Dancing With the Stars

[Dolohov]

The astronaut finished the last of the welding. Striking a spark wasn’t easy in orbit, but the vacuum made for a nice clean weld.

She swept her hand over her work, which had cooled instantly — not that she could tell through the plastic and mylar and whatever else. Fins and wings sprouted haphazardly from the sides, but they’d hold.

Technically, she was only supposed to be removing the last few valuable components, but they couldn’t hear or see her, so screw them. When this baby hit atmo, well. Forget their boring deorbit arc. Old Hubble would dance as it burned.

[ROU Killing Time]

Nice. Bonus tentacle for first post being a drabble.

[strawman]

Agree about bonus tentacle.
Another bonus for reminding me of hours spent perfecting the engineering of paper airplanes. This drabble shows the real reason kids want to grow up to be astronauts.

It is NOT because they want to know the answer to the question: "Of what practical value is a degree in theoretical calculus?"

[Dolohov]

Thanks! I'll store the bonus tentacles for later...

[ROU Killing Time]

It is NOT because they want to know the answer to the question: "Of what practical value is a degree in theoretical calculus?"

Nor was it apes throwing bones into the air or Keir Dullea tripping into infinity. At that moment that the bone transformed into the spaceship and began waltzing with the space-station to The Blue Danube, I was hooked *.

(*Of course, at some point I realized that being an astronaut involved having to deal with great heights, and it became much less personally appealing, though as captivating to my imagination on this day as it was when I was six. The memory of my dad taking me to the premiere of 2001 when I was a boy is as vivid today as then, as well.)

[strawman]

"Great Heights" is all a matter of perspective. Once you get to zero g, the concept of great height collapses into the impression that you are an electron spinning in orbit around an atomic sun, which is part of a galactic molecule, beneath the surface of a universal floor. In that sense, it is a great fall, and we are Humpty Dumpty.

From vertigo to horizontigo, see?

[ROU Killing Time]

I forget what space opera I heard the term "A Case of the Yonders" in, but I've always liked that phrase.