Month: January 2016

The New Shepard booster makes a controlled landing at 6.7 kph. (credit: Blue Origin)

Friday’s launch of the New Shepard rocket in West Texas renewed the tired debate about whether Blue Origin or SpaceX has achieved more in the reusable spaceflight game. These discussions first flared up in November, when no less than Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk sparred on Twitter over the magnitude of New Shepard’s first flight into space and subsequent vertical landing. Ultimately the debate is vacuous and completely misses the big picture.

Each company has achievements to be proud of. Blue Origin landed first and now has taken the next critical step toward full reusability by reflying a booster. SpaceX also landed vertically, about a month after Blue Origin. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is a much larger and more powerful booster, flying a more dynamically challenging profile. Technically, its landing was more impressive. The company is also developing this capability while delivering payloads into orbit for NASA and the private sector.

There is no “better.” Both companies are kicking ass. I think a lot of people who read this probably share a common goal with me: we’d like to see wider access to space. We’d like to see colonization of the Moon, or maybe Mars, or maybe beyond. We’d like to see a highway to the stars. There is only one way this happens: dramatically reducing the cost of getting into space. And the way to do this is by reusing your rockets and spacecraft.

Doctor Who fans prepare to be bitterly disappointed: you won't be getting your timey-wimey fix this year, because season 10 won't hit our screens until 2017, the BBC has confirmed.

The reason? Long-running showrunner Steven Moffat has run out of puff. He will pass the baton (OK, Sonic Screwdriver) to Chris Chibnall—the creator of ITV's gripping whodunnit, Broadchurch—who will take over the iconic British sci-fi drama at the start of season 11.

The BBC, which fiendishly buried this news late on Friday night in the hope that no-one would notice, has promised a Christmas Day special, but that will be the first and only time a new episode of the much-loved show will appear on the TV this year.

Video shot/edited by Nathan Fitch. (video link)

A large assault weapon picks off an enemy in the distance, a familiar visual for any fan of first-person shooters. But the audible bang of the weapon isn't the only sound being heard. A narrator orients the audience: "I—Ismenus, Niobe's oldest son—was guiding my horse's reins when an arrow planted itself in my chest."

Huh? Perhaps a line from Greek mythology about Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, isn't the commentary or soundtrack you'd find paired to your run-of-the-mill FPS even in the most avant garde of Twitch chats. At Pierrepont School in Westport Connecticut, that's precisely the point. Members of of EK Theater (who double as students at Pierrepont) are busy preparing for their forth-coming adaptation of Osiris, a classic Egyptian story. And rather than mulling over costumes and traditional stage direction, these thespians worry about selecting a virtual gaming stage and programming the choreography.