November 2018
How many people does it take to colonise an exoplanet?
... be unlike anything ever attempted in human history. While faster-than-light ‘warp drives’ are a popular staple of science fiction and allow protagonists to flit from star system to star system in the time it takes for a commercial break...
May 2018
PLATO the habitable zone explorer
...out there in the cosmos has long been a staple of science fiction. It should come as no surprise then that these extra-solar... Warwick in the UK and leads the PLATO mission’s Science Management Office. His research focuses on the discovery of ...
July 2019
Settling the final frontier
... beyond Earth to establish permanent colonies in space. The ‘Final Frontier’, used to describe space, became a staple of science fiction with the introduction of Star Trek in 1966. In relation to space settlement, it applies exquisitely. As the last...
February 2016
Defending Earth against cosmic hazards
...Sir Arthur Clarke was fond of quoting his fellow science fiction writer Larry Niven and he often cited Niven’s famous...of what might be done to address cosmic hazards. Clearly more science and investigation is needed - but we are not ostriches that ...
October 2017
Saving geostationary orbit
... by Arthur C. Clarke in a 1945 article published in Wireless World magazine, in which the then naval officer and science fiction author proposed their use to create a global communications system. Based on earlier work by a largely forgotten Slovene...
October 2020
Morality, rights and responsibilities in space
... in that era, when the concepts of colonising space and utilising space resources were still in the realm of science fiction. Now, with these prospects becoming increasingly real we have to consider a new approach to human action and interaction...
