Japan hasn’t had a lot of luck in the commercial satellite launching market so far. So they’ve taken hold of a modern business model in the hope of garnering more customers. They’re offering free launches for any Japanese company or individual that wants to put something into orbit, as long as it’s not a profit-making venture. No applicants yet, apparently.
All posts by Paul Raven
India Plans Robotic Military
The armed forces of the world, as ever, are dead set on using technology to gain an edge on the battlefield. Hence the Indian Prime Minister’s announcement that his country is starting a program to develop “cutting edge technology weapons in sensors, robotics, propulsion systems, stealth and fighting wars through use of remote technology”. I guess anything that means less people have to die is OK by me.
Not One, Not Two, But Three
Just like buses, really. You wait around for ages, and then three planets with a mass comparable to Neptune turn up at once, all in the same star system. A team of European astronomers have made this discovery with the HARPS spectrograph, a unique ‘planet-hunting machine’ running on a telescope in Chile.
Eyes Peeled For Alien Junk On The Moon
Despite the UK government thoroughly denying the existence of UFOs in that ‘leaked’ report some people think that the truth may be ‘out there’ after all. Which is why Ian Crawford, a researcher from University of London’s Birkbeck College, thinks that future Lunar mission crews should be keeping an eye out for alien artifacts, which may have got there by accident or by design.
Light Travels Backwards
Is there anything these science types can’t do? Not content with being able to alter the speed at which it travels, now they’ve found a way to make light travel backwards. To add weirdness to confusion, these backward travelling pulses move faster than lightspeed as well. Apparently it’s not as much of a causality violation as it may sound, but I’m going to simply take their word for that.