Well, there ain’t no more space shuttles to be had. Yet they serve as the gift that keeps on giving. Check out this latest example. The NASA Goddard Space Light Center put out this gorgeous time-lapse video. Behold Discovery as its docked to the International Space station, orbiting our Glorious Blue Rock. Set to some classic music, it’s pretty like woah.

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Check out a picture of Discovery’s final spacedock. The prettiness of the picture is only marred by the fact that it’s the final time she’ll be performing such a sexy space-bound stunt. Damn shame. Here’s hoping that the space program’s nap is a lot shorter than I’m fearing it’ll be.

Behold the sexiness of….astronaut piss? The above image was taken by Jens Hackmann of Germany. Theoretically, it’s of the Discovery venting its excess water, but what exactly is in that water?

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You need to click this pig to get a full sense of her majesty. This is an image of the Discovery, taken a few weeks ago. Tomorrow, Discovery is taking her final voyage into space. Sloughing off the shackles of our niggling orbit and ascending to the cosmos. Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy notes that “barring this and one more flight of  Endeavour later this year, it’ll be a while before we can put humans into space at all.”

What.

A.

Fucking.

Bummer.

We need to take to the stars, to exert our reach through the cosmos. All the time and energy wasted here, lead-footed and fighting amongst one another. Ah, to dream! Of a day when we can look forward to launches again.

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Behold! The Lunar Eclipse as captured from space shuttle Discovery. Pretty.

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