Dangerous Planets

Today on Discovery Enterprise we will explore some of the most dangerous and hostile planets in our solar system. The planets Venus, Jupiter and Neptune are worlds that will present many perils and challenges to future intrepid Astronauts. How were they were formed, why are they are so deadly and why can they not sustain life?

Will be it possible to make other planetary environments more like our own? Travel our solar neighbourhood to see what it would take to live on a neighbouring planet.

Naked Science: Dangerous Planets (2006)

Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking - Aliens

Today on Discovery Enterprise we are proud to present Stephen Hawking’s new television series "Into the Universe".

Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking is an epic new kind of cosmology series, a "Planet Earth" of the heavens. It takes the world's most famous scientific mind and sets it free, powered by the limitless possibilities of computer animation. Hawking gives us the ultimate guide to the universe, a ripping yarn based on real science, spanning the whole of space and time -- from the nature of the universe itself, to the chances of alien life, and the real possibility of time travel.

The first episode of this new documentary series explores the possibility of alien life elsewhere in universe. Aliens premiered on Sunday April 25, 2010.

Hawking joins science and imagination to explore one of the most important conundrums facing humankind — are we alone in the Universe?

In the premier of this exciting new series Stephen Hawking explores the possibility of alien life in the Cosmos, the prospect of other sentient beings in the Milky Way Galaxy, and the likelihood of a future "first contact" between humanity and another extraterrestrial civilization.

It is interesting to note that in this first installment of the series most of the discussions on alien life are not about its invasion tendencies. Once again the media has picked up on the most sensationalistic aspects of a story and ran with it.

So join us today on Discovery Enterprise as we accompany Dr. Hawking on an odyssey in search of life elsewhere in the Cosmos. Traveling from the moons of Jupiter and to a galaxy maybe not so far, far away, he will introduce us to possible alien life forms, in stunning CGI, that face the same universal trials of adaptation and survival as life on Earth.

Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking is one documentary series you will want to add to your collection and is available on DVD from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking - Aliens


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Tank on the Moon

In the 1960s and 1970s the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a battle for ideological and military supremacy. It was a battle fought on land, sea and space. Two opposing economic and political philosophies were engaged in a contest to win the hearts and minds of the world’s people. And, nowhere was the competition more fierce then the race for the moon. It was a race that the U.S. would eventually win. But the Soviets had one spectacular success. A success nearly forgot by history, until now.

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the documentary "Tank on the Moon". This documentary film concerns the development, launch, and operation of the Soviet Moon exploration rovers, Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2 in the period from 1970 to 1973. The film uses historical footage from American, Russian and French archives.

Tank on the Moon

Exodus Earth – Mercury

Today on Discovery Enterprise we join our host physicist Dr. Basil Singer in exploring the potential, challenges and hazards of establishing a human outpost on Mercury, the most extreme planet in the solar system. It is deadly hot on one side, but fatally cold on the other. Yet in craters near the pole Basil finds water, and conditions that might make Mercury home.

Exodus Earth – Mercury

The Coming Magnetic Storm

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present a scenario the sounds like the central plot of a Sci-Fi blockbuster motion picture. Deep within the core of our planet, where the constant spin of Earth’s liquid metallic core generates an invisible magnetic force field that shields our planet from harmful radiation in space, something has affected the spin of this planetary dynamo and has slowed it down and there are signs that it may shut it down completely.

Gradually, the field is growing weaker. Electrical and electronic devices suddenly shut down and people with pacemakers suddenly and inexplicably drop dead, flocks of pigeons lose their ability to navigate and seemingly lose their way and circle aimlessly above skies of Trafalgar Square and begin crashing into buildings, parked cars and people. Countless pods of whales and other aquatic mammals beach themselves. Navigational devices go awry effecting cargo ships, passenger aircraft, telecommunications satellites and computers on NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour sending it far off course and forcing the Astronauts to land in the Los Angeles River basin .

Is there a factual basis for such a plot line? Could we be heading for a demagnetized doomsday that will leave us defenseless against the lethal effects of solar wind and cosmic rays? Today’s documentary “Magnetic Storm” takes a close scientific look at such a horrific scenario.

