In Which @SpaceX Lights Up My Night

Up, up into the night sky, breathing fire
And bringing cargo to the ISS,
Goes Dragon, and we all gasp to admire
This first commercial capsule's new success.
Go, go, quoth all the launch crew in the poll,
Go, go, quoth we who watched. The future's brought
Such wonders. This is how I like to roll:
A nighttime launch. Lo what Elon hath wrought!
From PayPal to Earth orbit in a few
Short but so wild, eventful, years. My friends,
We all had parts to play in all this, too,
Who live here on the web and like to spend
Our time and coin here. Now a flash of light
Reminds us all, our future is yet bright.

In Which I Prepare To Gawk Again At The International Space Station

A flyover so high and bright, fast too,

Our space station, our biggest satellite

Will cross the sky quite soon, 'gainst the deep blue.

I'll go outside and watch once more tonight.

The day I find this dull, just pack me off --

A rest home or a mental ward, no care

As to which one is mine. Just wink and cough

And let the men in clean white coats just bear

Me right away. We've people in the sky,

Experiments ongoing in a grand

Attempt to back up -- and we have to try --

Our biosphere. How could anyone stand

With all that glory passing overhead

And not be moved? My tears I freely shed.

In Which I Commemorate A Very Important Nap

The ISS oft makes me crane my neck
To see it passing overhead at dawn
Or dusk. But now up there upon one deck
A new experiment is going on
Combining the two things I love the most
(That's space and entomology if I've
Not been too clear on this here blog)! A toast:
To Butterflies in Space! Well may they thrive!
And just today a caterpillar formed
A crysalis, the first in micro-gee!
It's been many a day since news has warmed
My heart as this has. They could hear my squee
From orbit, I am sure. And now we wait
To see the butterfly ere it's too late.

A Coffee Mug By Any Other Shape

There might not be a demitasse in space

But thanks to Don Pettit now there is this:

A coffee mug that surely will replace

The sack and straw in orbit. Naught's amiss:

It holds the liquid e'en in zero gee

By virtue of its shape, which does exploit

A weird and wondrous liquid property -

That's surface tension. What a mad, adroit,

Solution to a problem ere its time.

Someday, might dwellers in a habitat

Regard these things as normal, not sublime

And weird new artifacts, for tea and chat?

I kind of think I'd like one of my own

Though space is somewhere I'll not get to roam.

A Module By Another Name... Is Still A Module

While I am one of those who'd gladly name
The third module of our dear ISS
Serenity (a Browncoat hath no shame)

I really do not share in the distress

Of those who watched an upstart named Colbert

Steal Joss' thunder and round up more votes.

I laugh instead, for during this affair

Ron Paul's folks also earned themselves some gloats

And stole Ken Rudin's presidential poll.

These "scandals" move me equally. They're meant

For fun, as are, say, psychic friends. How droll!

So go ahead and fuss, Browncoats, and vent.

Then think about how cool it all would be:

Serenity: The Lunar Colony!

Who They Jivin' With That Cosmic Debris?

I'm no economist, nor engineer,
But something in the skies torments my brain:
While it's a given now that with the sheer
Amount of stuff we've launched outside our plane,
A lot of paths will cross in orbit, there.
But lately it just seems that there's too much,
Too many things to track; it turns my hair
Pure white to contemplate. It seems, as such
It might be time to start to do more than
Just bob and weave our stations, shuttles out
Of harm's way when collision threatens. Can
We not begin at least to think about
Removing at least some of it? Or - shock!
Designing craft that throw off much less schlock?