Time To Form Starfleet?

Anthony Pascale — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 22:22:10 +0000

In the world of Star Trek we know that eventually the Earth is united both with a single government and a single space agency. This agency called ‘The United Earth Space Probe Agency‘ and ‘Starfleet‘ even predates the formation of the United Federation of Planets. To date in the real world there have been many forays into international cooperation between agencies, but they are still fully independent. Now comes news that some of that may change. This week thirteen space agencies (including those of the USA, Russia, Europe, China and Japan) have agreed to co-ordinate future exploration - including the Moon and Mars. They have agreed to a (sadly non binding) document called "The Global Exploration Strategy: The Framework for Co-ordination." It is said to help with the exchange for information and most importantly "identify gaps, duplication and potential areas for collaboration."

(more…)

In Search Of: Spock’s Planet & Scotty’s Ashes

Anthony Pascale — Fri, 11 May 2007 20:59:25 +0000

Two real life space and Star Trek related stories have cropped up this week. One about locating ‘Vulcan’ and the other about the disposition of James Doohan’s Ashes.

The red-orange dwarf star 40 Eridani is about 16 light years from Earth and is widely regarded as the actual location of the planet Vulcan. Although not strictly canonical, it is a notion that was endorsed by Gene Roddenberry. Now NASA are planning to use their new SIM PlaentQuest mission to try and detect and Earth-like planet around 40 Eridani. Because the star is dimmer than the sun, scientists surmise that a life sustaining planet would have to sit closer to the star than Earth (0.6 AU) More info at NASA

(more…)

TrekHQ » Science

Time To Form Starfleet?

In Search Of: Spock’s Planet & Scotty’s Ashes