OS:
This image reminds me — because I almost passed it up and kept scrolling, since I’ve seen images like this a million times — last weekend I went to a roundtable at “The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation—a division of the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute” titled “The Alpha and the Omega: Beginning and Ending”. Last weekend was “Alpha: Where does it begin?” and, if you’d like to attend on May 19th at 2:30 p.m., the subject will be “Omega: Where Does It End?”.

The speakers: { Chris Impey }, { Joseph J. Kohn },
{ Tim Maudlin }, and { Mark A. Norell }.

At one point, near the end of the discussion, Tim Maudlin observed a sad truth (and I quote this somewhat loosely, as I was taking notes on my phone):

“We’re bored by people living up in the space station. We don’t really know what goes on up there; it’s not amazing anymore. New things become, quickly, old.”

From Neal Stephenson’s Anathem:

“Boredom is a mask frustration wears.”

(via dannnao)

itsfullofstars:

The inside view of a liquid hydrogen tank designed for the Space Shuttle external tank, viewed on February 1, 1977. At 154 feet long and more than 27 feet in diameter, the external tank is the largest component of the Space Shuttle, the structural backbone of the entire Shuttle system, and is the only part of the vehicle that is not reusable.

Source: NASA