dim, who knows.
Oddly enough, now I want to watch Unbreakable again.
When did you get who Keyser Soze was?
I hope you didn’t just ruin the end of the Happening. j/k
OMG Bruce Willis dies in 6th Sense? Spoilers! Spoilers!!
(Just kidding. I saw that movie.)
I can’t remember for sure, but I think it was DWN who
linked this T-shirt a while back. [LINK]
That is the BESTEST!!!
Wasn’t me love. I am just now seeing that for the first time.
My papa was watching “Tears of the sun” or some such thing and said something along the lines of: “Bruce-die-hard-Willis: mair bullets shot in him than wis fired in the hale o World war 2″… It was exactly like that. Dire film…
he’s in a movie called twelve monkeys, very very good in my opinion all things considered. He’s shot twice in that movie, once in the leg by a WW2 bullet. and once in an airport
and then dies…
Lynn saw Twelve Monkeys, blinked at me a bit, asked for a bit of clarification, and then lost any desire to see it again. I, however, still like Twelve Monkeys.
i had someone purposly throwing us off. it was annoying, but kinda funny
I would have the urge to smack them. Hard…
12 Monkeys is one of my favourites. I especially like the part where Bruce Willis eats the spider.
I liked the Fifth Element. Well, I liked the music.
my favorite bruce movie is still ‘fifth element’…
Chicken GOOOD.
Big bada boom.
Chicken’s best parts are usually the breasts and thighs, which for Mila is not a Big Bada Boom.
Fine, fine, I will stop being a cheeky b@stard on this issue.
Considering that my hubby drools over whatserface every chance he gets, while at the same time decrying the lack of boobs and butts on model-type females, it’s a family favorite at our house too
Mila has never been drool worthy for me though she was almost drool worthy in Ultraviolet… The talk about the figure of a ten year old boy as perfect actually grated on me during Fifth Element but I forgave it for everything else being high yield radioactive awesome.
I believe that it wasn’t her *figure* that was perfect, but *her*. She’s the Supreme Being; in the body of that 10-year-old boy was pretty awesome strength, plus the holy-light-puking ending. Man, I wish I could destroy a planet just by being told that someone loves me. Would make dating a lot easier.
Ah but they made the comment whenever they were discussing her looks. The priests when they turn around because she was changing clothes, the scientist when her body is first remade, Dallas looking all wistful discussing her measurements as a big fare and perfect to Fingers his boss at the cabbie job.
So yes, they were discussing her figure and it grated on me. However, I will concede that puking the power of life that can stop the incarnation of evil when told you are loved would be nice deal breaker for dating.
Mr Frou would enjoy the first two Resident Evil Movies then…
I had an ex who did exactly the same thing. LOVED Milla, but typically liked more shapely women. I think it had more to do with the whole kicking-ass aspect, and he also had a thing for headshotting zombies (but then, don’t we all?)
*sigh* If he’d been sane, I might never have left him.
Sadly, we JUST got that on DvD but love the movie. Our four year loves it too and would make us watch it daily if he had his way.
Only so much Ruby Rod I can take in a day… *cue joke*
A few of my favorite space related quotes in no particular order (I’ll let you guess the sources)
“Space… is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is…”
“So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.”
“What is this thing? I mean, it serves no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway!”
“3..2..1.. Make Rocket Go Now!”
“Oh, no. I know what YOU want. You coveteth my ICE CREAM BAR!”
Ooh! Is the first one from Hitchhiker’s?
Yep
I started with the easiest one…
2 is Space Balls…
3 is from Galaxy Quest.
“Whoever wrote this episode should Die!”
It sure is. That’s a tough one. I love that movie
One of the best spoofs of bad sci fi (and fandom) out there.
Heh but I actually liked Kirk… Fandom is weird though, painfully so…
Hey! I resemble that remark!
you lose your shirt in fights?
And save the universe with your electric lips?
Galaxy quest walked a fine line between lampoon and homage…
The best parody comes from a place of love…
Precisely which is why I love both the parody and the series.
*, after Precisely…
Stupid typo.
I LOVE THAT MOVIE!!!
That is all.
“The show must go on.”
-pause-
“Damn you.”
Okay, now that is all.
Yep
Also pretty easy, they get a bit more obscure after that.
The last one is from Ren and Stimpy.
My favorite Ren & Stimpy, Space Madness.
“Can he resist the temptation to push the button that, even now, beckons him ever closer? Will he succumb to the maddening urge to eradicate history? At the MERE… PUSH… of a SINGLE… BUTTON! The beeyootiful SHINY button! The jolly CANDY-LIKE button! Will he hold out, folks? CAN he hold out?”
LMAO!
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Want to know what crossed my mind when I read that? Some leftie is probably sitting there thinking, “Man, that sounds like the Republican platform!”
Seth, I love Space Madness too. I’m not sure I love it quite as much as the Happy Helmet episode, though. For a cartoon, that had some really deep subtext about trying to control the emotions of other people in your life.