Scientists studying the problem are looking everywhere from Mars, which suffered a magnetic crisis four billion years ago and has been devoid of a magnetic field, an appreciable atmosphere, and possibly life ever since, to a laboratory at the University of Maryland, where a team headed by physicist Dan Lathrop has re-created the molten iron dynamo at Earth’s core by using 240 pounds of highly explosive molten sodium. The most visible signs of Earth’s magnetic field are auroras, which are caused by charged particles from space interacting with the atmosphere as they flow into the north and south magnetic poles.

Magnetic Storm

You can watch the Motion Picture The Core via this link.

The Vesuvius Time Bomb

Today on Discovery Enterprise we decided, in the light of recent events in Iceland to present a documentary on volcanoes and to focus our attention on perhaps the most famous volcano in history – Vesuvius.

Our video feature for today is another exciting documentary from the National Geographic Channel’s series Naked Science which will lay bare the potential danger posed by the ticking geological time bomb of Vesuvius to the inhabitants of the Southern Italian city of Naples.

America's next Spaceplane II

I have been following the   X-37B for some time and was pleased to see that it was successfully launched into orbit yesterday. Being a military project the spaceplane is clouded in mystery. One question I had was how do they intend to launch the operational version? If they want a responsive launch system conventional rockets are out as they can take months to organise.

Now we may have the answer, the USAF is planning a reusable booster:

Plans to begin technology development for a reusable booster system to replace its existing expendable launch vehicles beyond 2025 are being finalized by the U.S. Air Force.

With the Air Force facing escalating costs on the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, the new system offers the promise of cutting launch costs more than 50% by combining a reusable first stage with expendable upper stages. The booster would take off vertically and return to a runway landing at the launch site.......

The plan calls for replacing the Atlas V and Delta IV with two versions of the RBS: a single reusable first stage and expendable cryogenic upper stage for medium-lift missions; and two reusable boosters, cryogenic core stage and upper stage for heavy-lift and growth missions. Initial operational capability is set for 2025, with the EELVs being phased out in 2030 once the Air Force is comfortable relying on the RBS, he says.

Remember the current EELVs have a similar payload capacity as the Space Shuttle. NASA may have abandoned large reusable launch vehicles but the Air Force hasn't.  

Hubble Space Telescope - Twenty Years of Discovery

Today on Discovery Enterprise we join the Astronomical Community in celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the launching of the most amazing scientific instrument ever conceived – The Hubble Space Telescope.

Hubble was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on April 24th, 1990. Initially when the telescope achieved first light it was immediately obvious that there was a serious problem with the optics and that the primary mirror had been ground to the wrong shape. The design of the Hubble Space telescope had always incorporated servicing missions, and astronomers immediately began to seek potential solutions to the problem that could be applied at the first servicing mission, scheduled for 1993.

In today’s triple video feature we explore the amazing cosmic vista revealed to us by Hubble over the past twenty years and look at two astonishing and intrepid servicing missions that saved this instrument from utter failure and extended the life of this tool of discovery. The first was the Space Shuttle Endeavour’s mission in December. 1993 which involved the installation of the corrective optics to fix a very near sighted telescope and the final mission by Space Shuttle Atlantis in May, 2009 to extend the life of the mission to the year 2014.

Hubble is the only telescope ever designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. Four servicing missions were performed from 1993–2002, but the fifth was canceled on safety grounds following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. However, after spirited public discussion, NASA administrator Mike Griffin approved one final servicing mission, completed in 2009. The telescope is now expected to function until at least 2014, when its 'successor', the infrared James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is due to be launched.

Hubble Space Telescope - Twenty Years of Discovery




BBC Horizon – Fixing Hubble's Vision (If the VEEHD Video window gives you a problem, go directly to the link below)

Horizon - Hubble Vision (1994) from enon on Veehd.

NOVA - Hubble's Amazing Rescue

Ice Age Columbus

Today on Discovery Enterprise we explore a contentious question - Did western Europeans begin the settlement of the New World 17,000 years before Columbus was even born? And, present for your viewing pleasure a controversial docudrama entitled “Ice Age Columbus - Who Were the First Americans”?

