Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley: The local CBS affiliate reports that a San Francisco man has captured video of mysterious lights zipping about the night sky. Well, The X Files did warn us that our alien colonizers would arrive on December 22, 2012. Maybe fans should have listened instead of spending our time wondering when Mulder and Scully would finally make out. Read More
Looking for a lift… to space? Today, after a week of Internet speculation, a new commercial aerospace startup called the Golden Spike Company made its official debut. Headed by former NASA administrators, the company wants to get regular missions to the moon going by 2020–and at a fraction of the current cost. The name is meant to evoke the transcontinental railway that opened up the American west for settlement.
Yeah, they basically want to build a train to space. NBD. Read More
Sad news for spiderkind: Space.com reports that Nefertiti, a jumping spider who participated in International Space Station experiments in weightlessness, has passed away at the Smithsonian, where she was on display. She was ten months old.
The Smithsonian announced Nefertiti’s passing via Facebook: Read More
Yesterday, before venturing forth to the casting call for Bravo’s Start-ups: Silicon Valley spinoff, we made a rather wonkier stop, at this month’s meeting of the MIT Enterprise Forum. The topic of the panel? Space, the final frontier, and aerospace investing in particular.
As we arrived, a brief SpaceX video with a Top Gun-style soundtrack was wrapping up. Adam Harris, the company’s VP for Government Affairs, let slip a little, “Yay!” as it came to a close. Read More
As much as we love the notion of 3D printing ourselves a pizza and sitting down to a 3D printed game of canasta at a 3D printed dinner table, it sometimes seems this snazzy technology is often used to produce little more than tchotchkes.
And then NASA goes and 3D prints some rocket parts. Read More
Weather permitting, it looks like Elon Musk and his SpaceX aerospace startup will ride their Dragon cargo capsule into a shiny new era of private enterprise in space Sunday night, when Dragon is set to launch from Cape Canaveral on its first trip to the International Space Station (ISS).
Elon Musk isn’t the only entrepreneur with his gaze fixed firmly on the horizon of the Red Planet. My Fox New York reports that a Dutch company named Mars One wants to put humans on the alien world’s surface by 2023. Not only that, they’ll be a very special brand of human: Reality TV stars.
No, the company is not simply strapping Jill Zarin to a rocket and waiting for the inevitable rating success. Think of their proposal as more like an Astronaut Idol, or So You Think You Can Dance (On the Surface of Mars). The aim is to create a “global media spectacle” and thereby fund the project commercially: Read More
Maybe, despite a week of SPACE FEVER, you still aren’t sold on the idea of NASA. Maybe sexy mohawk-rocking scientists and sick panoramic images of an alien planet leave you cold. After all, it’s not like we’re sending real-life human astronauts anywhere anytime soon.
Well, oh ye of little faith, behold wtfNASA, a single-serve site devoted entirely to answering the question, “What the fuck has NASA done to make your life awesome?” Merely one example of many: inspired the design for your Speedo bathing suit. You’re welcome.
However, it appears the creator of this entertaining little site has neglected a very important contribution to American pop culture for which NASA is at least tangentially responsible: I Dream of Jeanie. We demand more Major Nelson.
And ultimately, he wants to make it “affordable for the average person in the United States.” So probably just go ahead and clear your calendar.
