One day vast solar sails pushed along by rays of sunlight may carry payloads between the planets. Tracy McConnell explains how this romantic vision is slowly becoming a fact. The concept of sailing gracefully through the stars is a provocative one that has been around for longer than you may Read more…
Apollo 18 is a SF/Horror movie presented as newly-found film footage taken by the fictional crew of a lost 1970s lunar landing mission. The Apollo 18 film uses real NASA movie footage from the Moon (some of it doctored with CGI) and new studio-shot footage with actors and special effects Read more…
2011 will be a year of exciting and historic upcoming events in space exploration. It is is also a significant anniversary year of some triumphs and tragedies in space history. Here’s a look at what lies in store. This year marks four centuries since sunspots were first observed telescopically by Read more…
Already Hollywood is planning next year’s marketing offensive on our wallets. One planned blockbuster for summer 2011 is Battle:LA in which extraterrestrial invaders spread alarm and dismay in southern California. But is the motivation of the movie’s aliens astronomically dubious? An expensive production starring Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez (whose Read more…
As it’s Halloween, we examine the life and works of HP Lovecraft, author of horror classics including The Call of Cthulhu and The Shadow over Innsmouth. How did his lifelong interest in astronomy influence his work? Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) is praised as one of the twentieth century’s most influential Read more…
It is 14 November 2019 and the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, when humans first walked on another world, has been and gone but today a new and exciting voyage begins. A massive booster stage pushes a spacecraft out of Earth orbit. This vehicle comprises two Orion Read more…
NASA’s next manned spacecraft will be the Orion, a capsule which will be carried into space by a rocket. Weighing 25 tonnes, each Orion will carry up to six people. Accommodation on board is cosy at best, cramped at worst. Orion was intended to take astronauts to the Moon and Read more…
In the early 1960s, the sky had no limits for NASA . Planners for the agency foresaw an ever-expanding future of exploration through the Solar System. Some amazing missions were planned. Alas in August 1967, the US Congress refused to support NASA’s plans for the 1970s. Ever since then NASA’s Read more…
“Rods from God” is the nick-name given to a hypothetical orbital weapon for bombarding targets on the Earth from space. Just how feasible is this concept? There are undeniable links between the spaceflight and military communities but apart from a few tests of anti-satellite weapons, the odd armed space Read more…
The late ’50s and ’60s were a different time from the anxious era that is today. Nuclear power and space travel were both cool and wonderful new technologies. The only thing that could be cooler and more wonderful would be to combine the two. One suggestion was the US Read more…