1) Tomorrow at about this time I expect to be celebrating the successful orbital insertion of the Cassini-Huygens mission into Saturn orbit. So far everything seems to be going well with the probe, and the pictures takes so far have been incredible.
2) Industry and public interest is slowly but surely growing for the concept of the space elevator. We're now seeing articles about the possibility of elevators becoming a reality more than once a year, which means that somebody has decided that this needs to enter the public consciousness. In any case, the elevator project is building a slow but steady head of steam. Here's hoping that it gets somewhere.
Posted by the Fourth Man at June 29, 2004 06:25 PM
There was a cover story on space elevators in one of the popsci magazines. Discover, I think. I haven't a clue about the physics of it all (though by hanging around /. and y'all, I'm probably better clued than most), but it sure sounds like a nifty idea. I'm worried about possible side effects from some kind of mass transfer of energy between upper and lower atmosphere through the wire, but like I said, I haven't a clue about the physics of it all.
Posted by: Warrior Tang at June 29, 2004 06:44 PM