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Bullet Train to the Stars
Riding silently into the sky, soon she was 100km high, higher even than the old pioneering rocket planes, the X15s, used to reach. The sky was already all but black above her, with a twinkling of stars right at the zenith, the point to which the ribbon, gold-bright in the sunlight, pointed like an arrow.…
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Concept Ships
If you’re all about the hardware, this is the blog for you. Concept Ships is a “concept spaceship and experimental aircraft art blog,” devoted entirely to gorgeous artists’ renderings of spacecraft. Some of it is the work of blog owner Igor Tkac, but the bulk is guest submissions in a variety of styles. There’s some…
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Hubble Discovers “Unknown” Object
There may be nothing new under the sun, but there’s apparently something brand-new and unexplained out beyond it. In a paper published last week in the Astrophysical Journal, researchers described a new and completely unknown object with behavior so unusual that it may be a new class of phenomena. The object also appeared out of…
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Drilling in Alien Ice
Some of the most interesting places in the solar system are hidden under sheets of ice. The polar caps of Mars, Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa will require drilling of some kind to explore thoroughly. The technology used for drilling in places like Greenland is heavy and complex, which rules it out for…
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ET Phone an Anger Management Class
Seth Shostak of the SETI program is tired of ad hominem attacks on himself and other scientists by UFO “true believers.” He warns that his response may be a bit heated, but it’s actually a thoughtful and measured rebuttal to the idea that skeptics are automatically evil. I, too, was attacked, generally along the lines…
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Mythbusters Take on the Moon
The Mythbusters will be taking on the enduring Moon Landing Hoax conspiracy theory on August 27. The Mythbusters take on one of their biggest, most controversial myths ever: Could the July 1969 moon landing have been an elaborate hoax? First, Adam and Jamie focus on photos, testing the theory that two of NASA’s most famous…
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Strap on a Rocket, and Head for the Moon
The Washington Post has an interesting article about using the highly-underutilized International Space Station for something more important than low gravity experiments. The ISS, you see, is already an interplanetary spacecraft — at least potentially. It’s missing a drive system and a steerage module, but those are technicalities. Although it’s ungainly in appearance, it’s designed…
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Fueling the Conspiracy Fire
It’s been fairly well-covered in the blogosphere, so by now you’ve probably heard that one of the Apollo 14 astronauts professes insider knowledge of “real” alien visitations. He claims that the same government that couldn’t keep an affair with an intern secret has somehow managed to cover up 60 years’ worth of UFO activity. The…
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Russian/European Manned Spaceship Unveiled
The first official image of a reusable Russian/European manned spacecraft has been released. It will replace Russia’s current Soyuz vehicle and will allow Europe to participate in crew transportation. The ship will carry six crew into low-Earth orbit and four on missions to the Moon, which rivals the US Ares/Orion system. The new design includes…
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Earth as Alien World
NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft has shot footage of the moon transiting Earth as seen from 31 million miles away. Scientists are using the video to develop techniques to study alien worlds. “Making a video of Earth from so far away helps the search for other life-bearing planets in the Universe by giving insights into how…