(Photo: NASA/Mattel, via Yahoo)

Few astronauts have captured our national imagination more than Buzz Lightyear, the delightful spaceman superhero character in the classic animated film Toy Story. It appears that NASA's designers are also big fans of the Pixar flick, as it recently released photos of its newest spacesuit, and it looks suspiciously similar to the one worn by Buzz.

It's called the Z-1 Prototype Spacesuit and Portable Life Support System 2.0, and it was named one of Time's greatest inventions of the year. It's designed to take astronauts safely into deep space--oh, and did we mention it looks fly as hell? The suit is all white with lime green accents and a gigantic transparent dome helmet.

The Hollywood Reporter points out that this isn't the only Buzz-themed NASA product; the organization has also worked with Disney to develop space-themed games that can help kids learn about space exploration.

To infinity and... okay, you get it.

(Photo: Laurentiu Garofeanu/Barcroft, DailyMail)

The whimsical scene from the 2009 movie Up has been burned into the imaginations of Pixar fans everywhere: an elderly man attaches hundreds of balloons to his house and takes to the sky, soaring above the city. Most people figured it to be an impossible feat, but not 38-year-old Jonathan Trappe. A balloon enthusiast, dude actually boarded a house with 365 helium balloons attached to it and ascended into the sky at the Leon International Balloon Festival in Mexico.

According to the Daily Mail, the fearless Mr. Trappe was simply using this spectacle as practice for a $170,000 transatlantic balloon flight he's planning to embark on next year:

He aims to complete the 2,500 mile journey across the pond in a seven foot lifeboat carried by 365 huge helium balloons.

The adventurer, who holds records for crossing the Alps, flying the most cluster balloons, and the longest distance, has spent his entire career building up to the momentous expedition.

We'll give you a moment now to come to terms with the fact that nothing you do will ever compare to the majesty of Mr. Trappe's adventures.

In the meantime, Movoto real estate company has come up with a calculator to calculate how many balloons it would take to  lift your house. Beware: it's tough to guess. We were off by over 20,000 balloons.

Mr. Senna, right, with his Wall-E. (Photo: Sennaswalle)

Mike Senna, the man responsible for creating a life-size R2D2, has again pored himself into the construction of a beloved movie character. And this one's bound to tickle Pixar geeks: he made a working Wall-E!

A programmer by day and a hobbyist by night, the Orange County-based Mr. Senna spent two years painstakingly combing through Wall-E in order to build a life-size, functioning replica of the film's titular character.

According to Blastr:

Until now WALL-E only existed in a computer. There were no schematics, no pre-existing parts, nothing. Senna had to watch the movie over and over again to get all the movements right, develop the robotic elements himself, and then put it all together. He spent at least 25 hours a week working on it (he also has a job), and estimates that it probably took anywhere between 3,200 and 3,800 hours to finish the project. Oh, and he paid for all of it himself.

Damn, that's commitment. If only Mr. Senna could build a functioning Eve, we imagine they'd be a big hit at weddings and birthday parties.