I don’t think you’re happy enough. That’s right! I’ll teach you to be happy! I’ll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!
That’s very funny! A fly marrying a bumblebee. I told you I’d shoot! But you didn’t believe me. Why didn’t you believe me?
If you ain’t the granddaddy of all liars!
I remember listening to that on loop while I watched a home video of a man being attacked by lions… Then chuckled when it synced up.
College was an odd time for me.
Yeah, the happy helmet episode was great, too. It’s a close second for me, but Ren’s flipout in Space Madness is just too hilarious, “I’ve had this ice cream bar since I was a CHILD! BACK OFF! Don’t make me use this!” Ahh, comedy gold. I also like Nurse Stimpy, “Poor Ren, you’re all sticky with filth.”
I love Ren and Stimpy, too.
This is such a happy thread!!!! *squee!*
“3..2..1.. Make Rocket Go Now!”
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Simpsons. Definitely.
“Deep Space Homer,” right?
Absolutely. A very fine Simpsons episode, IMHO.
Armageddon, paraphrasing Alan Shepherd about the Mercury project…
I did not know that…I’m just a big Steve Buscemi fan…
Mr. Brown sounds a bit too much like Mr. Shit. (i know it’s probably not word for word)
I believe that was from “The Right Stuff”.
Like I said, but it was paraphrasing Alan Shepherd, who did say that in an interview…
“Armaggedon” baby… such a great movie
not how high, how far, god dammit.
How far can I get high?
how high can i get far?
I’d just like to know how I can get high.
Definitely! My husband is a space geek and would agree with this statement entirely. Without even laughing.
probably until the first red light, then you run it and get pulled over.
Saw yesterday’s launch up close and personal. Enough to make ya proud, I tell ya.
So lucky, you.
The other day I was trying to explain to my daughter what it was like to watch one evening launch some years ago, before Columbia died. It was maybe an hour and a half past sunset in Florida, and she rose into the night…then she crossed the terminator line 40 seconds or so into the flight and burst into the sunlight.
My eyes mist just remembering the sight.
Gave rise to my favourite Feynman quote ‘Nature cannot be fooled’
Sad thing is as touching as that scene endeavors to be from slan’s poignant typing fingers, all I can imagine is a bit from Ren and Stimpy where Stimpy emerges as a super being who flies into the sun and turns into hissing mist…
Gah, I’m running out of time; need to be there for a launch!
Yes. Yes you do. It’s like nothing else. Words won’t do it justice. I got to be there for the Return to Flight launch. Lots of prayers went up with them that day!
I work for a company that helped make the Return to Flight possible- they’re listed on the Shuttle Supplier Symposium. I wasn’t working there at the time, but we made the small patches for the leading edge wings that can withstand re-entry conditions and bend around the smaller radii of the shuttle’s skin. It was amazing to the astronauts. One went up to my boss and told him, a bit paraphrased, that for all the contingencies and plans and supplies, they had nothing before that could protect them if tiles were damaged or missing, and it gave the astronauts a huge boost of confidence to know that at least now, they had a fighting chance. And that was how they sold the program to keep it from getting shut down by the penny-pinching powers-that-be. Now, a plug, a bolt and a goo gun gives the at least a hope of getting back to earth safely. The plugs are currently in storage on the International Space Station, hopefully never to be needed.
Too cool!!
i saw it as well. i live about 40min south of the cape and have been watching launches all my life. love it.
oh come on, they also put expensive equipment on other planets to see how long they last (3 martian winters incidentally. i’m incredibly impressed)
I can has wallpaper?
Oh yea, and they have been doing on a low budget. Methinks NASA is the most efficient part of the US government.
they haven’t gone anywhere cool since the 60s!
That they’ve TOLD US….*adjusts tinfoil space helmet*
Whatever, I just wish Jiffypop would start making launch pads.
Diss you’ve given me my first LOL moment of the morning.
*salutes*
Thank you.
Yep, that’s her. OV-102 Columbia. The world’s first reusable spaceplane. I still get a tear in my eye whenever I see someone use a stock photo of her.
Bob Crippen said this, at Columbia’s memorial service. (Yes, they had one for the Orbiter, in addition to the memorials for the crew.)
“Columbia was hardly a thing of beauty except to those of us who loved and cared for her. She was often bad-mouthed for being a little heavy on the rear end, but many of us can relate to that.”
Ad astra per aspera.
I’ve always loved that bird – the very idea of her. The one-off rockets that came before her achieved amazing things, but Columbia was the first time we went to space as if we belonged there. For a generation caught between dreams of the future and near despair at a civilization that seemed bent on destroying itself, she was a powerful symbol and a concrete step toward a future we desperately wanted, needed to believe in.
Her sister Challenger died the day I turned 18.
The day I turned 35 Columbia was taking her last turns. She died five days after.
I’m a little funny about the shuttles. And about my birthday.
This makes me misty.
