A five-part series on the ultimate limit on technology, and how that limit could help us find other civilizations:
1 2 3 4 5 [via]
posted by cthuljew
on Dec 12, 2012 -
16 comments
In 1964, Zambia joined the Space Race with help from Edward Makuka Nkoloso, an
enthusiastic, if
overly optimistic, primary school teacher (
partial transcript, video very much of its time). Though the rocket never left Lusaka, and there was
never any real support from either the Zambian government or UNESCO, Nkoloso's
project caught the imagination of Spanish artist
Cristina de Middel in her short film,
The Afronauts. Middel
explains, "
The images are beautiful and the story is pleasant at a first level, but it is built on the fact that nobody believes that Africa will ever reach the moon. It hides a very subtle critique to our position towards the whole continent and our prejudices. It's just like saying strong words with a beautiful smile."
via.
posted by ChuraChura
on Dec 3, 2012 -
8 comments
On November 3 1957, Лайка, also known as
Laika The Space Dog is launched into orbit around the planet earth. A small mongrel chosen for her patient temper, the Soviet Space Program gloried in her achievement, but when she was sent into space, there was no plan in place for a proper re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere.
When pressed for details, the USSR media eventually claimed that she was peacefully euthanized with drugged food after six days in orbit. Documents released years later revealed that after six hours and four orbits, she died from a faulty heat-shield malfunction. Her spacecraft disintegrated five months later...
But what if Laika didn’t die
? [more inside]
posted by ovvl
on Nov 3, 2012 -
73 comments
Atomic Rockets is chock full of stuff to tickle the imagination of anyone who has enjoyed science fiction accounts of space travel. You can move your cursor over the "Show topic list" button in the top right corner of the page and start exploring.
posted by Egg Shen
on Sep 29, 2012 -
8 comments
In 2005, the Discovery Channel aired
Alien Worlds, a fictional documentary based on Wayne Douglas Barlowe's graphic novel,
Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV." Depicting mankind's first robotic mission to an extrasolar planet that could support life, the show drew from NASA's
Origins Program, the NASA/JPL
PlanetQuest Mission, and ESA's
Darwin Project. It was primarily presented through CGI, but included interviews from a variety of NASA scientists and other experts, including Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, John Craig Venter and Jack Horner. Oh, and George Lucas, too.
Official site.
Previously on MeFi. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Sep 21, 2012 -
12 comments
Boojum, a spacefaring Cthulhu Mythos story run through the filter of Lewis Carroll by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear (
Interview). A sequel in the same universe,
Mongoose, Appeared in the
Ellen Datlow edited anthology
Lovecraft Unbound. An audio of Mongoose is available at the Drabblecast (
part 1,
part 2), as well as a further sequel,
The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward (
part 1,
part 2)
posted by Artw
on Sep 21, 2012 -
31 comments
A cold autumn day was dawning as the German soldiers of the
Altenwalde Versuchskommando prepared their V2 rocket for launch. They'd done this a hundred times before, but when the V2 finally roared up into the sky over the North Sea, the men of the AVKO couldn't help but smile and cheer. Soon the rest of the soldiers and officers around the launchpad were cheering as well.
British officers and soldiers. Because this was
Operation Backfire, the beginning of something that most people don't even know existed - the
British Space Programme.
[more inside]
posted by garius
on Aug 30, 2012 -
42 comments
"... with the break-up of the Soviet Union, Baikonour, now part of Kazakhstan, had to be leased by Russia from the Kazakh government, and suddenly looks less and less like a long term solution to the future of space exploration."
posted by barnacles
on Aug 23, 2012 -
7 comments
