#Launching Pad

[ablogofcourage]

We used to steal our parents talcum/baby power pour it down the slide and turn it into a launching pad, many injuries sustained....

[mokadevs]

day 7: come back soon

[nocternalrandomness]

SSME Start / STS-116 Discovery / Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39B / December 9, 2006

[lonestarflight]

Recovery of Apollo boilerplate spacecraft BP-23A after Pad Abort Test 2 flight.

Date: June 29, 1965

NASA ID: S65-19819, WSMR-65-BP23A-42, S65-19820, S65-19821, S64-39583, WSMR-65-BP23A-41, WSMR-65-BP23A-53

[rickybaby]

Daniel on coming back to the Red Bull family: "There is a feeling of loyalty and nostalgia, memory and support. They've been with me since I was 17 - 18 years old. A lot of my career was shaped off being a Red Bull driver. Apart from mom and dad, they gave me this opportunity. You come back, it's like a full-circle thing where you feel a lot of gratitude and appreciation and overall, just happiness and that feeling of belonging. Through that, I've started to feel like myself again and that confidence comes back and I feel I can do some pretty good things on the race track again."

[thedreadblog]

Okay, so, is it a coincidence that this line is said while we see Solas, or...?

[front-facing-pokemon]

[kj-ursa]

fungi who spent a billion years evolving toxic defence mechanisms to protect their fruiting bodies when a highly-derived land-dwelling chordate actively seeks out said toxins due to their inadvertent hallucinogenic effects on said chordate's neurology

[ID: A simple, black and white meme drawing of Jackie chan holding his hands to his head with a bewildered and disbelieving expression. End ID.]

[drmopp1966]

so uh

i may have um

yknow

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

Ive seenyou mention wuxia a few times now and i wonder what that is. Would you mind explaining it to me?

not the most qualified person to explain this as i'm not, in fact, from china; but i've read a couple of wuxia so here goes:

wuxia is a genre of fiction from china specifically, about martial artists in ancient china. i don't think a specific time period is like required? obviously some dynasties are more popular but idk how it goes in that front. it just has to be Not Today and probably Too Long Ago. like pre industral revolution i think. again idk if that's a requirement, but most i've seen are from around the same relative murky pre-electricity era.

xianxia is a subgenre of wuxia that's specifically more fantasy-like, and it's not just martial arts, but also spiritual powers and cultivation (which i have no fucking clue how to explain without two hours and three tangents other than chinese magic system. if you've ever heard of chi/qi as an energy, it appears there). so like- genshin is by all accounts a xianxia, it just doesn't use the more common specific xianxia terms like cultivation. some of those are very weird to translate and probably not common for the average non-wuxia reader, so it makes sense why they're going for alternatives.

chongyun and xingqiu and xianyun are very much straight out of a xianxia. xianyun's entire story quest was the closest genshin has gotten to a straight xianxia plot so far. i highly reccomend ashikai's video on unnecessary visions if you want more info on why genshin is a xianxia hahah

cyanide narwhal has some talk of some stuff from xianxia, but that's mostly because well- fucking liyue, that's how it works there. the whole light energy striking down someone who's getting powerful and giving them godhood if they survive the strike is, while not exactly like that, something that happens in some xianxia as well. like the way adepti work in general is just very xianxia. ashikai does a much better job explaining it than i do tbh but yeah

TL;DR: wuxia is chinese martial arts fiction in ancient china, and xianxia is a wuxia subgenre with more magic elements. also genshin is a xianxia

[fiepige]

Hobie and his guitar appreciation post (part 1)

I just love all the different ways he uses his guitar <3

[astronotmovie]

Early days of the space race with the launch of the Little Joe II, Aug 1963. The rocket was used 5x for uncrewed tests of the launch escape system of Apollo spacecraft between 1963-66. At 86 feet in height, it was the smallest of the 4 launch rockets during the Apollo era.

[lonestarflight]

Launch of Apollo Pad Abort Test 1

The Pad Abort (BP-6/PA-1) vehicle lifting off from LC-36 at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. This test flight was to investigate the effects on the Apollo spacecraft during an abort from the pad. It also tested the pitch motor and launch escape motor of the Launch Escape System (LES).

"The LES had to be able to pull the spacecraft away from an exploding rocket on the launch pad. The LES then had to gain enough altitude to allow the command module's parachutes to open, preferably with the spacecraft over water and not land.

The flight featured a production model LES and a boilerplate (BP-06) Apollo spacecraft, the first mission to feature one. The spacecraft carried no instruments for measuring structural loads as the capsule's boilerplate structure did not represent that of a real spacecraft."

-Information from Wikipedia: link

Date: November 7, 1963

North American Aviation photo: 7004-75-2A, 7004-75-2C

NM Museum of Space History: 1-0001, 1-0005, 1-0003

NASA ID: S63-21053, S63-13889, link, 63apollo221

[tatmanblue]

YPSat looks back to Earth from atop Ariane 6 by European Space Agency Via Flickr: An image of Earth acquired by the ESA Young Professionals Satellite payload, YPSat, attached to the upper stage of the inaugural Ariane 6 rocket, launched on 9 July 2024. The YPSat project represents the culmination of about two and a half years of dedication and hard work core team of about 30 Young Professionals from various ESA Establishments, Directorates and disciplines. Sacrificing their spare time, they shouldered the entire responsibility of designing, building and testing the payload before finally witnessing its successful launch. Learn more. Credits: ESA-YPSat

[supplyside]

lifting the Buran

[nocternalrandomness]

T-38's over Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center