sovietpostcards:

Self-portrait by cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, 1966

sovietpostcards:

“Pioneer of the Space Era” by Lesegri (Boris Lebedev, Leonard Sergeyev and Mark Grinberg), 1962 

lightthiscandle:

British sculptor Richard Beach works on his clay bust of Yuri Gagarin, 5/26/61.

chrisgriswold:

You’re out of this world, valentine.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

spacequest:

russian matchbox label by maraid on Flickr.

joetoddstanton:

Newest image from a project that is looking at explorers who died on there journeys. This one is about the astronaut Vladimir Komarov who died coming back to earth due to parachute failure.

adventures-of-the-blackgang:

Engrossing Soviet science fiction holiday cards >

fuckyeahsovietrussia:

Soviet space themed Christmas/New years cards.

jtotheizzoe:

Laika, Reimagined

The first earthling in space was Laika the dog, launched into space by the Soviets on November 3, 1957. She never returned alive. It was a mission designed, in part, to study the effects of space travel on an animal, but the true story of her noble canine sacrifice left a bad taste in many people’s mouths, including mine.

Here’s a far happier version of what may have happened on her historic journey. I like this one.

Good girl!

(by Avgousta Zourelidi)

This is very cute.

Laika’s picture is based on this one of Chief Designer Sergei Korolyov and a dog (though it was taken in 1951, so it’s not a space dog):

jump-suit:

Flying in Space (1961)

Click through and check out more pages from this book. It is gorgeous!

kaufmann75:

Nuestro triunfo en el cosmos - ¡Himno de la nación Soviética!

Our victory in cosmos - Soviet Nation anthem!

(Source: drevnerusskom-voine)

scanzen:

Artist’s impression of Lunokhod-1. In: Horváth Árpád - Nagy István György: A csillagok felé. Zrínyi Katonai Kiadó, Budapest, 1975.

scanzen:

Artist’s impression of Luna-16 heading back to Earth. In: Horváth Árpád - Nagy István György: A csillagok felé. Zrínyi Katonai Kiadó, Budapest, 1975.

fyeaheasterneurope:

Laika, by Paul K. Tunis.

On November 3, 1957, Laika - a Moscow street dog - became the first animal to orbit the earth.

for-all-mankind:

postcardsfromspace:

katemonkeyville:

seekingwillow:

jhenne-bean:

fuckthereallife:

never not funny

Dude, okay, I gotta step in.

This is all false. FALSE.

In the early days of the space program, everyone used grease pencils or regular pencils, because, yeah, ballpoint pens will not work. But that was some dangerous shit there, ‘cause you get a broken lead in space, that motherfucker’s flying around FOREVER and is just waiting to get into your face or into that expensive and vital piece of electronics.

And when you sharpen it, then you got bits of graphite dust and wood all over the place too and you can pretend to clean it all up, but there will always be a bit sticking around fucking up the works.

So this dude, Paul Fisher, started playing around and experimenting and came up with a pen that would totally work in space. It did all the things that they say up there on the back of that pencil, and, yeah, they invested a million to make it work.

BUT NASA DIDN’T INVEST THAT MILLION.

The Fisher Pen company invested all the money, working it out. And even after they designed the pen, NASA didn’t buy it for a few years, ‘cause they had gotten burned in a mechanical pencil deal and they didn’t want to be seen as wasting more taxpayer money. They started using them in 1967, and have been using them ever since.

And then the Soviet Union started buying the pens in 1969, because they saw a good thing and it beat those grease pencils.

So this pencil? It’s bullshit. You could call it a US Space Pen or a Russian Space Pen or what-fucking-ever. But the Fisher Space Pen pwns them all.

(And all this info: From NASA’s History site.)

FUCK, YEAH, ACCURATE INFORMATION!

(Source: yourresidentginger)