A Beautiful Solar System

We live in a beautiful Solar System .....

The Beautiful Solar System

That's always brought home to me whenever I see a picture of the solar system.

Dan Dare Dreams

We truly are about to enter the most exciting era in space since the 1960's ..... well if we don't destroy ourselves first.

Plans are afoot to mine the asteroids in our solar system, and use the new 3D printer technology, to convert local space materials, such as the moons surface 'regolith', into buildings and other objects, and generally open up space, with a lot of these ideas led by private industry consortium's. Sure, state players like China, the European Space Agency, NASA and Russia, are still the main men, but slowly and surely the private sector are muscling in, with private firms already docking with and supplying the space station.

What naff's me off about all this, is that all the major plans will be in the 2020's and beyond and I may miss them. If only this sudden flurry of 'Dan Dare' style exploration had been started 25 yrs ago ....

Dan Dare - Spaceport

..... what would we be doing in space now?

Grrr! .... How I hate the idea of missing out on seeing what we may end up achieving, especially if its only a few decades after I am gone ..... life or rather death can be inconvenient at times.

Colonel Dan Dare - Mancunian Hero

There is a side note to this post .... its no particular secret that we at PC towers are based in the North West of England, indeed we have alluded to this on any number of occasions, but while I was writing this post I was totally amazed to discover that space hero of my childhood, Colonel Daniel McGregor Dare, was born in Manchester in 1967, and educated at 'Rossall School' on the Fylde Coast ..... both areas we are very familiar with.

It really is a small world ..... and soon we hope a small solar system.

Red Rover

Sadly, I will probably not live long enough to see the first colonists on the Moon or Mars, such has been the slow progress in space travel .....

Latest Mars Rover .... 'Curiosity'

and maybe with the discovery that older ex-astronauts are showing signs of cell damage, maybe that day will never come, but its still some achievement to land rover machines on the Red Planet, and then explore them with images only delayed by 14 minutes.

 

Ticket To Ride (To Mars)

This Blog has followed space exploration with some interest, as it believes this planet has a very small window in which to establish outposts of humanity off planet before Earth civilisation collapses at the end of this century ...... so the news that Mars harbours vast amounts of water ice just under the surface is vastly encouraging.

Water-ice is seen to fade over time in this 12m crater within Arcadia Planitia

Now, if we can just crack the transportation propulsion method, then we have it sorted, cos a new road map has also been discovered.

A Surprising Landmark

The news so far this year is sadly dominated by the war in Gaza, and in fact killings around the world. Well like my favourite character from "Kelly's Heroes", Oddball says, "Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?"

So I will. Mars exploration has been profoundly boosted by the surprise survival of NASA's very own little WAL-E's, Spirit and Opportunity, the Mars Rovers. They were predicted to last about three months in the extreme conditions on Mars, when they landed in January 2004.