PlanetQuest is NASA’s effort to search for new Earths, exoplanets like ours that would probably contain life too. They’re doing some really cool stuff, like this sunflower-telescope combo spaceship—"a cutting-edge effort to take pictures of planets orbiting stars far from the sun." Imagine that—seeing the actual planets!
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If you are in the market for a new home, you might as well buy one that’s a little different from the rest – perhaps one that has a spaceship in the attic.
This Victorian house is located near London, England. It has 7,000 square feet of living space with eight bedrooms, four bathrooms, two basement apartments, and looks quite elegant and traditional inside.
However, as far as I’m concerned the attic is its main selling feature. It was created as a play space for kids, but adults like you and I would have fun playing in there too.
You can own the house for £3,250,000 or about $5.3 million (USD). Totally worth it. It would be awesome to buy this house and then find it that it actually flies. Seems like the plot for a kids movie.
[via Nag on the Lake via Neatorama via Nerd Approved]
Some of the LEGO creations that we see just blow my mind. I can’t wrap my head around the many hours of planning and building that it takes to make some of these structures, like this massive build. This is a LEGO model of the Halo UNSC Spirit of Fire colony ship, and it is a whopping 7 feet-long.
How long do you think this beast of bricks took to build? Two weeks? Four months? Try over four years. It was built by Mark Kelso, who got the ship’s specifications from designer Heikki Anttila, who worked on the original 3D modeling for the ship. That is why it looks so impressive and imposing.
And that is why the details are off the charts. He even removed all the LEGO studs to make the ship look more realistic. Four years is a nice chunk of time and I’m sure he is very proud of his creation.
[via Pocket-Lint via Nerd Approved]
I’m pretty sure that White Tiger’s huge star destroyer will be a sight to behold when it’s finished, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not as polished as this 1:2,256 scale model of the Imperial II star destroyer by model kit builder Cho Jin Hae aka Darth Maul. From what I can tell this seems to be based on a ready to assemble kit, but Cho Jin Hae did the painting and lighting.
While Cho Jin Hae’s model is nowhere near as large as White Tiger’s build, the lighting on it is really well done and makes the ship come alive.
Check out more images of the scale model on Cho Jin Hae’s blog. He also posted a couple of in-progress posts here and here.
[via Bit Rebels]
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A little over two years since Steve Jobs presented his case for it and after the occasional setback, the Cupertino City Council has finally given Apple full approval to go ahead with its futuristic campus. In exchange, Apple has agreed to fork over more money to the city in the form of a reduced sales tax rebate — going forward, Cupertino will only give back 35 percent sales tax instead of the 50 percent it had previously. Indeed, as soon as Apple gets its final permits some time today, it can begin demolishing the former HP headquarters and start building its own. The circular 2.8-million square foot glass-clad structure you see above is the main hub of the whole affair, and is said to have an underground parking facility that can hold around 2,400 vehicles. There’ll be a 100,000 square foot fitness center, a 120,000 square foot auditorium, plenty more space for the company’s all-important research and development division and of course everything’s designed to be as eco-friendly as possible. Don’t go planning your desk arrangements just yet though, Cupertino employees, as you’ll have to wait until 2016 to move into what Jobs called “the best office building in the world.”
Source: MacRumors, San Jose Mercury
We’ve spent months marveling over the facade of Apple’s new headquarters. But now, thanks to these renderings from the City of Cupertino uncovered by Wired, we’re getting an idea about the spaces inside the building—and it’s hard to decide if it looks more like a futuristic office or a futuristic Apple store.
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We’ve been suckers for space travel around here for a long time. My secret goal is to one day make enough money to afford a ticket aboard Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShip Two. Unfortunately, tickets for suborbital flights are insanely expensive, but it would be so cool to take one of those flights.
Before anyone can climb on board the SS2 and head into orbit, the aircraft has to pass a number of flight tests. Virgin Galactic recently conducted another flight test in which SS2 was able to reach an altitude of 69,000 feet and a speed of Mach 1.43. SS2′s previous best was 55,000 feet and Mach 1.2.
The test flight happened at 8 AM local time in the California Mojave Desert this past Thursday. This marks the second time SS2 has had a successful supersonic flight using its rocket engine. The latest flight saw the hybrid rocket engine burn for 20 seconds, twice the time it was powered up during the first flight.
[via C|NET]
Holy Wrath of Khan, this is an amazingly detailed ship! QMx has created a replica of the U.S.S. Vengeance in honor of the 2013 blockbuster Star Trek Into Darkness. This Dreadnought is a 1:1600 scale model and the largest replica starship by QMx to date.
This limited-edition collectors model measures in at 36 inches-long, 18 inches-wide and 8.5 inches-high. The height is 14 inches when mounted on its stand. Not that size matters. This thing is awesome no matter what. The display base is mirrored too. It is outfitted with 100 LEDs that are remote-controlled, along with weapons, warp, impulse and running lights. It also plays sounds.
It takes about 200 hours and six model makers to create just one of these. Only 100 will ever be made, and each one is available for a whopping $9,995(USD). QMx is also planning a collector’s model, which will be a true replica, though smaller in size and with less features. That will cost you $100(USD).
[via The Trek Collective via Damn Geeky]
After the dinosaurs came the astronauts and their spaceships. At least that’s the sequence of events I recall from my history lessons in grade school. And thus the same sequence of events is playing itself out in the world of 3-dimensional cookie cutting. Previously, we had some awesome dinosaur cookie cutters, and now, you can buy outer space cookie cutters. History repeats itself. It’s Déjà vu all over again.
Just like the dinosaurs before them, these cookie cutters from Suck UK let you bake delicious 3-dimensional cookies by assembling components into a single composite treat. The series includes a rocket ship, a space shuttle, some sort of martian spacecraft, and something that looks vaguely like a TIE fighter.
So what’s not to like? You can grab these space cookie cutters at I Want One of Those for £7.50 (~$11 USD) each or three for £20 (~$30 USD).
LEGO enthusiast Ben Caulkins made this sweet LEGO model of the Normandy SR-2, Commander Shepard’s flying base in Mass Effect 2. The ship is almost 4 ft. long and has a 19″ wingspan. It needs a Garrus minifig to calibrate its weapons.
I don’t know why I didn’t notice it until now, but the Normandy kind of looks like it has a Volus mask on. It’s not so apparent in Caulkin’s model though.
Head to Caulkin’s Flickr page to see more pictures of his Normandy model. He will also show it off at the Brickworld exhibit in Chicago this week.
[via The Brothers Brick]
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