Friday, 24 November 2017

Pollution from above


In a very recent article of his,
Leonard David wisely and soberly reminds us once again
not to underestimate some specific side effects
of sending more and more objects and chemical substances into space,
because too much of what goes up 
may come down and harm the atmosphere of our planet.

As he says " ... there’s a line of research that needs exploring:
 The overall impact of human-made orbital debris, solid and liquid propellant discharges,
 and other space age substances that reenter the Earth’s atmosphere." 



Thursday, 23 November 2017

Tuesday, 21 November 2017

Thursday, 19 October 2017

FT summary of current space mining plans


The Financial Times has just published a handy layman's digest
of what various countries and private companies
are currently focusing upon in terms of preparing the ground
for future space mining ventures.


Monday, 16 October 2017

"Shangri-La meteorites" for sale?


Since a fireball over China was sighted on 4 October 2017,
the hunt for fragments of a new meteorite has been on
but there has been no scientific evidence so far
that any authentic samples have as yet been found
(although some have allegedly already been sold).

A concisely instructive article on this particular topic
 has recently been published by XINHUANET,
which also focuses on the subject of related ownership rights in China.



Saturday, 14 October 2017

Goodbye flyby and see you later

Having come within 8,000 kilometres
of  "the 36,000 km plane at which hundreds of geosynchronous satellites orbit our planet"
Asteroid 2012 TC4 has gone (for now)
but should be back in 2050
and (perhaps dangerously closer) in 2079.



Wednesday, 4 October 2017

60 years ago: Sputnik 1


beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep
that's how it all began


Picture by JR. CHINREST

There is a very interesting 4th October 2017 article
by Matthew Bodner in Spacenews.com
on the former Soviet Union and on Russia's space endeavours,
entitled "60 years after Sputnik, Russia is lost in space".