RUSSIA PLANS LANDING ROCKETS, NOT PARACHUTES

Russia’s planned replacement for its venerable three-seat Soyuz capsule might have rockets to land with, rather than the present parachutes. After re-entry, Soyuz capsules presently float down under large parachutes, with solid-fuel rockets that blast at the last moment to cushion the landing shock.

If approved for development, the six-seater Soyuz replacement will have a ring of powerful rockets to give it a much more controlled landing. The predicted landing zone would in an area only about 5 km (3 miles) long, hardly pinpoint, but much more precise than Soyuz, which has come in way off-course on more than one occasion.

The new design is driven in part by the 2007 decision to build a new space complex called Vostokny (Eastern), where there is not as much spare land as the present Baikonur Cosmodrome. The design could be flying by 2018.

Pictures and information via Anatoly Zak at the Russian Space Web here.

SET PHASERS TO STUN!

Blu-Ray Laser Phaser! - Watch today’s top amazing videos here

Star Trek fans read on.... Here's a fun vid that shows you how to convert an eBay-bought collectible to a full-fledged blu-ray gun that fires a very convincing blue-violet light beam. It's not exactly "Set phasers to stun", but still pretty cool, even if the DIY required is beyond my capabilities.

Now phasers were (and are) fictional weapons, but the Star Trek team did have some form of science rationale for the weapon. According to original production notes, the phaser was a PHoton mASER that fired a beam of (fictional) subatomic particles called 'rapid nadions'.

Since then of course, directed energy research has come a long way, especially laser technology. Laser weapons are likely to be deployed in the field in the next few years.

SO THAT’S ALL RIGHT THEN: ORION CAPSULE FLOATS IN WATER

Orion is the intended replacement for the US Space Shuttle, planned to be flying atop the Aries launcher in years to come. The new spacecraft is something of a ‘Back to the Future’ design that looks much like the Apollo craft that first flew to the Moon 40-odd years ago. Gone are the Shuttle’s wings and runway landing. Instead we have a design that will float down under huge parachutes into the sea, and wait in the water for pickup by a recovery fleet.

But will it float? This is one of the first questions that only proper testing can reveal. And that’s what the Orion capsule achieved this week, with open-water testing in the Atlantic Ocean. However, it’s important to remember that this was a 9-ton (864 kg) test module – the real thing will be bigger and weigh nearly twice as much. Still, the design should scale up well, and will likely behave much the same.

WELCOME TO STARCRUZER, THE SITE THAT EXPLORES THE UNIVERSE!

But first, I need to make a humble dedication to three masters of original thinking. The Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovski was one of the great early pioneers of spaceflight, long before the hardware was available to make flight above the atmosphere a reality. And it was Tsiolkovski who coined the phrase, “The Earth is the cradle of Humanity. But we cannot stay in the cradle forever”. Tsiolkovski, we salute you.

Another great master in our canon is the late, great, fact-and-fiction writer Arthur C Clarke, whose aphorisms include the classic, “If the dinosaurs had a space program, they might be around today”, and, “Any sufficiently advanced civilzation looks like magic”.

And what about me, the guiding light behind Starcruzer? Well, I’ve had a lifetime in publishing, with a cv that includes working for the London Observer, IPC Magazines and with book publishers such as Usborne and Mitchell Beazley in Europe, and Crabtree in North America. And throughout my career, my core enthusiasm has been science and technology, especially aviation and spaceflight.

My passions for scifi and futures were fired at the age of five by my third master, Frank Hampson, the genius behind Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future. Through the 1950s in the colour pages of the British comic Eagle, Dan was my guiding light, not only for the wonder of Hampson’s work but for the morality of his space adventures. The baddies (mostly the lizard-like Treens from Venus) were always defeated, but mostly by brains rather than brawn. Daredevil bravery and skills, rather than simple death and destruction.

My first books were energised by this background, a trilogy of slim volumes published by Usborne, called World of the Future. In these titles my co-author Ken Gatland, the sadly late and hugely talented ex-President of the revered British Interplanetary Society, and I tracked possible futures and timelines for humanity out to some 200 years ahead.

For years afterwards, Ken and I would discuss our prediction hit-rate (pretty good!) and I now continue this with anyone who will listen in a slightly tongue-in-cheek way!

And why is scifi important? Well, it’s often said (and rightly) that scifi, ‘the literature of ideas’, mostly reflects the current worries of society, and this is true enough. But even so, as a genre, its authors have a habit of eerily foretelling advances and inventions – and Starcruzer will pinpoint these, in what we hope will be an interesting and entertaining way. Perhaps a little nerdy and geeky too, but that’s OK – Geeks Rule!

Last but not least, what about the site name, Starcruzer – where did that come from? That too has a scifi connection, this time with Gerry Anderson, of Thunderbirds puppet-series fame. In the 1970s I wrote and drew a weekly strip called Starcruiser, that ran in the pages of Look-In magazine for some three years. And the new name brings the concept up to date, with just a little twist to the spelling.

OK, that’s the introduction over – now it’s time for me to sign off and start reporting on the science and fiction that will provide the tools for us to leave this blue marble, and become citizens of the universe!