Month: October 2016

From the Formula One paddock to IndyCar pit lane and the temples of international sports car racing, Stefan Johansson is one of the most successful and respected racing drivers of all time. Johansson spent 11 years (1980-1991) in Formula One, driving for giants including Ferrari and McLaren alongside teammates like Alain Prost and Michele Alboreto and against competitors including Ayrton Senna.

Getty Images | Mark Thompson

Jan Tegler (JT) – Over the course of your three decade-plus career as a top-level professional racing driver, the technology of racing has changed considerably. From the March and Lola Formula 2 racers you drove in the early 1980s through the Ferraris and McLarens you drove in Formula One in the mid-1980s, the Penske and Reynard Indy Cars you drove in CART in the mid-1990s, and the Porsche prototype you won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with in 1997 to the modern LMP2 cars you’ve raced, what stands out as the biggest technological change?

Enlarge (credit: BMW Films)

Cast your mind back to the turn of the century. Do you remember that series of short films that BMW gave us called The Hire? It kicked off in April 2001 and starred Clive Owen as "the Driver," and big-name directors like John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, and Guy Ritchie were among those behind the cameras. Well kiddos, BMW Films is back with a new film—starring Clive Owen and Dakota Fanning—which premieres this Sunday.

The newest short has been made by Neill Blomkamp, one of our favorite directors, and co-stars the new BMW 5 Series alongside Fanning and Owen. "When we commissioned The Escape, our only direction was that the story remain of utmost importance—and that it should live up to the standards set by The Hire," said BMW SVP Hildegard Wortmann. "Neill, Clive and the entire cast did a tremendous job, and we are confident that The Escape not only meets that standard, but sets a new one."

The BMW Films were notable for their popularity several years before YouTube came along and made video on the Internet much more routine. I can't be the only person who remembers spending hours downloading the films, taking full advantage of Imperial College's rather fat Internet connection at the time.

Enlarge / Trump and Clinton, should we send them into space? (credit: Aurich / Getty)

At the upper edge of the atmosphere, where the sky kisses outer space, a few molecules of nitrogen and oxygen bounce around. If we consider the presidential election as playing out at the surface of the Earth, amid a thick atmosphere of invective and accusation, it is not a stretch to say the relative importance of space policy lies somewhere near the edge of space, bouncing around inconsequentially, like these stray molecules.

Even so, the next president of the United States will have the ability, if not the desire, to shape the future of America’s civil space programs—especially with major decision points on the horizon, including the privatization of spaceflight and the details of where humans should go beyond low-Earth orbit. For this reason, we’re going to look at what changes a new president might make and what attitudes each candidate has had toward space.

Among the first tasks of a new administration is to launch a transition team to review major federal programs. With a budget that comprises about 0.4 percent of all federal spending and a significant chunk of the country’s discretionary funds, NASA will face meaningful scrutiny. Such transition teams will delve far beyond the rhetoric of hashtags, like #JourneyToMars, and get under the hood of the space agency’s programs and whether funding exists to carry them out.