This is like the archetype for every retro-styled with the synth-soundtracked logo build in and the crackly PBS voice over. Can’t believe this was made in 1980, would have guessed earlier from the quality.
Fun fact: most of the early space suits were manufactured by ILC Dover, also known as Playtex, the same company that made women’s undergarments. More wall-worthy goodies from the San Diego Air & Space Museum on Flickr. How well can you head-bang in space?
Always a wealth of incredible images (many of them high-res) on the NASA Commons Flickr page.
Further viewing: NASA Commons Pt. 1
NASA has a great collection of historical photographs detailing their exploits over the years. Break out your Epsons and clean up your source imagery folder, these are all high-res and downloadable. Your tax dollars at work.
An original Graphics Standards Manual from 1976 when NASA transitioned to the “worm logo” (more info). Love the car graphics, was waiting for something on The Shuttle but then realized it was just a concept when this manual was written. Maybe it’s just an American thing, but is this not the most iconic logo ever?
Via Tim George
A great PDF of Hasselblad’s the guidebook for the NASA Photography Training Program can be had here. The guide focuses on the operation of the 500 EL/M, which was the official NASA camera.
Related viewing: NASA Hasselblad Auction photos
This “brand new”, supposedly made for NASA, Hasselblad MKWE can be yours for around $34K if you win this auction. It apparently comes as new in the original packaging. I love the concept of new-old stock; something about the idea of a product sitting undisturbed for decades in the original packaging is pretty cool. I have seen some classic synthesizers still sealed in the original box come up here and there on ebay, I even once saw a Rhodes piano, in the box, still unassembled. But none of those really compares to this beauty. The hardest part about getting this would be deciding whether to even use it or to preserve it in some sort of airtight viewing cube.
Auction via Sam Valenti
Do you remember when Microsoft first introduced the Kinect? It was one the first times where I thought to myself that The Jetsons way of life may actually one day be a reality.
Well things just got a little more closer to that reality with Microsoft’s HoloLens. Instead of products like Google Glass and Oculus Rift, which put the user in a virtual world – the HoloLens puts you in a virtual environment by taking elements from a digital world and making them an interactive part of your world.
Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times had a chance to use it with Minecraft:
“In one demo, a Minecraft scene was displayed over a real living room. A Microsoft minder asked me to select a virtual hammer (a tool in the game) and start smashing the coffee table in the room. She wanted me, in other words, to use a digital object to interact with a real one. I did so and was stunned by what happened: Before my eyes, the real coffee table splintered into digital debris, and then it was no longer there. HoloLens had perfectly erased the coffee table from the environment.”
Here’s what Nick Statt of CNET had to say:
“Using real photography from the Curiosity rover, Microsoft was able to re-create a Martian landscape and overlay a 3D-map around a small, conference-room-size environment. I can walk around, bend down and look at rocks. I can even see NASA’s Curiosity rover, which is larger than a standard motor vehicle.”
“With HoloLens, I’m not just able to see what it’s like to walk around on Mars, but I’m also able to interact with the contents on the surface. Using a finger gesture called Air Tap, the HoloLens lets me mark certain spots on the surface for investigation and even lets me talk with another floating figure and collaborate on examining the surface.”
You can read more about Windows Holographic and the HoloLens on The Verge.
– Chad Kamenshine