Moonbase Alpha, the video game from NASA
We have been playing Moonbase Alpha, a videogame set on the moon in the year 2020, developed by NASA and recently published on Steam. And it's a free download.
A few days ago, NASA made public their first iPhone game at the AppStore: a LER (Lunar Electric Rover) simulator nonetheless, the vehicle with which they intend to go back to the Moon in 2020. The application allows you to travel around virtually on the Moon's surface and to explore several interesting spots, which are complemented by some info in a text.
The simulator is totally free and you can download it here: NASA LER Simulator.
(via Applesfera)
However, perhaps the Spanish expression 'Astro Rey' ('King of the Stars') might be a little too much for it. In spite of it being brighter than 85% of the existing stars in the Milky Way, the Sun is still just a 'simple' medium G2 spectral type star in the immensity of the Universe... or -no need to go that far- our galaxy.
According to one of the latest posts on Aula Geek, some time around January 2002, the V838 Monocerotis star became 600 thousand times brighter than our 'humble' neighbour. This phenomenon is known as a light echo. A truly spectacular sight. :P 
(or how to sponsor magnetised paradises in the pure entrails of
Space)

If you have pried through the Cosmonaut's website you'll know many things about this Riot Cinema Collective project. For instance, that among the articles that you can acquire (and becoming a producer in this way), there's a book: Poetics for Cosmonauts, by Henry Pierrot. And you know that the film's script owes a lot to this book, almost as much as to the strange chance which led us to find it.
Since the first edition of this little gem is completely sold out, we thought it was time to reprint it. We decided to do it this time in an English-Spanish bilingual edition, with a prologue by Alberto Olmos and an epilogue written by an important person in the cinema world.
And you know how the film project works: anybody can become a producer.
Now there's a new way of doing it, and it's by funding the reprint of Poetics for Cosmonauts. A 500 copies print run will be made, and for that we need a sponsor.
This edition has an approximate price of €1,200.
With your contribution you will receive a percentage of the film but you will also be mentioned as the person who made the reprint possible and your name will be in the book. Besides, you can choose to change your corresponding percentage of the film for a percentage of the possible benefits the selling of books may create. You choose...
EDITED: We have just broken a Crowdfunding record, for sure :P
Two hours
after posting this entry, Poetics for
Cosmonauts has found a sponsor: Javier
Pinto
www.elcosmonauta.es
...faltaban dos días para el despegue, hacía mucho frío y había estado nevando intermitentemente. Ella esperaba fuera del complejo espacial a que acabase la interminable reunión de emergencia. Bajo la luz azul que iluminaba uno de los edificios, la nieve resaltaba aún más blanca y a pesar de tener el cuerpo entumecido por la humedad, estaba disfrutando de ese momento, del aire gélido que forzaba su respiración, del crujir de la nieve bajo sus pies...
Entonces apareció Stan como por arte de magia, envuelto entre el humo de unos de sus cigarrillos y se quedó junto a ella contemplando la media luna y la oscuridad de la noche. No hablaron de nada, solo permanecieron así, en silencio, suspendidos en el tiempo...
Incluso con el paso de los días, cuando ella imaginaba que quizás lo había soñado, volvía latente el recuerdo de sus brazos rozándose, solo ligeramente por encima de los abrigos, el antojo de ser la piel contra la piel... y la ausencia, la ausencia brusca, el hueco impreso allí en la pared y en su brazo que ardía, amputado, privado del contacto, cuando él se retiró bruscamente... y ella... ella respondiendo como una autómata a los chicos, a Andrei, que salían charlando animadamente, mientras todo su deseo la empujaba a permanecer apoyada en ese muro para siempre... Y después Andrei, con su sonrisa encantadora, de pirata, mirándola despreocupadamente, sin verla una vez más, las palmadas en la espalda, las bromas, el lenguaje ancestral de un grupo de hombres que fantaseaban con tocar la Luna y Stan... que ya no pertenecía a ninguna parte, observando como siempre, pareciendo sentir un afecto transitorio por la escena, una ternura dirigida hacia los que estaban allí reunidos, como si se tratara de algo que se pudiese tocar...
