Awesome Spaceships

Dreadnought is an upcoming free-to-play 5-on-5 online multiplayer game where each player commands a large battleship. Choose a ship type then customize it with abilities and crew members. Coming to PC in 2016.

SpaceX shares this brief GoPro footage of the Falcon 9 rocket twirling in space as it descends back to Earth after a test flight, capturing the sun and our planet in the process, set to the Blue Danube waltz – a nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

This video taken from one of the Endeavour’s F/A-18 escorts shows the shuttle flying over some of Los Angeles’ landmarks before touching down at LAX for its 2013 parade. You can visit her at the California Space Center.

A computer animated simulation of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. It will be the world’s most powerful operational rocket, able to lift the equivalent of a fully-loaded Boeing 737 into orbit. It will also support reusable booster rockets.

After almost a year of tweaking, Dirk Loechel has released the final major version of his enormous spaceship size comparison chart. It’s by no means definitive, but at least Dirk included the International Space Station for scale.

Photographers Scott Andrews, Philip Scott Andrews and Stan Jirman followed the final journey of Space Shuttle Endeavour from Florida to Los Angeles. They made this time-lapse video of the bittersweet procession. More on Time.

We were hoping it was a bromance simulator, but The Mandate is equally ambitious. It’s an open world RPG set in space, with real-time ship combat, turn-based boarding combat, crew management, ship designing and more.

Dirk Loechel is working on a chart that compares the sizes of spaceships from various sci-fi series. The chart is already daunting and makes for an awesome wallpaper, but he’s far from finished. It barely has any ships from manga and anime.

Even though the folks on the show getting transported weren’t actually spinning, this low-budget recreation of the Star Trek transporter effect using Christmas lights looks pretty darn accurate.

If you think Jason Freeny’s toy anatomy series is awesome, check out Josh Lane’s Spaceship Skeletal Surveys, a series of illustrations featuring bone x-rays of fictional spaceships.

Vesa Lehtimäki stumbled upon a box of his old spaceship scale models and took pictures of them head on “to capture their character.” The filter and shadows wonderfully combine grit and nostalgia.

It’s not quite as awe-inspiring as a witnessing the real deal, but Desrumaux Celine still did a good job of capturing the buzz and excitement before a rocket launch. Plus points for the POV bits.

Yelken Octuri is trying to make it possible for us to experience weightless sex with his Honeymoon space shuttle concept, which will allow 5 couples a 48 hour private experience in zero gravity.

Check out Virgin Galatic’s first successful test of dropping and flying back the VSS Enterprise spaceship from its mothership, in its race to be the first company to offer commercial space flights.

Arising from his lifelong love of spaceships, Bill George created the Sci-Fi Airshow, a non-existent exhibit filled with fictional, but beautiful air- and spacecrafts. Take the guided tour today!

Dassault Aviation is in the first stages of development on VSH, a new suborbital civilian spacecraft. VSH will be capable of bringing tourists to the edge of space and will fly at Mach 3.5.

Gratuitous Space Battles’ second expansion pack, The Order, gets an explosive trailer above; named after a new race (think religious Borg), it adds 11 ships, 3 weapons, and 2 missions.

We’d just barely gotten over Crawler Town when this giant LEGO Droid Control Ship landed on our desk Naboo: the Technic-framed marvel took 30,000 pieces and two years to build.

True to its name, Infinite Space is surprisingly deep for a DS game; this Domination Trailer shows off ship customization, which is enough to make any space geek trip the light fantastic.

No Bothan spies were harmed in the acquisition of this Star Destroyer SpecPlate, as it’s only based on a christening plate; each measures 36″x17″ and is made out of 1/8″ aluminum.

Sound gets seen in a big way in the awesome Atlas V launch video above; the SDO rocket breaks the sound barrier (1:50) in the middle of a sun dog, creating a visual sonic boom.

The propeller doesn’t leave much room for smuggling Jedi, princesses, or droids, but Hasbro’s R/C Millenium Falcon is no piece of junk: it flies up to five minutes at a time. Thanks, Thorir!

Its signature howl is the last thing SG-1 wants to hear, but this Death Glider makes an ideal gift for Goa’uld and Tau’ri alike; it includes a Stargate/DHD diorama and is limited to 1500.

An era thunders to a close with the last nighttime launch of the Space Shuttle 2/8/2010; the Endeavour carries Tranquility, a stunning seven-window viewport and NASA’s last ISS module.

End 2009 with a trip to the year 52,009: today is the last day to leave a message with KEO, a time capsule satellite which will orbit 1,800 km above Earth and remain there for 50,000 years.

Han may be off making the Kessel Run in 18 parsecs, but we’ll be content to loaf like Jabba in this Millenium Falcon Bed by Kayla Kromer; photos are by Heather Leah Kennedy.