Friday Five: Moments From Space

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Welcome to the Friday Five! Each week we help you get to know our writers a little better with the help of a top 5 list! This week in honor of the Mars Rover Curiosity, our topic is “Moments From Space”

We discuss things from space this week.

Chris

• Destruction of the first Death Star – Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope – To hell with the Empire. Those racist sons of bitches!
• Steve Buscemi riding a nuclear bomb like a mechanical bull – Armageddon – Best part of the whole movie.
• The Fall of Cybertron – Transformers – If it weren’t for the fall of Cybertron, we wouldn’t have robots in disguise.
• Biker Mice From Mars – Needs no explanation.
• Cowboy Bebop – Probably one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.

 

Walnuts

• Battlefield Earth – Those dreadlocks were awesome.
• Space Buddies – Puppies in space!
• Superman IV: The Quest for Peace – The battle on the moon between Superman and Nuclear Man was epic!
• Doom (Movie) – A video game adaptation with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson? Oh yes please!
• Space In His Heart

 

Eric

• Discovery of The Marker – Dead Space – The Marker was discovered in 2214 inside of an asteroid impact crater, right off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. It is believed to have been inside the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. The Marker is revered by unitologists as a sign from God. Oh. . . It can reanimate the dead into creepy, disgusting, monsters called Necromorphs and it emits a nearly undetectable signal that drives people insane. An attempt to reverse engineer and recreate the device, without the negative side effects, eventually lead to the events of Dead Space.
• Squall saves Rinoa – Final Fantasy VIII – The plot of Final Fantasy VIII is pretty out there – evil sorceress from the future wants to compress time so she can rule over everything, but needs a vessel in the current times to do so. She uses three different people as her vessels throughout the game: primary villain Sorceress Edea, villain that shows up in the second act Sorceress Adel, and love interest/main hero Rinoa. When it is suspected that Rinoa is going to be a vessel she is sent to the lunar space station to be placed in lockdown. Of course evil sorceress from the future isn’t going to have that, so she frees Adel and begins to destroy the station. Amidst the chaos Rinoa is left floating in space. Squall, risking his own life for her safety, leaps out to save her. They float some more and eventually happen upon an abandoned spaceship, Ragnarok, which they use to get back home.
• Whalers on the Moon – Futurama – “The Series has Landed” – We’re whalers on the moon, we carry a harpoon. But there ain’t no whales so we tell tall tales and sing our wailing tune!
• SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! – Portal 2 – Space Core is my hero! Also, he’s voiced by Nolan North, which instantly make the “character” great!
• Firefly – It’s hard to pick any single moment from this show, since it’s all so well done. A cowboy western in space. A leaf in the wind. . .

 

Anthony

• M Night Shyamalan’s What a Twist! – Robot Chicken
• Tom Hanks surviving Apollo 13 – It’s what he does best. When stranded. . . he survives!
• Lance Bass not making it to space – That’s right, it doesn’t have to do with space as much as one man’s failure to make it to space. I was so jealous of Lance Bass. I want to go to space, just because he’s a rich pop star he gets to go. . . no thank you Mr. Bass.
• Destruction of Alderaan – Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope – Contrary to Christopher Michael Cobb’s “To hell with the Empire” statement, I believe that the Death Star was an incredible achievement that all should marvel at. The power to decimate an entire planet is not something to take lightly. In the right hands, imagine all the planets that could have been destroyed that actually deserved it! I’m sorry Princess Leia lost her “home” but she wasn’t on it and everything she knew on that world was a lie.
• When Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke) makes it to space – Gattaca – I know it’s obscure but he proved that he was just as good as any other man although he was born with a heart defect. If you haven’t seen this movie, go ahead and watch it.

 

So pretty much, in conclusion, space is awesome. Why are we not out there already? I’ll tell you why. Money. Look at the graph below. We spent six times as much on this years olympics than we did on Curiosity. And that is streaming video, from another planet over 400 million miles away, for free in real time. NBC cant even show events as they happen in London only 3500 miles away. That’s a whole 5 orders of magnitude different and NASA has it under control! I for one would gladly give up some of the more esoteric sports of the Olympics like rhythmic gymnastics, sailing, synchronized and freewater swimming, Keirin cycling, speed walking, and dressage, if it meant we could send stuff to Mars every four years. So long as they keep handball. That is some crazy shit.

If you feel the same way about space exploration, be sure to check out our friends over at the Planetary Society, a non profit dedicated to space advocacy, founded by the great Carl Sagan, and currently run by Mr. Science Guy himself, Bill Nye.

Eric is not a boss. You can Email Eric or follow Eric on Twitter @EricSweeten or Facebook

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