I was getting ready for class the day the Challenger went. I remember standing in my bathroom thinking, oh surely not. (Coincidentally, I was getting ready for the day in the bathroom when 9/11 happened.) And the Columbia went on my daughter’s birthday. Ugh. I feel for you, slag.
Wait… I thought the slogan was “Need Another Seven Astronauts (since 1986)”?
And that is funny how?
After all the sh!t you all give other people for bitching about TOOOOO SOOOON you say THIS?!?
It’s funny because it’s TRUUUUEE!
Hmmmmm……I wonder who’s socky you are………
Liberal buddy of yours. Choose wisely, and all shall be revealed!
I have lots of liberal buddies, and none of them are wingnuts like you seem to be.
*reaches over and takes froo’s troll kibble away and hands her a stick*
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Remember the rule..
*pouts* He tookses my kibbles I was throwin’ at the trollses. He’s a meanie, he is!
But you have a stick, a big ass stick to beat the ever loving crap out of the troll with. I say go for it!
*grabs stick, swings for the cheap seats*
Man, those mods you installed really get some height out of the trolls! I don’t think that one will come down for days!
You play pretendsies on the internets with your asterisks and call us retarded!
LOL!
And it’s outta the park!
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Good one!
Pretendsies baseball: When you’re too retarded to know how to swing an actual bat.
Who’s on first, Bud?
Yes.
Yeah, I did.. and let me add that you’re fsking retard.
That’s all you’ve got?
No surprise, considering you’re the stupidest person posting here.
LO fuc!ing L!
I’ll take that as a complement. (:
Congratulations; you’ve actually managed to hit a level of poor taste that even I find appalling. Believe me, that’s saying a lot.
You’ve GOT to be joking!
Diss, I was fooled into feeding a troll, but I’m on to it now. No more kibble, ok?
Fool? EXACTLY!
Clearly the vast majority of you don’t know what you’re talking about. As a former NASA engineer, I can tell you that NASA conducts more pre-flight tests, more NDE analysis and more FQT inspection than any private company in the world (mostly because their budget is not a budget… it’s the US government’s allocations, which can be anything). The ONLY reason the space shuttle has failed is also the only reason the space shuttle exists: right wing politics. The NACA (precursor to NASA) built a superior aerodynamic LEO (low earth orbit) and reentry vehicle to the early soviet rocket systems – but since they got to space before us, we had to beat them at their own game, a game we were inferior to them in. Ever since then, when we had a system that was better than theirs but was different, we have always tried to beat them at their own game. Not because their system was better, any NASA engineer will tell you we had the better system, it was simply because conservative politicians want to beat them at their own (inferior) game.
Do you have cites for that, or are you just stating opinion?
I’m inclined to believe Nate. Trufax: Remember the opening sequence of “The Six Million Dollar Man”? [LINK] The awesome looking space plane in the title sequence was, I distinctly remember reading, a prototype for one of the programs Nate is talking about.
Ah, found it. The M2-F2, part of the lifting body program.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4220/introduction.htm
I knew Dale Reed and he was an absolute genius (the man in the pic.) As for the M2-F2, the pilot of the crash was Bruce Peterson. For years it was assumed that the crash was due to pilot error, but they never could determine what actually caused it.
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As for what Nate said, I’m skeptical as far as the budget goes. NASA is funded just like every other government program. Isn’t the entire Federal budget one big ‘allocation’?
In case my post that went missing doesn’t return – NASA article linked here substantiating Nate’s post. One of the lifting bodies program test craft, the M2-F2, was Steve Austin’s downfall in the title sequence of “The Six Million Dollar Man.”
NACA did some awesome work, but they did not develop a working orbital reentry vehicle. And the lifting body work, while awesome in its own right, was not a complete spaceplane program. It takes more than prototypes to get to space and back….
BTW, I don’t know what you’re talking about, with Americans trying to beat Russians at their own game and consequently failing because while our tech is better, they’re better at playing this “game”. It might have looked like that in the 1960s, but the reality was quite different. The Russians were desperately trying to play *our* game, to keep up with *our* moves, and failing. They had a better propaganda machine, but propaganda can’t get you to the moon. The crowning example is the Shuttle, bringing us right back to where this thread began. That had nothing to do with beating the Russians; they weren’t trying anything quite like that. They were trying for a spaceplane, yeah. Everybody was. But they couldn’t get the program to move out of the conceptual phase until Shuttle flew and they mucky-mucks in Moscow saw a “capabilities gap.” And so the Energia-Buran system came about. (Now *there’s* a system that genuinely only existed and ultimately failed to be useful purely because of politics.)
We were not inferior to them at the game. They just managed to look better for a while. Truth was, the Russians were far more impeded by their politicans than we were. From the Nedelin Catastrophe to the constant political infighting that sent funding bouncing back and forth from Korolev to Chelomei and back again.
Just lighting stuff on fire and seein’ what happens, it’s not rocket sci-wait…