Nov 20, 2009

Two hundred years after the first man and woman graced the plains of Mars, humanity is still isolated to just one star system. Despite an intense campaign by the Alpha Centauri Society, humans overall have little desire to travel between stars due to cost and technology. Although this rowdy species has yet to claim their interstellar inheritence, they have...

Sep 21, 2009

It looks like future explorers of Ganymede will no longer fear getting lost on the solar system’s largest moon thanks to the hard work of scientists (plus their robotic friends). (Physorg.com) Wes Patterson, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, led a seven-year effort to craft a detailed map...

Jan 21, 2009

Despite being arrayed in a dazzling display of colors (whether in stripes or spots), Jupiter is not one of the safest locations to establish a colony thanks in part to radiation (with the only exception being the lunar moon Callisto). In order for humanity to survive upon Jupiter’s other moons, we may need to create a radiation map for future...

Mar 5, 2008

Of the 83 colony worlds that dance and prance around our golden star, only six worlds (excluding our home planet) hold the potential of being future homes, nine if you include Mercury, Pluto and Charon. Despite the fact that future technology could eventually open up all of these worlds for human habitation, only a few of them may attract “the...

Sep 5, 2007

Our race is indeed blessed to inhabit a fertile world that orbits our favorite star, Sol. With 83 colony worlds dancing around our yellow sun, one can only imagine all the possibilities of our brave race inhabiting them all. Of course, reality has a way of correcting our fantasies, and just as humanity refuses to dwell near or upon certain mountains, canyons and...

Aug 28, 2007

(Image: Radiation hardened camera’s could help locate oceans on Europa. Credit: NASA via MSNBC) Carbon based life forms are not the only ones to fear deadly radiation. Apparently, our cybernetic friends loathe the energetic particles just as much, although they lack the will of HAL to do anything about it. Previously whenever scientists sent camera’s...

May 4, 2007

Here lies father JupiterAn angry, Jovian worldOrbited by his only son,And three lunar girls.~Darnell Clayton, 2007 (Image Credit: Windows to the Universe) With the human race slowly (but surely) reawakening to the possibility of inhabiting other worlds, much of our species focus has been colonizing the surface of both the Moon and Mars. Although these bodies...

Apr 9, 2007

(Image Credit: NASA) Aside from war and disease, the biggest threat to our (future) space faring species is radiation. Whether it comes from the Sun, a Jovian parent, or from a distant black hole, radiation can easily determine which worlds will be ruled by humans and which ones will be roamed by our robotic friends. Although many may point to underground...