Spaced out

I followed a link today and ended up at Lileks. Oddly, I've heard his name for years but I've never read his blog before. It was nothing like I expected. I loved his post. It turns out he's another fellow spaceophile and he had a lovely tribute to Wally Shirra.

Well, Wally took the picture. This was his view of Gemini VII, the ship with which VI rendezvoused high up in the empyrean vault. Think of it: we shot two rockets into orbit, and one of them – guided by men and an onboard computer that probably had less computational power than your cellphone – found the other, drew alongside, and flew in formation for a while. When I was a kid I was space-crazy (still am, really) but I always thought the Lunar Excursion Model was somewhat unlovable – those black empty eyes, those insect legs. The Gemini capsule was iconic, though, and Shirra was one of the men who drove it up and drove it down.

He also sent me to this phenonmenal site that features amazing panoramic pictures that he says were taken by the guy who played Lurch on the Addams Family. I only looked a couple and it takes a little finesse with the mouse to keep from becoming seasick but it was very cool to be able to see the whole shot in a spherical mode. I'm going to put it on my webcam list on the sidebar even though it's not a live cam. It seems to be updated regularly and it was great fun.