Sunday Things - what-if space edition
posted in Space by Cargo Cult on Sunday August 25 2013
SPAAAAAACE!
What might have been: Visiting Mars and Venus with Apollo-era hardware - expecting a wave of public enthusiasm following the Apollo landings, NASA began thinking about manned missions to Venus and Mars. Never getting beyond the theoretical stages, these long-term missions would have observed the planets from orbit - never actually landing. (In the case of Venus, that's just as well.) Instead, we got robotic exploration of almost the entire Solar System. A worthy trade?
Beyond Apollo - speaking of imagined space missions, this long-running blog is full of weird and wonderful things that never happened. How did I never see this before? It's great!
Europa Report - people claim this is a science fiction film with a degree of actual science in it. Anyone want to, erm, report back? I may have to watch it.
Bonus Demonstrating How Fantastic Unmanned Spaceflight Is corner:
- Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets - part one of an amusingly outlandish BBC docu-drama about a manned mission to the solar system. Almost all of it. How much delta-V would that involve?
- Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets - part two! Spoilers: the medic dies of cancer. Something else a robot wouldn't have done.
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