Firmly rooted in the latest scientific discoveries, this fascinating docudrama explores the premise that Europeans came to America much earlier than previously thought. Anyone interested in the “Solutrean Hypothesis” should make it a point to watch this program.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Solutrean hypothesis proposes that stone tool technology of the Solutrean culture in prehistoric Europe may have later influenced the development of the Clovis tool-making culture in the Americas, and that peoples from Europe may have been among the earliest settlers in the Americas. It was first proposed in 1998. Its key proponents include Dennis Stanford, of the Smithsonian Institution, and Bruce Bradley, of the University of Exeter.

In this hypothesis, peoples associated with the Solutrean culture migrated from Ice Age Europe to North America, bringing their methods of making stone tools with them and providing the basis for later Clovis technology found throughout North America. The hypothesis rests upon particular similarities in Solutrean and Clovis technology that have no known counterparts in Eastern Asia, Siberia or Beringia, areas from which or through which early Americans are known to have migrated.

To put this in context, the Solutrean prehistoric culture of Western Europe was dominant in present-day France and Spain from roughly 21,000 to 17,000 years and is widely associated with the famous prehistoric paintings found at Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France.

In today’s video feature we are presented with archaeological data and the latest DNA research in support of this hypothesis.

Ice Age Columbus: Who Were the First Americans? is an exciting documentary currently available on DVD from the Discovery Channel’s online store and Amazon.com.

Ice Age Columbus -- Who Were the First Americans?

The Universe - Saturn Lord of the Rings

Are the rings of Saturn a real celestial phenomenon or merely a cosmic Illusion? Technology allows the experts to get closer to the furthest planet visible to the naked eye. Old questions are answered and new ones arise. Does Saturn hold the key to Earth’s weather and will one of its moons supply us with all the oil we’ll ever need?

This particular instalment entitled “Saturn: Lord of the Rings” is eighth episode of the first season. 

The Universe is available on DVD from Amazon.com and the History Channel’s online store.

The Universe - Saturn Lord of the Rings

Horizon - We Are the Aliens

Today on Discovery Enterprise we look at the exciting possibility that terrestrial life may have had an extraterrestrial origin and that the Earth in its infancy was seeded by microbes from outer space through a process known as Panspermia.

Clouds of alien life forms are sweeping through outer space and infecting planets with life – it may not be as far-fetched as it sounds and may explain the origin of life on Earth if not the origin of life itself.

The idea that life on Earth came from another planet has been around as a modern scientific theory since the 1960s when it was proposed by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe. At the time they were ridiculed for their idea – known as panspermia. But now, with growing evidence, it's back in vogue and even being studied by NASA. Yet, this hypothesis does not answer the question of how abiogenesis itself occurred. How did life itself come into being from inanimate matter?

In today’s feature BBC Horizon documentary we meet the scientists on a mission to get to the bottom of the beginnings of life on Earth - from the team in Texas who are lovingly building a robotic submarine called DEPTHX to explore a moon of Jupiter, to Southern India where they are investigating a mysterious red rain which fell for two months in 2001. According to local scientist Godfrey Louis, the rain contains biological cells unlike any he had seen before – with no DNA and the ability to replicate at 300°C. Louis has come to the conclusion that the cells are extra-terrestrial in origin.

Could all this really be proof that - We are the aliens?

Horizon - We Are The Aliens (2006)

Send Robonaut tothe Moon

President Obama has decided NASA will not be sending humans to the Moon anytime soon. So how about sending an anthropomorphic robot instead? Having Wally up there would be a media sensation and he could look for water at the poles.  JSC think they can have him up there within 1000 days after given to go ahead.

More here.

Mars Alive

Today on Discovery Enterprise we take an exciting look at the possibility of transforming the planet Mars into a second planetary abode for humanity and the other life forms of our planet. What would it take to Terraform the red planet and bring life to Mars and Mars to life?

Terraforming (literally, "Earth-forming") of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth to make it habitable by terran organisms.

