When I was a kid, I had a vivid imagination. As, I suppose, most kids do. Except for the particularly dull ones.
One of my favorite things to imaging was spaceships. Fueled by a steady diet of late 70s-early 80s science fiction (Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers!) along with the optimism of the early days of NASA’s shuttle program (“we’ll be sending astronauts into space weekly and a moonbase is only years away” was the promise), I loved imaging space-based stories of distant planets, their bizarre denizens and the starships that would take us to meet them.
I thought of these imaginary storylines and vehicles again over the weekend, as SpaceX made their first manned launch to the International Space Station (we still don’t have that moonbase, but we do have a space station!). This is, hopefully, the first step for private enterprise to pick up where NASA gave up on space exploration. Hell, Elon Musk even imagined a starship and is building it.
But just because I thought of these imaginary interstellar ships again over the weekend doesn’t mean that I haven’t thought of them since I was an awkward little kid growing up East Texas…I actually think about imaginary space ships on a regular basis.
One of my favorite sites to peruse is Concept Ships, a site filled with user-submitted spaceships. Users with much-better artistic talent than myself (seriously, you’ve seen the limits of my sketching skills). Some of these are so good, that I yearn to see them on TV or in a movie, just to see the adventures that they are engaged in.
I also regularly flip through the ImaginaryStarships subreddit. It’s strangely-reassuring to see that I’m not the only one that imagines spaceships on occasion.
However, my new favorite place to see imagined spaceships is the Instagram feed of Eric Geusz, more popularly known as spacegoose. His specialty is taking everyday objects and reimagining them as spaceships (not unlike how, as a kid, I’d imagine the TV remote as a starcruiser or my Bic pen as a rocket).
I’m in awe of his abilities and creativity:
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View this post on Instagram
Maybe one day, I’ll have the artistic talent to share my own imaginings…