Speljamr.com

New Scientist is running an article about a new solar sail method that could push a craft to Mars in about one month. Currently this is just a theoretical concept since the craft would need a push from a 60-megawatt microwave beam, which we currently do not have the capability of creating. Still, it’s a cool concept that could become a reality someday.

On the flip side, the Planetary Society is still on target to launch Cosmos 1, their experimental solar sail, on March 1st, 2005. I can’t wait to see how it performs.

This has to be absolutley devistating to the professor who worked on the Doppler wind experiment. He put 18 years of his life into it, and someone forgot to turn on the instrument that was to carry out the experiment. Sheesh! You can’t even get good customer service from the European Space Agency!

Professor’s Saturn Experiment Forgotten

UPDATE 02/09/2005:

Looks like they were actually able to recover some of the data.

More pictures from the Huygens probe have been released, including one color photo. See them here.

You can also listen to sounds from Titan on this site.

The first picture of Titan, captured during Huygens descent, has been released. Current reports indicate that more pictures will be released in a couple of hours. This shot seems to show trenches that might be made by flowing liquid.

2 days 16 hours till the Huygens probe begins its descent into Titan’s Atmosphere. God speed…

This is the most beautiful picture I have seen returned from the Cassini probe thus far, in my humble opinion:

Nature’s Canvas

If you think your programming job is hard, try this guy’s hacking job.

I came across this very interesting forum post about the Soviet Unions response to our “Star Wars” program. Lots of good pictures.

A couple of days ago the Cassini probe flew within 745 miles of Saturn’s moon Titan. This is the closest any probe has ever been to that moon. The Voyager probes showed only a hazy disk, but the new Cassini pictures reveal much more. Some scientists thing Titan might even be gealogically active.

I’m waiting with much anticipation for the Huygens probe’s plunge into Titan’s atmosphere. This should happen sometime in January, 2005.

It would appear that SpaceShipOne has won the Ansari X-Prize. This flight appeared to be almost perfect, though the pilot did mention that things were a bit shaky. Now I just have to start saving my $200,000 so I can catch a flight on Virgin Galactic!

The unofficial alltitude marker at this time is 368,000 feet.

For full coverage click here.