space man. mars really, but..

...who cares. in just some 5 months the mars rover missions will touchdown on mars. yay. closely followed by the european beagle mission. i can't wait to see all them high-res pictures of the surface of mars. and maybe, just maybe, they'll find evidence for life (past or present) from all the soil and rock samples. come round january of next year, i'll be glued to space.com and spacedaily.com

i also read recently that a space elevator is not as science fiction as it sounds. actually it could be implemented within the next 30 to 50 years. end of earth-to-orbit rockets at last. rockets really got nothing to do in earth atmosphere. keep them where they belong, in space hurtling beetween the planets. we'll just take the elevator to the top and board.

given that rocketengines are then *only* used in space, and we have a failsafe method of pushing stuff into orbit, there is really nothing hindering the development of nuclear powered pulse-rockets that'll shorten the earth-mars jurney to a couple of weeks rather than the current 6 month plus. can anyone say "moon and mars permanent crewed outposts within our lifetime"

 

yup. during august, mars will be the third brightest object in the night skies. only beaten by the moon and venus. i don't know about the details and bino's thing. but with a powerfull hobby telescope (100x plus) you will be able to see the icecaps at the poles at least as whiter spots on a otherwize red sphere. it's good times to be a space-nut just imagine the pictures hubble will be able to take of mars during this month! the planet is actually 5 times closer to the earth now, than a mere 6 months ago. and it's twice as near as any other time for the last 50.000 years or so.