The term is sometimes used more generally as a synonym for planetary engineering, although some consider this more general usage an error. The concept of Terraforming developed from both science fiction and actual science. The term was coined by Jack Williamson in a science-fiction story ("Collision Orbit") published during 1942 in Astounding Science Fiction, but the concept may pre-date this work.

If humanity ever succeeds in establishing a foothold on Mars and Terraforming it humanity will indeed have a long term future to look forward to.

Horizon - Mars Alive (1993)

Exodus Earth – Callisto

Today on Discovery Enterprise we join our host physicist Dr. Basil Singer in exploring the potential, challenges and hazards of establishing a human outpost in the Jovian system on the moon Callisto.

Callisto is one of the Galilean moons discovered by Galileo in January 1610 along with three other large Jovian moons—Ganymede, Io, and Europa.

Callisto is the third-largest moon in the Solar System and the second largest in the Jovian system, after Ganymede. Callisto has about 99% the diameter of the planet Mercury but only about a third of its mass. It is the fourth Galilean moon of Jupiter by distance, with an orbital radius of about 1,880,000 km.

Callisto is composed of approximately equal amounts of rock and ices, with a mean density of about 1.83 g/cm3. Compounds detected spectroscopically on the surface include water ice, carbon dioxide, silicates, and organic compounds. Investigation by the Galileo spacecraft revealed that Callisto may have a small silicate core and possibly a subsurface ocean of liquid water at depths greater than 100 km. Thus, like Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede, Callisto may prove to be another abode for life in the solar system.

Potential for Colonization and NASA’s Human Outer Planets Exploration (HOPE)

In the late 1970s when the British Interplanetary Society conducted its landmark unmanned starship study Project Daedalus, Jupiter’s moon Callisto was considered the most likely location for the centre of operations during the construction phase of starship Daedalus. Callisto was chosen because unlike Europe and the other other Galilean satellites it is not subjected to a huge flux of radiation due to Jupiter’s extensive magnetic field.

In 2003 NASA conducted a conceptual study called Human Outer Planets Exploration (HOPE) regarding the future human exploration of the outer solar system. The target chosen to consider in detail was Callisto.

It was proposed that it could be possible to build a surface base on Callisto that would produce fuel for further exploration of the Solar System. Advantages of a base on this moon include the low radiation (due to Callisto's distance from Jupiter) and geological stability. It could facilitate remote exploration of Europa, or be an ideal location for a Jovian system way station servicing spacecraft heading farther into the outer Solar System, using a gravity assist from a close flyby of Jupiter after departing Callisto.

In a December 2003 report, NASA expressed belief that an attempt for a manned mission to Callisto may be possible in the 2040s.

Exodus Earth - Callisto

The Known Universe - Alien Contact

Today on Discovery Enterprise we take a voyage through the known universe in search of an answer to a question that is as yet unknown – Do we inhabit a universe brimming over with life and sentient beings in search of their own origins and who like us wonder if they share this cosmos with others such as themselves?

Gene Shoemaker the man on the Moon

Alex's last post reminded me of my meeting with the Shoemakers and the remarkable story how Gene Shoemaker went to the Moon.

Gene was involved in the Apollo program , he was the geologist who trained the astronauts to identify  and collect the  rocks they would bring back to Earth. NASA eventually decided to send a professional scientist, a geologist, to the Moon and Gene was chosen. Unfortunately he was found to have Addison's disease and was disqualified.  Harrison Schmitt got to go instead. 

Years latter his wife  Carolyn co-discovered Comet Shoemaker Levy which was big news at the time  as it impacted Jupiter in 1994. I can remember seeing the impact scars with my telescope it was a truly amazing event. (thats why there was a bunch of  asteroid impact movies in the late 1990s).

In 1997 Carolyn and Gene came to Australia on a lecture tour. I remember going to  Carolyn's Sydney talk and meeting them. Gene was a proper Texas gentleman who wore a cowboy hat and  one of those string ties.

After they finished their lecture tour they went off exploring the Australian Outback,  searching for meteor craters. Sadly, they had a car accident in the Northern Territory and Gene was killed. 

Well, Gene finally got his wish to go to the Moon . In 1999 the Lunar Prospector was sent to the Moon and Gene had to honor of having his ashes on-board. To this day he is the only person ever buried on the Moon.

