“25 billion of your biggest bombs please. I’ll pay credit, thanks!” "I love the smell of venting volatiles in the morning..." The Pluto debate frustrates me, as you may have noticed. It’s not that I have particularly strong views about whether it should be called a planet...

Although I’ve been neck-deep in Ares I-X launch news today, I’ve had some time to see what else has been going on in the Universe. I really hope I’ll find the time to get to this stack of blog post ideas over the weekend, one of them is a particular peach. But before I turn in for the...

The Prandtl-Glauert singularity forms as Ares I-X goes transonic (NASA) What’s the cloud surrounding the Ares I-X during its transonic flight? Have a look at my Discovery News Big Pic for the answer… You could say it’s been an eventful day… but you’d be understating the...

Forget the supposed “Mayan Prophecy” of doomsday in 2012, the Mayan civilization never (ever!) predicted that the world was going to end on Dec. 21st 2012. Really, no ancient Maya elder ever said anything about doom. Also, no Mayan descendent believes that their ancestors foretold doom (and...

The Ares I-X and space shuttle Atlantis, ready to launch (NASA) This is possibly the most confusing image I have seen since I started writing about human space flight. In the foreground, we have the brand new Ares I crew launch test vehicle for the Constellation Program (a.k.a. the Ares I-X), and in...

Despite the fact the UK is effectively frozen out of participating in any kind of human spaceflight activity (we can blame Maggie Thatcher for that particular stroke of genius when she masterminded the 1986 Outer Space Act), it would appear Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, has been meeting...

Let’s face it, us soft and squidgy humans don’t react particularly well to radiation, the vacuum of space or hypervelocity meteoroids. This being the case, how do we ever hope to settle on other worlds, particularly worlds with dust for a backyard and a sky flooded in radiation from the...

(Note the clever use of CAPS and excessive exclamation marks in the title. It speaks volumes.) I guess this confirms I was wrong. Consider this an apology to all the crackpots, doomsayers, cranks and Walter Wagner. I’m sorry I got it all… so… wrong. While out on the town in London,...

The Ares I-X rollout from the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building (from NASA TV) The Ares I-X rollout began a little after 1:30 am EDT on Tuesday morning at Kennedy Space Center as planned. NASA TV was running the event live, and it was great to see the long, slender test rocket slowly edge...

The 327 ft tall Ares I-X is currently waiting inside Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building for its delayed 4.2 mile rollout to the launchpad. Originally scheduled for Monday, the rollout was postponed by 24 hours when engineers spotted a nitrogen gas leak on Oct. 14th. It would appear...