Martian Holodeck planned

Its not quite straight out of Star Trek, but a Scottish engineer has plans to create a virtual reality simulator that will be able to recreate creations on Mars to an incredible degree of realism. The idea is to provide a test environment for scientists planning future Mars missions. The Scotsman has an idepth interview.

Tip of the iceberg

Universe Today is reporting on newly published research that is helping to shed fresh light on the origins of ice on Mars. It seems the planet may have tipped rapidly in the past toward the sun, allowing for the rapid buildup of ice and glaciers.

Fake radio broadcast sparks new panic.

Orson Welles did it in 1938, panicking millions in the United States with his War Of The Worlds radio broadcast, and now from Sweden comes news that Terrorism has repeated the feat, though on a much smaller scale. As reported on Radio Sweden, "Children in a school in Värmdö were left in shock yesterday after listening to a fake radio broadcast that Stockholm had been attacked by terrorists." It just goes to prove that history could repeat itself. It is highly unlikely anyone is going to believe that Martians are invading, but one can imagine a well made radio or television show triggering a panic by pushing the new fear button of terrorism.

Mars Science Laboratory

CNN has an excellent article on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission scheduled for launch in 2009.

Mars comes to IMAX

This looks great! An IMAX movie about the twin rovers Opportunity and Spirit is due for release this month. Its a combination of actual footage gathered on the red planet by the rovers and computer simulations (obvious given we can't send a cameraman) of their activities. The trailer (and official site) is here. Looks like the next best thing to going there!

War Of The Worlds Invasion for March

The UK release of the Asylum version of The War Of The Worlds will be released in the UK this March on the 20th. It will go by the alternative name of Invasion for the UK release due to issues with rights on the name.

Two years and still trucking

In what must rate as the single greatest achievement in the history of space exploration, the Opportunity rover celebrates 2 years of activity on the Martian surface today. The mission was expected to last no more than 90 days, but thanks to some fantastic engineering and a little luck (high winds are believed to have swept clear it's dust covered solar panels), the pluckly little rover just keeps on going. Over 7 miles have been traversed and 58,000 images returned so far, along with conclusive proof that Mars was once a very wet place. Opportunity's sister rover Spirit is due to pass it's own two year milestone in a few days. Undoubtedly both are on borrowed time, but the lure of the next rise always beckons, and those of us with Mars in our blood still cling to the hope that a lost Martian city may yet rise from the sands. Good luck Opportunity and Spirit, and congratulations to the teams responsible for this incredible mission. Long may they continue to rove the surface of Mars.

War Of The Worlds makes BBC top 10 films of 2005

Spielberg's War Of The Worlds took number 8 in the top 10 films according to the BBC Film 2005 survey. The full list of winners can be found at the BBC website.

A plague of robots

Forget lumbering rovers or exotic aircraft. Penelope Boston, the director of cave and karst studies at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology is proposing sending swarms of tiny robots to Mars that would literally hop about the surface using polymer-based artificial muscles that would propel then unward of a meter a jump. The idea has considerable merit, as the tiny robots would be able to reach places a rover could not. More at the MSNBC website.

Beagle found?

New pictures of Mars snapped from orbit may have found the resting place of the ill-fated British Beagle landing craft. Proffesor Colin Pillinger seems pretty convinced that he has found the crash/landing site and it seems likely that the craft came down to fast because the atmosphere was thinner than expected. There are a lot of detailed images and interpretations available here at the Beagle 2 website.

This is scary

Scary Movie 4, (did we ever need 1-3) has released a bunch of teaser posters, one of which indicates that the newest installment in the franchise is going to spoof (amongst other things) Spielberg's War Of The Worlds.

New War Of The Worlds comic

First there was Classics Illustrated, then Killraven, (and a few more inbetween) but now there is a new and pretty good looking contender on the block. Boom Studios have a new comic book in production. Not much to be seen yet on the website but there are some enticing looking images to be found here.

Energia President talks Mars

RSC Energia President Nikolai Sevostianov has been talking about the future of his company and a possible human presence on Mars. Nikolai Sevostianov has some far reaching ideas for the future of humans in the solar system. The full interview is here.

Exomars given UK backing

The British government has approved a higher than normal spend on a future space mission. 108m euros (£73.2m) has been allocated to the Exomars lander which will launch for 2011. Speaking at the ministerial meeting, science minister Lord Sainsbury said: "As a major contributor, the UK will have a leading role in this programme which is set to improve our understanding of Mars and the Solar System." The probe will use similar airbag landing systems to previous sucessful landers, but will bring some exciting new science to the Red planet, including a drill which will be able to dig deep into the Martian surface.

Orson Welles Lives

Interviewed by Sci-Fi Wire, Jack Black, the star of Peter Jacksons's King Kong remake, has revealed that he modeled his part of filmmaker Carl Denham on Orson Welles. Welles of course made the 1938 radio broadcast that panicked many in America with his version of The War Of The Worlds. More at scifi wire.

Europe meets to decide on Mars mission

The European Space Agency (ESA) is meeting this Monday to discuss funding on a number of new projects, one of which would be a robotic probe to Mars. The project is by no means certain to be greenlit as several programmes are chasing the money. More at the BBC.

Hard times on planet Mars

NASA's continuing exploration of the red planet has turned up fresh proof for a very watery past, but officials are still very cautious about suggesting any form of life may have swum these ancient seas. The latest results from the Opportunity rover at it's Meridiani Planum landing site suggests that at some point in the distant past, the land was acidic, oxidizing and sometimes wet. Unfortunately, not good conditions for life to arise. More can found at MSN.

History Channel does War Of The Worlds

The US History Channel has broadcast a documentary covering many aspects of The War Of The Worlds. It was done as part of their UFO Files stand of programming.

War Of The Worlds gets standing ovation

A live performance of Jeff Waynes' War Of The Worlds at Wirral's International Guitar Festival was a big hit with a sell out audience of 900. It was a dream of guitarist Gary Murphy to revisit the musical and it earned him a standing ovation.

New War Of The Worlds comic

Dark Horse comics have been releasing a new version of The War Of The Worlds as an online publication, one page at a time. Not surprisingly, you can now pre-order the old fashioned paper version from Amazon.