June 2015
FanWing: short take-off capability creates a new way to fly
In the year 2000, writer, scientist and prophet, Sir Arthur C. Clarke sent a fax to an unknown inventor who had created an odd and innovative aircraft wing. Clarke complimented the inventor, Pat Peebles, and included a quotation from Clarke’s own ‘...
October 2015
Finding Earth-like worlds: the tale of how Kepler-452b was discovered
... stellar parameters. The first spectroscopic follow up observations were made at McDonald Observatory, and the results are a bit disappointing. The initial analysis indicated that the star could be as much as 20- 25% larger than the Sun, and...
February 2016
Danish Surprise for ISS Crew
... anyone. It was hard to keep that secret!” Andreas later spoke about the moment when they all bit into the chocolate and saw the notes. At first the crew thought it was a fortune cookie. Then...
March 2016
Space Mining – the Reality of Tomorrow?
... the advent of the Southern Ape Man shows every almost “everything” has happened in the last tiny bit of Super Month time. When Peter Diamandis talks of abundance and Ray Kurzweil of singularity, they are suggesting...
November 2016
Rosetta - an eventful cruise phase
... activate the small onboard thrusters for several hours during the period of ground contact. Of course we were a bit nervous: we had never performed with Rosetta such long duration burns, and we had only a couple of weeks...
April 2017
Surviving radiation for space colonisation
... regolith. The Sun generates a lot of this type of particle from its fusion reactions and there is quite a bit in the solar wind. The nuclei are all ions, their electrons stripped away as they are accelerated...
