Rosetta.

"Kudos to you, European Space Agency, and get off your butts and do more space stuff, NASA!"

Dodger Leigh, The Daily Byte

I confess that I was completely unaware of the impending touchdown of the Philae lander on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko this morning until I read about it in Chris Hadfield's Twitter™ account - feel free to take away my geek card.

The lander was launched from the European Space Agency's cometary probe Rosetta, and in spite of some problems with the thrusters intended to hold the lander on the surface while an anchoring harpoon was embedded in the surface, Philae successfully touched down on the comet - albeit with a couple of bounces. This marks the first landing ever on the surface of a comet, and is the culmination of a ten year, 6.4 billion* kilometre journey that began with Rosetta's launch on March 2nd, 2004.

Rosetta and its little brother* will spend the next 17 months investigating Churyumov–Gerasimenko, collecting detailed information on how the comet changes as it makes its way toward the Sun.  In addition, scientists at the ESA hope to learn more about the origins of the planets from this chunk of rock that predates the birth of the solar system.

To see some amazing shots of the comet's surface, pay a visit to Rosetta's Flickr™ gallery.  Included in the gallery is a very cool selfie by the probe from October, showing one of its 14 metre wings, which collect solar energy to power the craft, and a shot of the comet in the background.

© European Space Agency

Selfies with comets, selfies on Mars - is it just me, or are the robots having all the fun when it comes to space exploration? 

- Sid

* Yes, BILLION.

** Or sister, hard to tell from the photos.

 

Gnomic Statements XI.

 Let's all just take a moment and be afraid of the crazy lady, shall we?

- Sid
 

Requiem.

On Friday, October 31st, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo crashed during a test flight over the Mojave Desert.  The pilot, Peter Siebold, escaped with severe injuries.  The copilot, Michael Alsbury, died in the crash.

Since then, there has been a lot of talk in the media about the fact that space travel is inherently risky, and that although the death of Michael Alsbury is tragic, this will not deter us from the quest to expand humanity's horizons through the exploration of space.

Blah, blah, blah.

Space travel IS risky, no doubt about that.  People have died before this*, and there is every possibility that people will die in the future.  However, at some very fundamental level, Virgin Galactic's approach to space travel leaves a bad taste in my mouth, a bad taste which has very little to do with the expansion of horizons. The decision to sell tickets to space to the elite few who have a quarter of a million dollars in discretionary funds is like some odd precursor to the society pictured in last year's dystopian film Elysium, where the rich live in orbit and the poor are condemned to the wreckage of Earthbound civilization.

I don't want to diminish his death, but I can't help but feel that Michael Alsbury died so that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie could spend six minutes in space.

- Sid

* Some of those people have died at Virgin Galactic. In 2007, three people died and three were seriously injured when an engine exploded during a test.