Asteroids - Deadly Impact

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present - Asteroids: Deadly Impact. This documentary concerns the pioneering work of Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker and how their research provided compelling evidence that asteroid and comet impacts played a major role in shaping our planet. Over the course of eons these impacts not only brought the building block of life to our planet but also played a major role in shaping and altering the evolutionary course of life on our planet.

The Shoemakers along with David Levy discovered Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 - a comet that broke apart into twenty one separate fragments culminating with twenty one impact events with Jupiter over the course of several days between July 16 and July 22, 1994. These impact events provided the first direct observational evidence of the dynamics and physics of major collisions between solar system objects. Any one of these impacts would have been sufficient in itself to wipe life off the face of our globe in a real Extinction Level Event (E.L.E).

The Shoemaker – Levy 9 impact events coincided with the twenty-fifth anniversary marking man's first steps on the Moon and exactly 15 years later, through shear cosmic coincidence and as if to punctuate the importance of the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing as a significant event in human history, nature conspired again to offer up another doleful reminder that humanity’s destiny is indeed tied to events out in the starry ferment. On July 20th, 2009 new NASA images indicated that another large object hit Jupiter. The dark impact scar was about the size of the Pacific Ocean. The force of the explosion on Jupiter that caused it was thousands of times more powerful than the suspected comet or asteroid that exploded over the Tunguska River Valley in Siberia in June 1908. This would be over a million times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Do we need any more convincing that space exploration is vital to humanity's long term survival?

Asteroids - Deadly Impact

The Universe - Deadly Comets and Meteors

Today on Discovery Enterprise we focus our attention on those cosmic juggernauts of doom and destruction that prowl the universe and threaten humanity's very existence - the asteroids and comets. They have left their imprint on planet Earth and the other worlds of our solar system.

Initially this debris helped to build the planets through violent collisions. It is believed by many planetary scientists that during the Earth’s fiery infancy that comets and asteroids may have even seeded Earth with water and the building blocks for life.

Since the turbulent formation of the solar system, these space rocks have continued to impact Earth.

Some of these impacts may have been so violent that they led to several mass extinction episodes in Earth’s four and a half billion year history, including one that wiped out the dinosaur. Scientists, like the late Fred Hoyle and Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe, have proposed that asteroid and cometary dust may harbor deadly viruses that may have triggered some of our worst pandemics. The possibility of future collisions remains a legitimate threat yet despite their dangers, asteroids and comets may hold vital natural resources, which could actually preserve humankind and transform our global society into a spacefaring civilization.

The Universe is available on DVD from Amazon.com and the History Channel’s online store.

The Universe - Deadly Comets and Meteors

Catastrophe - Episode 1 Birth of the Planet

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the first installment of a five-part British documentary series entitled “Catastrophe”.

Catastrophe is a television series that recounts the story of the cataclysmic events that shaped planet Earth. From planetary collisions to the Ordovician Silurian Ice Age, from massive volcanic eruptions to asteroid impacts, Catastrophe pieces together the extraordinary events that gave birth to our unique and beautiful planet. Ninety-nine percent of all the creatures that have ever lived are now extinct. They were wiped-out in a series of global catastrophes. Each disaster changed the course of evolution on earth. Without them humankind, nor any of the life inexistence today, would be here. For out of catastrophe comes rebirth and renewal.

In today’s episode we travel back in time, 4.6 billion years to the Hadean Era, when Earth had just formed out of the chaos of the early solar system. It was during this period of fiery violence that a major impact event occurred which was to have a profound effect on the future course of Earth’s planetary evolution.

Catastrophe - Episode 1 Birth of the Planet

Einstein and the Annus Mirabilis of 1905

“I am sending you some papers which may be of interest,” wrote a young patent clerk named Albert Einstein to a friend in 1905.

The year 1905 will always be remembered as the “Annus Mirabilis” in the annuals of Physics and the year where a series of events would catapult a young Swiss patent clerk named Albert Einstein onto the world stage as the twentieth century’s greatest physicist fourteen years later.

In that year Einstein published four papers that were to substantially alter our views regarding the fundamental nature of space, time, and matter and lay the foundation of modern physics.

