The Best in Space, 2006 Edition

For any fellow space buffs who may be reading my humble ramblings, I’ve compiled some end-of-year retrospectives that you may find interesting:

  • Emily at the Planetary Society offers up her Year in Pictures, highlighting a few of the awesome photos we’ve seen in the past 12 months. (You may recognize some of them as shots I posted here, or at least linked to. There are also a couple — this one and this one — that I’ve meant to blog about but haven’t gotten around to.)
  • Over at Bad Astronomy, Phil Plait has his own Top Ten Astronomy Images entry, which overlaps somewhat with Emily’s but also includes several different items. (Emily’s bailiwick is here in our own system, while Phil’s range of interest spans considerably farther outward.)
  • Here is a nice recap of The Year in Human Spaceflight. Between three shuttle flights, continuing construction on the International Space Station, planning for the post-shuttle era, and private efforts like Bigelow’s inflatable space hotel, it was a busy year indeed…
  • William Burrows — not to be confused with William Burroughs — has a list of the Five Best Space Books, which includes astronaut Jim Lovell’s outstanding memoir of the Apollo 13 disaster, Lost Moon, and Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy.
  • Curious about what’s coming up in the way of space missions for 2007? I haven’t seen anything on manned flights, but Emily has a rundown of the robotic missions, at least…
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