Broadband and Me

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | UK aims to be major space player

Science minister Lord Sainsbury says the country will pay the £5m interim subscriptions needed to maintain a premier place in the Aurora programme.
Aurora sets out a vision for Europe to visit the planets with robotic probes and perhaps one day even with humans.
Initially, however, the aim will be to put unmanned vehicles on the Red Planet.

Lots of progress happening on the Space exploration front this week, what with Virgin Galaxy(?) and SpaceShipOne (Burt Rutan) and perhaps more important in the long term and certainly for British ‘Space’ academics is the news that the government will by into Aurora. First time in a while I can truely say I am pleased with a decision made by the government.

Mars, here we come, maybe, again, perhaps… oh well, fingers crossed.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Nasa set to revisit Mercury

More news of Solar System visits: Nasa plans to launch a new probe to Mercury.

Messenger (short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) will conduct an in-depth study of Mercury in its entirety. Carrying seven scientific instruments, it will provide the first images of the whole planet.

It will also collect information on the composition and structure of Mercury’s crust, its geological history, the nature of its thin atmosphere and magnetic field, and the make-up of its core and polar materials.

This of course is in addition to the Beppi Collumbo collaboration between Europe and Japan due for launch early in the next decade. Exciting stuff!

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Teleportation breakthrough made

I am not even going to pretend to understand the physics behind this, however the ability to transfer properties of atoms through space seems beyond the fantastic and seeingly into the realms of fiction. The most important short term possiblity is computing speed, which while not amazing does break barriers.

Whether this means physical transport is ever a possibility I don’t know but it makes me wonder…

Congratulations to those scientists involved.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | X-Prize ‘will be won this year’

The X-prize - a prize for non-public firms to get a three-person craft into orbit (well its got more rules than that but have a look) is close to being won. The prediction is that this will be won later this year by one of three competing teams and good luck to them!

One of my regrets in life is not being able to visit space. I would be scared witless mind you but being able to view the world from space is one of my ambitions. This prize could ultimately lead to that kind of experience for a wider audience than currently allowed by ntaional and international space programmes. Perhaps more importantly, this prize injects an element of competition and urgency into developing alternative means of reaching space and maybe will see more done in terms of exploration for the future.

While I agree that scientific research isn’t everything, commercial reseaarch my open up new possiblities that until ytet haven’t been considered because fo governemental constraints - Britain’s biggest being it abandoned its space programme years ago and now contributes less to space research than Italy.

Given the recent conflicts on Earth, you may well ask why I think efforts should be placed here? Well, I believe we will only develop beyond our current state if we do seek to transcend barriers, physical, scientific, religious, social or whatever. One may to do this (though by no means the only) is to establish a common goal, an element of competition though not exclusivity and the vista of unimagined possibilites. Slightly into the realms of dreams and utopia but its what I believe.

Postcards from the Bleeding Edge

History will remember the inhabitants of this century as the people who went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years, only to languish for the next 30 in low Earth orbit. At the core of the risk-free society is a self-indulgent failure of nerve.” — Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 astronaut

Great post from Mike. This quote from Buzz Aldrin stood out. Per Adua et Astra - through adversity to the stars - its actually the motto of the RAF but it sums this up perfectly. You must take risk to advance and you naturally have to weigh up the cost/benefit of that risk.

Isn’t exploration of space worth it? I think it is.