Last week, I invoked the wrath of trance fans everywhere by suggesting Above & Beyond – rumoured to be the first musical act in space – should be kept up there. Turns out Richard Branson chose Spandau Ballet instead.
A new spacecraft is being launched in about a year, one designed to travel across the solar system. But instead of using rockets to propel itself, it uses sails. Sails pushed by light.
Warning, middle-class Earthmen. By the end of this post, your dreams of low-cost space travel will be delayed. Above: WhiteKnightTwo Eve’s Maiden Flight. Photo Credit Schereer Scherer.
You can’t fault a 1918 artist for thinking future spacemen would travel the stars at 3.2km/minute (192 kph). But to think that astronauts would travel open canopy, Wright Brothers style? Cah-rayzee talk.
NASA is now showing Orion—the spacecraft that will take humans to the Moon and Mars—at the National Mall in Washington. It’s not the real thing, but it looks great (needs more pretty decals).
The days of the shuttle must be over, but that’s not the end of reusable spaceships. Now the Europeans want to revive an old 1980s project called HOTOL. Check out the cool cutaway drawing.
