Well, as most of you have probably heard by now, Hunter S. Thompson decided to void his warranty last night at the age of 67. I'm only familiar with some of his works and considerably less familiar with his research methods; suffice to say, other people can discuss him better than I can (though I'm mostly inclined to believe Fafblog's interpretation of things).
While there's something to be said for sitting back with a copy of Fear and Loathing, Shpongle or some other inappropriate choice of music blaring arrythmically in the background, I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'll do what Hunter did rather often and regale people with news from outer space.
Lately our backyard's been pretty busy as various probes begin having some interesting returns. Mars has had some particularly odd ones that I've caught. Two in particular are news that it may have a frozen sea of water just beneath the surface, which bodes well if there any manned missions to the place end up happening, soon or ever. Perhaps more interestingly, there are speculations of an existing biosphere beneath our neighbour's surface, although those reports are more controversial and need some more examination. Meanwhile, the Mars rovers, designed for a 90-day stay on the Martian surface with an optimistic guess at a 180-day stay, continue to blow away all expectations as they near their 400th day on the surface. Methinks some engineers deserve a raise, even if they're not terribly likely to get it.
Speaking of NASA getting screwed, NASA's getting screwed. On the other hand, they're at least somewhat serious about getting the Shuttle up again, mainly to test safety procedures. It remains up in the air, pardon the pun, whether the Hubble is going to survive NASA's attempt to get back on their feet, more's the pity.
Heading back out again, Titan continues to be a source of assorted neatness from the Cassini-Huygens mission. One of the latest things that could make one wonder is the idea that Titan is laden with potential for life, but is too cold to do anything about it, a world in which life miscarried.
In the area of getting up there in the first place, SPACE.com brings us an article about Bradley Edwards and continued work towards getting a space elevator hooked up at some point. As easy as it is to dismiss something like that out of hand simply by saying "science fiction!" as though that were an argument, we're rapidly getting to the point where this thing's possible. There's certainly no reason it can't happen in my lifetime, or even before I'm particularly old. We also have the new players doing things some more, with India working on a lunar probe, China announcing a launch date in the fall for their second manned spaceflight, followed fairly shortly by docking and EVA flights, and Brazil is becoming a potential site for a commercial spaceport for the new private-spaceflight industry, coupled with some fairly significant hikes in their own space-exploration funding.
That's all for now; back to Earth if you'd like, and if not, there's a lotta stuff out there.
Posted by zibblsnrt at February 21, 2005 06:29 PM