The design, by Kanner Architects, is supposed to capture the momentum of nearby freeways, using two swooshy features: "a concrete ramp to the car wash that winds around, over, and behind the market, and a steel structure that forms the roof of the market, then curves around to become a soaring canopy over the pumps." Is it scrapped for good, or will we one day be able to pump our gas under that soaring space ramp? More pics at the link. [Curbed L.A.]

Photos by AP/Seth Wenig

China's ramped-up space plans (and its airbrushed moon porn) are definitely making the U.S. twitchy. The U.S. government refused to help with the launch of China's Chang'e lunar orbiter.) But the U.S. has mostly been laid-back, and a little condescending. Like this L.A. Times article that says "There's Room For China In Space." Really? No way. (Here's another one.) Even the fact that Russia, Western Europe and Japan have all launched their own robot probes isn't freaking Americans out yet. So let's hope China steps up its game, without doing anything too evil, like when China blew up a satellite and doubled the size of the debris field orbiting Earth. But a Chinese astronaut on Mars would be just the thing we need to jolt us out of our complacency.

Who knows when the U.S. would have put a dude on the moon if Russia hadn't put a dog in space back in 1957? The U.S. government is pretty stingy when it comes to science funding, but there's always money for war and coping with outside threats. Space funding dropped sharply in the 1990s, and now we're retiring our space shuttle fleet. The only recent increase in space funding was $300 million for defending U.S. satellites after China destroyed that weather satellite. It sucks that we need an outside competitor to make us take space exploration seriously again.But on the other hand, a little more competition could be healthy for everyone. Images by AP.

Says Nader Elhefnawy:

[James] started with thinly-sketched claims about Soviet capabilities and programs for which the evidence was slim, and then extrapolated from them in a frictionless universe where unproven technologies never disappoint and bureaucratic irrationality never gets in the way.

In other words, by focusing on the absolute worst case, James helped make the Cold War that much more frenzied. It's an important lesson for the next time futurists make teeth-grinding predictions about Chinese space mastery or super-terrorists. But is anyone willing to learn it?

Space War and Future Hype [Plausible Futures]

In May, China launched a satellite for Nigeria, the first time another country paid the Chinese to put a commercial satellite in orbit. And in late October, China launched the Chang'e lunar orbiter, named after a Chinese goddess who flew to the moon. The Chang'e will orbit the moon for a year, sending back images and data on the Moon's surface. China's seeking more private investment in its space program. And India isn't far behind.

Maybe the competition will force the U.S. to improve its science education, hopes Washington state business leader Don Brunell:

Americans may need a national emergency, like the launch of Sputnik, to wake us up. Perhaps the Asian space programs will be the catalyst.

The name 'Geox' [is] from the Greek word geo for 'earth,' and 'x,' the letter symbolizing technology. Wearing these shoes makes you feel you are walking barefoot on earth and without the stink.

When the space age ended, the alien age began. In the early 1990s, the Disney Corporation decided to close down its Mission to Mars ride, itself a direct descendant of the Rocket to the Moon attraction Werner von Braun had helped to design. In its place came Alien Encounter, in which an extraterrestrial stows away on a spaceship. This made things easier for Disney, as one executive admitted: "One way for an attraction to remain timeless is for it to be based in fantasy, rather than reality."

After we stopped sending people into space, it was easier to spin elaborate fantasies. We no longer had any narratives about actual space travel, with all its challenges, to compete with our magical interstellar ships, DeGroot argues.

[Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest] NYU Press 2006

The Space Age is dead, it died of starvation and neglect, somewhere around 1980. Yes, we fed it and gave it money while it was young, and exciting, and sexy, while our love for it was bright and new, but when it got older, and needed more expensive care and more of our time and understanding we guided it to a comfy chair over on the far side of the room, made it a cup of tea, handed it a magazine and left it to look after itself

Atkinson, who founded the Cockermouth Astronomical Society, says we got distracted by the allure of the Information Age. Soon we were out partying with our shiny iPods and googling ourselves in the corner, while the Space Age faded away. (Mostly I just wanted an excuse to say "Cockermouth.")

John Seiler has another explanation: "Funny how the "Space Age" ended about the time that alien creature burst from the guy's chest in "Alien" in 1979."

Space Age: RIP [via Cumbrian Sky] [Image by Getty Images]