The SpaceX private spaceflight outfit are hard at work, unperturbed by mishaps with their Falcon1 rocket back in March. They’re elbow-deep in putting together the first Falcon9 booster rocket, they have ten launches booked up, and predictions indicate they may be cash-flow positive before the year is out.

People from all walks of life and all arenas of employment know of the mighty versatility and adhesive problem-solving powers of duct tape (or ‘gaffa tape’ as we call it over here in the UK). I’ve seen it used to fix cars, computers, stereos, public address systems, furniture, shoes, and much much more. But I never thought I’d hear of it being used to re-attach a spacewalking astronaut’s jetpack. If that doesn’t make it into their ad copy, nothing will.

Our nearest stellar neighbour, Alpha Centauri is still a long way away. It would be great to send a probe to study the neighbourhood, but the practicalities are nightmarish – relativistic flight over that distance would be difficult and hideously expensive. Unless, of course, we sent something very small and light with no instruments, and just some simple way of signalling home – the modulations of that signal by the environments encountered could provide invaluable data, and the logistics of powering the mission would become much more manageable.

Beware: low flying web2.0 memes may strike at any time! We’ve been regaled relentlessly on ‘social networking’ and the ‘wisdom of crowds’, and there’s certainly something to it – it wouldn’t be raking in the investment cash otherwise. But will searches based on human recommendations ever knock the Googles and Yahoos of the world from their perches? Maybe eventually, but I’m not going to hold my breath just yet.

It’s not that cuddly or cute, but you’d certainly be pleased to see it if you were nursing an injury on a battlefield hundreds of yards from safety and medical help. The Vecna BEAR (Battlefield Extraction and Retrieval) Robot is designed to seek out, pick up and cart home wounded personnel in warzones. I think you’d be grateful enough to not be too worried about the blow to your soldierly dignity, either.