Jimo
 

NASA has awarded a contract to design the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) spacecraft. Since it is not scheduled for launch until 2011, a lot can happen, but at least they’re moving forward!

Maybe I'm not thinking right, but that would be a full moon every night! How romantic! Anyone know a good realtor on Saturn?

Jumping the Gun?
 

Sir Richard Branson, CEO of the Virgin Atlantic airline, has just announced an agreement with Mojave Aerospace Ventures to take the rich - those who can afford a $180,000 – into space. It seems a bit early to me for Space tourism to take off. Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.

It’s Show Time!
 

SpaceShipOne is scheduled to take off at 0600 Pacific Time for the first of the two flights required to win the $10m Ansari X-Prize. The second flight must take place within 14 days.

One down, and One to Go!
 

SpaceShipOne has successfully completed the first of two qualifying flights into space! There was no report of any passengers, so I presume it carried ballast instead. In order to win the $10 million prize, it must make a second successful trip within the next 14 days.

The SpaceShipOne team does not have a lot of wiggle room. A Canadian team is scheduled to try on October 2nd.

Good that means we may have 4 hour flights to the other side of the world instead of 16. That means I can pop over to Bumfuck for lunch and be back home for bedtime! :D

Catch22 !!!!!!!!!!!!

At $100,000 a trip, that'll have to be one hell of a Bumfuck! Yet another of the evils of Globalization revealed for all to see!

So I am a romantic Jseal. A boy can dream you know.

Today’s the Day!
 

SpaceShipOne is scheduled today to make the second of the two qualification flights needed to claim the $10m Ansari X-Prize. The first flight took place on Wednesday last week above California.

Let’s wish them well!

They did it!
 

Official confirmation is still pending, but it looks as if SpaceShipOne successfully made the second of the two qualification flights needed to claim the X-Prize! The only difference from last week’s flight was that the pilot was different. Still no word of passengers, so I guess that ballast was used again.


Yeah Team!

50 Years Young!
 

VIPs from around the world have gathered in Geneva at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) headquarters to mark 50 years of scientific research.

CERN was also where the World Wide Web was created by Tim Berners-Lee as a method of file-sharing.

Scooby-Doo
 

“Scooby-Doo” has been awarded a Guinness World Record for most episodes of a cartoon comedy series.

The show's 350th episode, Scooby-Doo Halloween, will be aired on Friday. The previous record holder was “The Simpsons”. Doh!

Seen in more than 160 countries, the show was created back in 1969 by Hanna-Barbera, the same company that created The Flintstones.

Amazing!

Smart-1
 

SMART-1, which has entered into the Moon's gravity well, is the first European spacecraft to travel to and orbit around the Moon. It was launched back on September 27th of last year.

It will test a solar-electric propulsion system as one of its primary mission objectives. The engine works by expelling a beam of charged xenon ions from the back of the probe. This is only the second time that ion propulsion has been used as a mission's primary propulsion system. The first was NASA's Deep Space 1 probe.

SMART-1 will look for water (in the form of ice) on the Moon.

Huygens
 

The Huygens probe is on target and set for its descent onto Titan, the large moon of Saturn on 14-JAN-05. For the past seven years the probe has ridden on the Cassini spacecraft, which arrived at Saturn in July.

If all goes according to plan, Huygens should have approx. two and a half hours to study its surroundings as it drifts down to the surface. Titan is unique in that it is the only planetary satellite with a substantial atmosphere.

Aura Update
 

Back in July, NASA launched the Aura satellite, and it is on-line and delivering the goods! :)

It has already provided new images of the ozone hole over Antarctica, and direct measurements of lower atmospheric ozone, including chemicals that lead to "bad ozone" at ground level.

Read all about it at the Beeb: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4112351.stm