On 8 July 2011 Atlantis took off for the final 13 day mission of the Space Shuttle programme and it remains to this day the last American spacecraft to carry humans into orbit. The landing of Atlantis on 21 July 2011, which brought the Space Shuttle programme to a close - Image from NASA. Development of… Continue reading July 8 2011- The Final Mission
On 4 July 2016 the NASA spacecraft Juno will arrive at Jupiter after a 5 year journey. It will be the ninth space probe to visit the planet. The first was Pioneer 10, which flew past in December 1973, (see notes). Juno will go into an orbit around the planet which will take it close to its poles.… Continue reading Mission Juno
I was very pleased to hear a couple of weeks ago that the UK government plans to introduce a piece of legislation called the Modern Transport Bill. This may not sound very exciting, but behind the uninspiring name is the intention to ultimately establish the UK's first commercial spaceports, from which space tourists as well as scientists… Continue reading Spaceport UK?
As discussed in a previous post, in the far future humanity may decide to terraform Venus so that the planet has a similar temperature and atmosphere to that which currently exists on the Earth. However, the lack of a global magnetic field would cause significant obstacles to humans settling on Venus. Without this protective shield inhabitants would be exposed to the… Continue reading Giving Venus an artificial magnetic field
Updated December 2025 In a previous post I have discussed living on Venus in floating colonies. I'll now discuss terraforming. This the process of changing the global environment of a planet in such a way as to make it suitable for human habitation. Because it is so far beyond our current technological capabilities, most articles about… Continue reading Terraforming Venus
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