The NASA Graphic Standards Manual. A style guide for the future that never was…

Soviets in space! Here’s an interesting set of USSR space propaganda posters. Politics aside, I always thought the Russian space program rocked. Just look at how the Soyuz spaceship is now the only reliable vehicle for taking cosmonauts to orbit, now that the Space Shuttle has been decomissioned. Or consider that the Soviets managed to land a probe in Hell (meaning, of course, planet Venus) and send back some pictures. (via Trivium)

Spacewalks! (via MeFi)

The Boston Globe’s incredible gallery of Martian landscapes, as photographed by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

And also: CGR posted a wonderful picture of the Martian night sky, in which both the Earth and Jupiter (and its moons!) can be clearly seen.

A beautiful Missions to Mars infographic, related to this report that argues for a manned mission. I personally think space exploration is probably better left off to robots for the time being, as the resources needed to make a mission possible for us nimble humans are better spent on other stuff down here on Earth. On the other hand: I loved the Mars Trilogy, so astronauts on Mars would be infinitely cool. (via CGR)

Even though it was unarguably impressive to get people to fly to the moon — and back!, the feat of space exploration that impresses me most is the Soviets getting the Venera spacecrafts to land in fucking Venus and transmit pictures just before being destroyed by the intense heat and pressure (Venus, despite being home to heavenly-named locations such as Aphrodite Terra, is actually one very real Hell).

Almost as cool, in 2001 NASA got the NEAR Shoemaker probe to land on the asteroid 433 Eros, a manouver that wasn’t even in the flightplan. Crazy.