Get Me Off This Rock

This week we are going where only a handful of humans have gone before. Then we are blasting off further out, to infinity and beyond. This week Gizmodo is going to space.

Like our Listening Test—a week dedicated to audio and all things music—Get Me Off This Rock will walk you through the marvels of space exploration, the most epic quest in the history of Humanity. The most epic and the most important, because flying to space and deciphering the Universe is not just a desire to go to the unknown, to open new commercial pathways, or discover new lands to move to. This quest goes beyond Humanity’s past and greatest adventures because it tries to answer the most important questions of them all: Who are we? Why are we here? How did we get here? Are we alone in this rock we call Earth?

This is why we are dedicating this week to space exploration. Well, that and because we all have wanted to be astronauts. And because spaceships—and all the things that come with them—just kick arse. Oh yes, and because Star Trek is coming out this week, which is probably the epitome of space exploration as we would like it to be: No boundaries, no limits for anyone, the hope that somehow there’s something we are missing. Something that will allow us to roam the stars without the limits of current space travel and known physics.

So get ready for the present and the future of space trips, the design and the function, the science and the fiction, the technology genius and the courage, the quest for intergalactic neighbours, and all the spectacular views. This week we are flying you to the moon, to Jupiter, and Mars, to swing among the stars, and marvel at the wonders of space—truly the ultimate frontier.

Godspeed, Earthlings. This is going to be fun. [Get Me Off This Rock theme week]