The first “Annus Mirabilis” in physics is linked to the year 1666 with Isaac Newton’s discoveries in calculus, motion, optics and gravitation culminating with the publication of Newton’s tour de force - the Principia, published on July 5th, 1687. Here Newton outlined his theory of Universal Gravitation.

Today on Discovery Enterprise we travel back to “Einstein’s Miracle Year” of 1905 and follow the events that would transform a young Albert Einstein from an obscure patent clerk into an icon - as scientific genius, pacifist and writer. This CBC Radio report explores Einstein’s life, loves and prolific career before he immigrated to the United States.

Einstein’s Miracle Year on YouKu

Exodus Earth – Mars

Mars is a world that holds a special mystique for humanity. We have been held under its captive spell for over a century. It is the one world where humanity expected to find life and sentience beyond the Earth. And, in the minds of many space visionaries today, Mars is the one world most likely to sever as a secondary planetary abode for terrestrial life and consciousness.

The colonization of Mars has been the topic of both romantic speculation and serious scientific study before the dawn of the Space Age. But, it has only been during the past forty years, beginning with observations of Mariner 9 and culminating with recent space missions of Mars Odyssey, Mars Express and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, that we can now assess the full resource potential of this world.

The surface conditions and availability of water on Mars make it arguably the most hospitable planet in the solar system other than Earth. While the Moon has been proposed as the first location for human colonization, unlike Earth's moon Mars has an atmosphere thus giving it the potential capacity to host human and other organic life.

Today on Discovery Enterprise we join our host physicist Dr. Basil Singer in exploring the potential, challenges and hazards facing humans as we try to make Mars humanity’s second planetary home. And, while we are many years away from being able to send people to Mars, some scientists and pioneering individuals are already practicing for the trip.

Exodus Earth – Mars

Earth The Biography - Rare Planet

It has taken 4.6 billion years for the Earth to evolve from a barren rock into the world we know today. And now the remarkable planet is facing a new challenge: humankind. The question is, how will it survive?

Read more about this exciting series on the following web site: National Geographic's Earth: The Biography

Earth The Biography - Rare Planet

In the Shadow of the Moon

Today we continue our commemoration of the launch of Apollo 13 and its perilous odyssey with a retrospective of the entire Apollo program as seen through the memories of the Astronauts, scientists and engineers who made it happen.

Between 1968 and 1972, nine American spacecraft voyaged to the Moon, and 12 men walked upon its surface. They remain the only human beings to have stood on another world. IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON brings together for the first, and possibly the last time, surviving crew members from every single Apollo mission that flew to the Moon, and allows them to tell their story in their own words.

This riveting first-hand testimony is interwoven with visually stunning archival material which has been re-mastered from the original NASA film footage – much of it never used before. The result is an intimate epic that vividly communicates the daring, the danger, the pride, and the promise of this extraordinary era in history when the whole world literally looked up at America.

The participating astronauts include Jim Lovell (Apollo 8 and 13), Dave Scott (Apollo 9 and 15), John Young (Apollo 10 and 16), Gene Cernan (Apollo 10 and 17), Mike Collins (Apollo 11), Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11), Alan Bean (Apollo 12), Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14), Charlie Duke (Apollo 16) and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17). Beautifully shot by Clive North in High Definition video, the astronauts talk directly to camera. They emerge as surprisingly eloquent, witty, emotional and very human.

The producers Duncan Copp and Chris Riley spent many weeks in the NASA film library examining cans of film some of which had not been opened for over 30 years. This search uncovered many gems, astonishing space shots which have been re-mastered from the original film rolls to reveal the Apollo program with a visual clarity and impact it has never had before. The mute 16mm rolls shot in Mission Control have been laboriously lip-synced with the 16-track audio recordings of the mission controllers’ voice loop to re-unite the pictures and sound of many historic moments for the first time, lending a striking immediacy to many dramatic scenes.

