The Overview Effect

 This 20 minute "mini documentary" was referred to me by a friend of mine about a year ago. The clip is taken from a film called Planetary which focuses on the idea that the earth and human species are one .  The clip focuses on the experience felt by astronauts when they look back on Earth from space. Space exploration is always focused on what is beyond earth. Scientists focus learning about and discovering planets, moons, stars and galaxies beyond earth. The thought of what the earth would look like suspended in space never crossed anyones mind, until people saw it for themselves. 

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 The experience of seeing the earth from space is defined as the Overview Effect. The documentary focuses on the experiences felt by astronauts when they see the Earth from space. Although they each have different explanations they share the idea of unity with the earth and a new found self-awareness. Although those of you reading this and myself will never get to experience the overview effect first hand for ourselves you defiantly feel something similar after watching the clip below.

The full length film Planetary is screening across the US and in a few other countries this year. You can find screening locations or preorder the film at weareplanetary.com.

Feel free to comment below on your new found views of the earth after watching.

NASA to Visit Europa

On Febuary 2nd 2015 the United States congress approved a budget of $130 million towards a NASA mission to one of Jupiter's moons, Europa. This amount is what has been given currently, the budget will increase as the mission developes. Europa is a frozen moon containing more water than  Earth. Although the surface is frozen the moons oribt around Jupiter causes the moon to move inside.  That engery then heats the water so it remains liquid beneath the ice. On earth whereever there is water there is life, this is what NASA hopes to find. Life outside of earth has never been discovered and Europa has all the ingredients. The mission is currently set to launch in mid 2020's starting with the Europa Clipper to fly by and study the moon before any landing mission is launched.

source: http://www.space.com/28436-nasa-europa-mission-white-house.html

Reusable Rockets. "The Key to Planetary Exploration".

Elon Musk believes that reusable rockets are the key to revolutionizing travel to space and after learning about SpaceX and the Falcon 9 rocket I believe too. The old design of space rockets were meant for rockets to travel into space but not return to Earth. Rockets would burn up in the atmosphere when returning to earth. The traditional cost of launching one of these rockets into space is $100-$260 million, and you don't even get to use it agin....

SpaceX's new design is reusable and designed, manufactured and tested within the company rather than outsourcing these jobs to other companies. These factors drive down cost significantly, SpaceX charged SES $55 million for a launch completed December 3rd 2013. They also completed 5 successful missions resupplying and returning cargo from the International Space Station for NASA. In total SpaceX has 44 missions planned for over 15 companies. The vehicle responsible for the beginning of this revolution is the Falcon 9. Visit SpaceX's Falcon 9 webpage to learn everything about the Falcon9, below I have posted two videos from SpaceX's youtube channel. The first are successful tests and missions of the current Falcon 9 and the second is a concept of a future Falcon 9.

Want a Falcon 9 for yourself? Head over to the SpaceX store and launch as early as 2016!