Awesome Spaceships

Fans of Space Invaders, your day has come: Rokysopp’s “Happy Up Here” music video breathes life into our favorite pixelated alien baddies, who then proceed to lay waste to a city.

A must for any retro arcade fan, Neil Gregory’s A Simple Plan t-shirt shows that all space invasions start off easily enough; just be sure you can survive the inevitable hail of pixels.

The ESA will be giving 1m euros to UK-based Reaction Engines for the Skylon; the jet- and rocket-engine spaceplane is designed to take off and land on conventional runways.

A haunting soundtrack, epic spaceship-filled vistas and the occasional Star Wars-style screen wipe: this intro does a good job selling EVE Online’s Apocrypha expansion, due out 3/10.

Rapid Wars is as much about gameplay as it is about ambience, with oppressive electronic beats, 8-bit sound effects and multicolored sprites that can easily send you into a trance.

We’re not sure how long this trailer will stay up, so get it while it’s hot: this latest Star Trek trailer offers a few snippets of a bruised Kirk and the Enterprise with guns ablazin’.

While it doesn’t actually let you play the game, this retro-style Taito-licensed Space Invaders watch looks cool in stainless steel and LEDs that scroll messages and alien spacecraft.

This in-flight photo of SpaceShipOne’s cockpit is not only breathtaking (check out all those portholes!) but is a testament to efficient engineering with an off-the-shelf GPS unit and clock.

Unlike yesterday’s Aliens Must Die, Space Pips is quite a bit more fun and frenetic, with responsive controls, plenty of upgrades and debris that sounds a bit like wind chimes.

A combined Star Wars, Star Trek and Babylon 5 battle would a sci-fi geekfest of epic proportions; until then, this comparison of spacecraft sizes is a fitting stand-in. Thanks, Kenneth!

Created by freelance artist Joe Nicolosi, Star Wars: Retold is pure cinematic gold; it’s told from the point of view of his friend Amanda, who has never seen an entire Star Wars film.

We love developers who don’t take themselves too seriously, and Flock! doles it out in bales of wool: this funky action puzzler lets you fly a UFO, abduct sheep and carve crop circles.

Generic name notwithstanding, Space War Commander is a slightly more involved version of StarBaron; it’s basically an RTS with overtones of Master of Orion. Demo here.

The Space Shuttle is up for replacement soon, and with it a new fleet of NASA spacecraft will be taking us to the Moon and beyond; check out this 3D infographic, courtesy NYT.

While we’re sad that SG-1 is no longer with us (at least in episodic form), this 1:129 scale F-302 replica keeps our Goa’uld butt-kicking memories alive; it measures 8″ by 4.5″.

Spacecraft meets papercraft with this Space Origami set, which includes 120 sheets of folding paper and a 32 page book with instructions for rockets, shuttles and astronauts.

You haven’t geeked out Christmas until you’ve decked the halls with starship models like this tree by JD Hancock; it’s primarily for Trekkies, thought we do spy an X-Wing.

Firefly fans may be far and few, but we’re a rabid, Pax-immune bunch: Serenity is coming to Blu-ray, and it’s filled with goodies including 5.1 lossless audio, extra scenes and commentary.

No, it’s not a UFO: the flying saucer above is actually a backshell that will protect the Mars Science Laboratory rover (which launches Fall 2009) when it reenters the Martian atmosphere.

Much love for no-DRM devs Stardock, whose Sins of a Solar Empire will be getting its Entrenchment expansion soon. You’ll not only get new cap ships, but gigantic starbases as well.

Soaring 3 stories high and spanning 9,000 square feet, Sensapolis is a spaceship-shaped mini theme park in Boblingen, Germany with a 3D theater, alien breeding ground and warp core.

Calling Admiral Adama: this Battlestar Galactica case sports an actual LED-lit hangar bay, CIC screens, and a BSG crest that doubles as an optical drive; even the monitor is modded.

Although he sadly passed this year, John Berkey’s futuristic paintings are photorealistic from a distance but painterly up-close; his works will no doubt inspire future artists.

The trailer could be clearer, but we like what we see with indie-developed Naumachia, a multiplayer space-combat sim; they’re currently working on the alpha and looking for investors.

While most of us toss our styrofoam, Jason Rogenes has turned it into high art–literally. Most of his works hung from ceilings or stacked tens of feet high, with lighting inside to make them glow.

The Space Wreck is a t-shirt you’ll need to inspect closely; it sports an exploded, armor-plated sailing ship cruising the cosmos (for lusty three-armed space wenches, no doubt).