In the Shadow of the Moon

In the Shadow of the Moon (Part One)



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In the Shadow of the Moon (Part Two)


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In the Shadow of the Moon (Part Three)


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In the Shadow of the Moon (Part Four)


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In the Shadow of the Moon (Part Five)


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In the Shadow of the Moon (Part Six)


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The Perilous Odyssey of Apollo 13

Today on Discovery Enterprise we commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the launch of Apollo 13 with the 1995 motion picture classic “Apollo 13" directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks as veteran astronaut Jim Lovell.

Apollo 13 was the third Apollo mission intended to land on the Moon, but a mid-mission oxygen tank rupture caused sufficient damage to force the lunar landing to be aborted. The flight was commanded by James A. Lovell, with John L. "Jack" Swigert command module pilot, and Fred W. Haise lunar module pilot.

The mission launched on April 11, 1970 at 13:13 CST. Two days later, en route to the Moon, a fault in the electrical system of one of the Service Module's oxygen tanks produced an overpressure rupture which caused a loss of electrical power and failure of both oxygen tanks. The Command Module remained functional on its own batteries and oxygen tank, which were only designed to support the vehicle during the last hours of flight. The crew shut down the Command Module and used the Lunar Module as a "lifeboat" during the return trip to earth. Despite great hardship caused by limited power, loss of cabin heat, shortage of potable water, and the critical need to jury-rig the carbon dioxide removal system, the crew returned safely to Earth on April 17, and the mission was termed a "successful failure". A misquotation of the radio transmission made by Swigert and repeated by Lovell ("...Houston, we've had a problem...") has become widely quoted in popular culture as "Houston, we have a problem."

"And so began the most perilous but eventually triumphant situation ever encountered in human spaceflight".

On the night of April 13th, 1970, when the oxygen tank in Apollo 13's command module exploded, a 27-year-old engineer named Jerry Woodfill sat at his console in the Mission Evaluation Room at Johnson Space Center, monitoring the caution and warning system he helped create for the Apollo spacecraft.

Nancy Atkinson has started a series of articles on Universe Today entitled "13 things that saved Apollo 13" which look back at the Apollo 13 incident, based on an analysis by Jerry Woodfill. For a deeper insight of the effort on the part of the engineers of mission control to save the crew these articles are definitely worth reading.

Apollo 13

Apollo 13 – The Motion Picture is available on DVD from Amazon.com.

Carl Sagan's Cosmos - Encyclopedia Galactica and SETI

Today on Discovery Enterprise we continue to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of SETI with one of the greatest science documentary series of all time – Cosmos hosted by one of the twentieth century’s most outstanding public educators and popularizers of science - Dr. Carl Sagan.

Are there alien intelligences elsewhere in the Cosmos? How could we communicate with them? Are UFOs really extraterrestrial starships visiting our world? The answers to these questions take us to Egypt and an account of how Jean-François Champollion decoded the ancient hieroglyphics and to the largest radio telescope on Earth and to search for other civilizations in space.

With Dr. Sagan we investigate such questions as: “What is the life span of a technological civilization?” and “Will we one day hook up with a network of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy and download the - Encyclopedia Galactica?

Carl Sagan's Cosmos - Encyclopedia Galactica

SETI at Fifty

Science magazines the world over are commemorating the fiftieth anniversary marking the birth of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. One magazine in particular deserves special praise for its outstanding special issue – the Australian popular science magazine “Cosmos –The Science of Everything”.

In their special 50th anniversary SETI issue , COSMOS: Pioneer Frank Drake explains why he believes the galaxy is teeming with life, astrophysicist Paul Davies looks for evidence of bizarre life on Earth, and in the article Lingua Galactica Jon Lomberg finds the common ground for communication with sentient life forms. You’ll also meet Jill Tarter – the inspiration for Jodie Foster’s character in Contact, and discover what evolution might spawn on other worlds in the article Interstellar Safari. Be sure to view Cosmos Magazine's SETI@50: Special Online Report and take a look at the following feature articles:

The Wow! Signal

The most famous signal in SETI history was detected on the night of 15 August 1977 at the Ohio State University Big Ear Observatory. Has anything happened since?

Only a matter of time, says Frank Drake

Frank Drake is still confident we'll eventually find extraterrestrial civilisations. Read about it, in his own words, in his interview with Wilson da Silva.

