It’s Halloween, and all things scary come out of the shadows. No matter who or where they are, people with sense of this celebration are doing their best to let themselves get carried away. Including at NASA.
The American space agency, revived in recent years by grandiose plans for the exploration of the solar system, still seems to find time to properly manifest itself during this year’s Halloween. And poke fun at America’s secret alien dealings in the process.
For the past nine years now, NASA has been holding a pumpkin-carving contest at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The competition lasts only one hour (at lunch break, NASA hurries to say), during which time teams must carve pumpkins in themed creations.
There were two winners of this year’s challenge. The first is called Lunar Jack-o'-lander, a pumpkin celebrating Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary, that arrived complete with scenography. That is an imitated landing sequence, made true by use a pulley system, and sounds effects taken from real Apollo audio and footage. A smoke machine was on site to stir things up even further.
The second winner is a pumpkin called Lucy's Chocolate Factory, a work replicating the "Job Switching" episode from the TV show "I Love Lucy."
But there were more pumpkins on site. There was a “Europa lander drilling through the moon's ice into the ocean below” until it came across a pumpkin version of Disney's Nemo, a scaled dragon emerging from a pumpkin egg, pumpkins stabbing each other, and even a cat pumpkin chasing a laser.
The cherry on the cake, albeit not the winner, is the improvised flying saucer hovering over Area 51 while its evil twin wreaks havoc below.
You can view some of the NASA pumpkins in the gallery above. For more, you can check out the agency’s Flickr account.
For the past nine years now, NASA has been holding a pumpkin-carving contest at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The competition lasts only one hour (at lunch break, NASA hurries to say), during which time teams must carve pumpkins in themed creations.
There were two winners of this year’s challenge. The first is called Lunar Jack-o'-lander, a pumpkin celebrating Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary, that arrived complete with scenography. That is an imitated landing sequence, made true by use a pulley system, and sounds effects taken from real Apollo audio and footage. A smoke machine was on site to stir things up even further.
The second winner is a pumpkin called Lucy's Chocolate Factory, a work replicating the "Job Switching" episode from the TV show "I Love Lucy."
But there were more pumpkins on site. There was a “Europa lander drilling through the moon's ice into the ocean below” until it came across a pumpkin version of Disney's Nemo, a scaled dragon emerging from a pumpkin egg, pumpkins stabbing each other, and even a cat pumpkin chasing a laser.
The cherry on the cake, albeit not the winner, is the improvised flying saucer hovering over Area 51 while its evil twin wreaks havoc below.
You can view some of the NASA pumpkins in the gallery above. For more, you can check out the agency’s Flickr account.