Tag: Solar System

Future Travel Plans

There was a time when travel was sleek and sophisticated (and inaccessible). Frank Sinatra sang about flying. I remember finding an old PanAm in-flight service menu my grandfather ha kept in his attic. There was real food that you might actually want to eat. The newest installments in the NASA/JPL Visions of the Future poster series invite us to imagine travel across our solar system and the galaxy with nostalgia for the optimism of mid-20th Century travel and hope that the future of space exploration is sexier than The Martian.

The Travel of Tomorrow

Art by Steve Thomas

At ScienceOnline 2014, Eva and I encountered the folks from The Intergalactic Travel Bureau. They create a unique science education experience where folks get to plan their own getaway to the other planets in the Solar System – as well as some of the larger moons and dwarf planets.

I planned a trip (price tag >$3 billion) to the moons of Jupiter and sent postcards back to my kids.

They are looking to take The Intergalactic Travel Bureau on tour and need your help. Consider donating to their Kickstarter campaign. Do not be dissuaded by the fact that they have already met their goal. More donations just means they can expand the scope of the tour – and donating means you get to vote on where they show up.

No sign of life

If you read news reports, you would think that the only point of sending the Curiosity rover to Mars is to search for extraterrestrial life. Therefore, I suggest, that after every test it conducts Curiosity play the chorus of OK Go’s “No Sign of Life”. This will make it easier for the journalists to understand the results, but also carries a sense of optimism for the future.

No sign of life, no sign of life, no sign of life, no sign
But I got a hunch, oh, it’s not over yet, oh, it’s not over yet Continue reading “No sign of life”