Searching for aliens through history

Far from being a product of the UFO craze, the desire to contact intelligent life dates back to Ancient Greece.

In today's video features we will focus on three individuals who names have become synonymous with the endeavour to find Extraterrestrial Civilizations. What they have to say will give us greater insight on the motivations, science and philosophy behind the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

And from all of us at Discovery Enterprise - Happy 50th Birthday SETI!

SETI@50 Video Features

Prof. Frank Drake – Search for Extraterrestrial Life


Prof. Frank Drake - Search for Extraterrestrial Life
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Seth Shostak: Confessions of an Alien Hunter



Jill Tarter: Why the Search for Alien Intelligence Matters

The Natural History of Aliens

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary since Frank Drake first fired up Project Ozma on April 8, 1960 and transformed the philosophical question concerning the possibility of sentient beings beyond the Earth into a bona fide empirical scientific pursuit.

The search goes on and as yet we have not detected any signal. But, it’s a very big Cosmos and we have only scanned a few thousand stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Since the announcement of the first definitive detection of an exoplanet orbiting the star 51 Pegasi by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva on October 6, 1995 we have discovered 443 extrasolar planets. Planets are plentiful yet, the question remains do they represent a plethora of abodes for life and consciousness in the Cosmos.

The vast majority of the worlds discovered thus far have proven to be dismal prospects. Most are giant planets thought to resemble Jupiter; however, substantial sampling bias exists since more massive planets are much easier to detect with current technology. A few relatively lightweight exoplanets, only a few times more massive than Earth, have now been detected and projections suggest that planets of roughly Earth-like mass will eventually be found to outnumber extrasolar gas giants. Currently, based on scant evidence, we have placed our hopes on Gliese 581 d, the fourth planet of the red dwarf star Gliese 581 (approximately 20 light years from Earth). It appears to be the best example yet discovered of a possible terrestrial exoplanet that orbits within the habitable zone surrounding its star.

The prospects may vastly improve when the Kepler space telescope completes its survey and with the next generation space based advanced astronomical observatories such as NASA’s Terrestrial Planet Finder, the James Webb Space Telescope and their successors. These telescopes in tandem with the various proposals for the New Worlds Missions will help us image the surfaces of any terrestrial planets that the Kepler space telescope happens to find.

And, for the moment we must rely on the very best our current level of technology has to offer us in the search for extraterrestrial civilizations – The Allen Radio Telescope Array and Optical SETI (OSETI) – the search for powerful lasers pulses used for interstellar communications.

In the meantime we can only speculate as to the nature of creatures that may live on the most promising worlds we may very well discover in years to come. So join us today on Discovery Enterprise aboard the starship SS Attenborough and uncover the natural history of the aliens that we may one day discovery on these brave new abodes of life and sentience.

Natural History of an Alien

Exodus Earth – Venus

Venus is a hellish planet and within our solar system the world that is most reminiscent of Dante’s vision of Inferno. Today with our host physicist Dr. Basil Singer we explore the possibility of colonizing Venus.

Venus is perhaps the most difficult planet in the solar system that we could possibly colonize. Yet, the colonization of Venus has been a subject of much speculation and many works of science fiction since before the dawn of spaceflight, and is still much discussed. Are floating cloud cities hovering over Venus’ hellish surface in our future?

Exodus Earth – Venus

Lloyd Godson latest adventure

League member and aquanaut Lloyd Godson is at the moment undertaking another underwater adventure:

The Australian marine biologist Lloyd Godson will dive down to a tiny underwater house in the tropical aquarium at LEGOLAND® Deutschland for a period of 14 days and will attempt to set a new Guinness World Records™. He wants to generate the largest amount of electricity ever produced by pedalling a bicycle under water.

From 30 March to 13 April 2010 the 32-year-old will be living the life of an aquanaut. The giant aquarium of LEGOLAND Deutschland in Günzburg, Bavaria, opened in May 2009. Over 1,300 tropical fish live in the lost city of ATLANTIS together with 50 LEGO® models and Lloyd Godson will be their new neighbour........

Good luck Lloyd! Follow the adventure here.