Yeah, I saw you sat at the back, yawning at the space-related posts yesterday. So rocket launch video footage doesn’t impress you? How about close-ups of our own sun’s chromosphere, looking like some sort of psychedelic fibre-optic eye-candy gadget, then?

Sad to hear that NASA has given the Institute for Advanced Concepts the financial axe – that’s a loss to the whole world, not just the US. But gladdening is the news that us Euros are starting to pull our space-related fingers out – the ESA has ticked the final boxes to give the BepiColombo Mercury exploration mission the go-ahead.

After an aborted attempt on Monday night, SpaceX managed to achieve their goal nearly flawlessly on Wednesday. Watch the video of Falcon 1 cruising all the way into space, and then try to tell me that’s not the coolest thing ever.

I can’t figure out the British Government, you know. They spend years foisting off intrusive surveillance technology on us, telling us it’s for our own good, and then they announce that they’re going to launch an inquiry into the growing use of surveillance technology. Classic doublespeak, or just the left hand not knowing what the right is doing? But don’t laugh to hard, my American friends – looks like your powers-that-be have imported the automated vehicle licence plate recognition kit that our lot are so impressed with. Of course, if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear, right?

Right?

OK, so you guys over there have your Hugos and your Nebulas. But in case you were wondering what science fiction fans be voting for on the other side of the pond, as far as the best UK sf novel of the past year is concerned, this post at Torque Control provides a nice neat list of the BSFA Best Novel Award nominees with links to lots of reviews. There’s some damn fine books there, if I do say so myself, and I already know which one gets my vote.