One of my new favorite sites is Riding with Robots on the High Frontier. I have always liked NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, but I tend to filter out the deep space stuff. Nebula, shmebula. I want to see something in this solar system. Too many parsecs spoils the soup. Riding with Robots is dedicated to planetary probe imagery. Check out the dust devil footprints on this Martian dune.
The site also features a nifty Planet Portal that shows active missions. You get a sense of news, without the over-the-top treatment at Space.com. I’ve always wanted to open up a space mission-themed sports bar. Instead of hockey on this TV and football on that one, you’d have Jupiter on this TV and Mars on that one, with crowds of Zima-swilling geeks elbowing each other for a look at the action. But help me out here: what should I call it?
I can’t remember where I first saw this image of Hurricane Ivan as viewed from the space station. It was probably on APOD. It’s an arresting image, and it struck me as a picture taken from the ground looking up past a tall building at some bizarre atmospheric disturbance.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen that image somewhere before. Then I remembered I had been playing the game Half Life, which prominently features this image.
The artists for this game had to be working from this image, right? The similarities are remarkable.
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 
Let me know when you open that bar. I’ll buy a round for the whole house.
Hey, that’s Bill Dunford from “Riding with Robots.” Nice!
I’m still trying to come up with a good name for the bar. Probe? Too rude. Orbit? Maybe. Outland? Too obscure. Or maybe we could just form a partnership with the site and call it High Frontier.
I like it. Of course, I should probably confess now that I’d be a lousy partner in that business – I don’t even drink. :)