Fue entonces, en el momento en que Andrei abrazó a Stan del cuello con un impulso infantil y ambos se alejaron unos pasos, cuando Julia fue consciente de cuánto les odiaba y les amaba al mismo tiempo, inevitablemente, sin poder discernir dónde empezaba uno y terminaba el otro, o si acaso eran la misma persona... tembló incontroladamente y con toda la dignidad que pudo reunir se limitó a caminar detrás de ellos.
Rosa de la Campa (primera pieza de obra derivada Creative Commons)
The cosmonaut breathes noisily out there in Space, inside of the spacesuit resembling a womb. A warm soft bubble that covers his extremities, and that almost transparent balloon in front of his eyes that reflects the sunny sphere.
The spaceship swings and begins its fourth orbit around the Moon hiding the giant golden circle.
The cosmonaut breathes once, twice, three more times. And holds his breath creating a silence that allows him to listen to the ticking of his watch.
Tick.
Expires. Silence.
-Happy New Year, Cosmonaut...- He says aloud.
They hardly ever stared at each other;
Although sometimes they couldn't avoid a light touch that pretended to be of chance,
Looks exchanged,
speaking about something trivial while holding breath.
Both sensed that Paradise was a place in memory.
They both knew that, opposite of Earth; in Space there are infinite possibilities.
That paradise existed, one with lakes, skies and leaves that were, finally, green and warm.
I hardly ever buy books for one reason: I've got hundreds of them at home but I have no time to read, so I feel stupid buying objects that will be stored on shelves. That's why whenever I search around the piles of books in bookstores I do it with a collector's ardour, trying to find that undiscovered precious piece of work. That rare edition or that small poetry collection you've never heard about, with just a few pages, which becomes one of the treasures of your private library. Finding those prizes is the only motivation that keeps me searching from time to time.
Today B. and I entered a bookstore. As soon as I stepped on the red floor I told myself: I'm going to find a book about astronauts.
I said that to myself for many reasons, but especially because of the emptiness. Because lately a spatial-emptiness surrounds me. An emptiness of 0 degrees. Soundless. Warm in a way, but terribly confusing. It was an innocent wish, almost stupid. A sparkle of something that could fill that emptiness.
I looked over the piles. One, two, four, six books. Then I read the word cosmonaut. I turned my head and I read the entire title: Poetics for Cosmonauts.
I smiled. I bought the book as if I had gone there looking for something specific and found it. And I went back home feeling sure that I had found some breath which would help me escape from that bubble. Right like that, as if it were that easy.
German text on the picture: Does this middle-age painting show Cosmonauts in their Spaceships?
But "Poetics for Cosmonauts" is not just that breath. Actually it's just what I wanted to read, even if I was not aware of it. It's like some space-scrap to cling to when going adrift. It's some light in the middle of the night. It's like one of those happiness-pills.
Thanks Henry Pierrot.
12 degrees and increasing...
Tribute to Stanislav Lem and the last contribution to Solaristic, in "Poetics for Cosmonauts" Henry Pierrot explores the frontiers between poetry and narrative. The result is a collection of poems that joins condensation and transparency, maintaining a degree of unity from the very first verse to the last one that not everybody manages to achieved."
Henry Pierrot (a.k.a Henry Pathè) is born in 1956 in Chevry-Cossigny (France). Student of Roland Barthes a the Professional Superior School, he completes his PHD with honours at La Sorbone. In 1989, after some years as lecturer of French at the University of Barcelona, he moves to Houston University as lecturer of French Literature. In 1993 he joins the project "Aesthetics of the Universe", a project that aims to create an aesthetics maps of the galaxies. The poems collected in the present work are part of that research.