As you can see, he mounted launch tubes on the bike so he can remotely fire bottle rockets in random patterns on public roads. As much as I love anything rocket-related, this just strikes me as downright irresponsible—but he still has nothing on this guy. [Icon via Hell for Leather via Jalopnik]

In October NASA said they would need $3 billion more per year to go forward with meaningful human space exploration, i.e. not just sending more robots up. For a while there were rumors going around that Washington was going to severely scale back the program's budget, but now according to Washington insider John Logsdon, "there will be more money."

He's also saying that Obama doesn't want to be that president who cuts a future oriented program. So he'll keep it alive, but he'll only give them a budget somewhere between their current spending and the $3 billion per year increase NASA is looking for. But all that means is that NASA will have to buddy up with international space programs a little more.

Let's face it, we weren't going to get to Mars on our own anyway. As long as NASA is still alive, and there's still a remote chance of me seeing a mission to Mars in my lifetime, I'm a happy camper. [New Scientist, image via Matthew Simantov]

This second spiral was spotted in the Russian skies over a day after the one in Norway and it actually does look a bit more like a rocket spinning around and less like a mysterious phenomena:

Ah well, the rocket-like appearance of this spiral and the explanations for the Norway one aside: I still want to believe and even suggest Florida as the next invasion attempt. It's sunny here and we won't fight back much. [Discover]

Somehow I suddenly feel better about the frequent typos or errors I make. [Kottke via Greg's Opinion]

A team of scientists from Purdue, Penn State, NASA, and the Air Force have collaborated on the ALICE (ALuminum-ICE) Project, which makes rocket propellant out of a frozen mixture of water and nanoscale aluminum powder. The ultimate goal is for the more environmentally-friendly fuel to be used on long-distance space missions, but for now it's excellent for videos of rockets taking off (starting at 4:00). [Purdue University via MAKE]

The video is in French, but le crap and le boom don't need much translation:

Seriously, I don't know why NASA is always whining for more money from Congress. [Koreus—Thank you Alejandra]

The particular setup for this was sound activated. The lens was destroyed (worth it of course) but the camera survived this one despite being severed from its ratchet straps and thrown to the ground, and the sound device used for this one disconnected from the camera and thrown about 200 feet backwards into the pad perimeter fence (still worked!). All settings are preset manually. No one is allowed closer than several miles from a launch.

Well, that's awesome. [Airliners.net, Thanks, Jason!]

You see? Nothing out of the ordinary here. Just a fully-functional Victorian house car on wheels tooling around the Nevada desert.

Be warned: The rest of the images in the gallery link below are light on gadgetry/vehicles and heavy on WTF, sexy Mad Max hippies, fire breathing and even some bondage. [LA Weekly]

Called the Raygun Rocket, the art piece is an interactive, 40-foot tall four-story rocket right out of the Marvin Martian/Bugs Bunny/Buck Rogers era. The whole thing, including LED "launch pad," is powered by solar panels.

A "future that never was" say the designers, and who are we to argue. It's just too bad they couldn't figure out a way to make it launch. I'm sure at Burning Man there would have been more than a few people willing to give that ride a try.

A shot of the rocket in fabrication. The designers say it's easily transportable via flat bed truck and low-earth orbit. OK, just the truck. [Raygun Gothic Rocket via CNET]

Verna Rockets has a full debrief on its own builds, complete with links to several sites with parts and instructions. You'll find everything you need to build a flying model rocket that looks like a Recon Viper, the U.S.S. Enterprise, even The Black Hole Space Probe from "The Black Hole"

Confession: I always get psyched by rocket kits. Have any pics of your own launches that you'd like to share? [Verna Rockets via Hobby Media]

It's quite interesting, with well-thought-out logic that points to NK obtaining parts and knowledge from Russia. In short, they probably don't have quite as good a capability for delivering the payload as previously thought. [The Bulletin]

Intended to "accurately reproduce" the three stages of a Soyuz rocket launch, the you recline, put on eyewear/headphones and input your requested ride into the control panel (should they prefer a single stage or full-out rocket launch). The chair then rattles its way from a mundane home to...well, it doesn't go anywhere. But maybe you won't realize that until you take off the mask and return to Everybody Loves Raymond reruns. [Design Interactions via Core77 via OhGizmo!]

[Thanks, Ben and Mike!]

That's right—this 1/10 scale model of the Saturn V rocket can actually fly thanks to eight 13,000ns N-Class motors and a single 77,000ns P-Class motor producing 8,000 pounds of thrust. If all goes well, the single stage flight will top out at 3-4,000 feet and return to Earth via parachute.

Will Eves $25,000 baby succeed as the original Saturn V rocket did in 1969, or will it crash in a spectacular and potentially deadly fashion? Either way, I hope there is some good video. [Rocketry Planet via Likecool via OhGizmo]