Tech at the speed of Warp

This is simply amazing. Top Gear, a British show about cars/other more or less important things, built a small space shuttle like vehicle and stuck a car on it.

And not just any car, the Reliant Robin, Del Boy's car. They actually launched Del Boy's car! Trotters are going to outer space.
A three wheel car, famous for staring in BBC "Only fools and horses" comedy show.

EDIT: As I was informed, the actual car used by Del Boy was actually Reliant Regal VAN. Three wheel car reminded me of them so I put reference to them, and lets face it, its still is a Trotters car what ever its name is.


The sheer complexity of the task and the probability of a failure make this one of TV's history making moment. For me this is up there with such footage as first launch of SpaceShipOne, the Moon landing and very few others.
It all started as a joke but after seeing the first finished booster rocket it looked more real and interesting. By the end of the show they have assembled it on a military testing site and I was expecting it to go BOOM on liftoff.

BUT THE SUc** LIFTED OFF.

Some of the specs are:

- 1/5th scale Space Shuttle...well sort of.
- Weighing in at 1.4 Metric Tonnes (3080 lbs)
- Installed impulse over 200kNs (R impulse)
- Main power plants consisting a cluster of 6 Hybrid Contrail O motors.
- Two of which were designed to be airstarted.
- Supplemented by 20 other Cesaroni composites.
- Size: 27 cubic metres. (>1000 cubic feet)
- Man capable - seating for 4.
- 4.5 months from design to ignition.

And just to emphasise the point, because it’s so damn cool, this really was the largest non-commercial rocket launch in European history.

Top Gear Shuttle Launch Aka. The New Car Bomb. - The best free videos are right here

the ending is definitely added but thats TV.


For all of you that have not seen the other TV's historic moments here are additional two that rand the highest in my book:

Labels: Space

After a huge disappointment with Star Trek franchise and its inability to produce a game worth while a moment of nostalgic made me turn once again to Descent Freespace 2 for the rescue. So I installed the Freespace 2 and went in search of mods, I remember that there was a modding community up and running making good, not bad, but just good mods for Freespace 2.
Then it happened or better yet, when did it happen? Freespace 2 is open source, with community of developers that are slowly and painstakingly taking this game to the next level.





Let’s face it, Freespace 2 was and is the best Space FPS available. The story is excellent, the interface was astoundingly manageable but provided with so much features that sometimes you had to use the entire keyboard which felt like you are trying to play a flight sim, the AI and computer controlled players were smart as was the interface to control them. It allowed the players to produce their own maps and mods with ease as a very good editor (FRED) was shipped with the game.The only thing that is not good is old graphics. This also changed, supported resolutions are maxed to 1024x768 but you can turn on the unsupported ones... OO... the joy. And then you put new textures, the game just lifts up. It can really be argued that now, this is a completely new game and we have there The Freespace 2 Source Code Project to thanks for that.
Not only did Freespace 2 get a new life but its graphic engine is being used for some upcoming games. Some of them are:

Babylon 5



but the most compleate conversation is for the upcomming Battlestar Galactica. This will be a beauty.

Labels: Games, Open Source, Space

In the age of Wikis, Google Earth/Mars and after WikiMapia it was just a mater of time before someone creates a Wikimapia styled web service for the heavens. It is surprising that we had to wait so log to get such web application.
WikiSky has a database of more than half a billion (500,000,000) stellar objects. Thats one impressive database. One additional feature next to the shear size of the database is the SDSS mode. WikiSky uses Sloan Digital Sky Survey images to display real photographs of the sky you are looking at through WikiSky.
A couple of comments; search could be better, lists of available high-res images for selected object should show in tooltip on main map and not on separate page that is hard to navigate.

They are looking for people who are willing to code and improve their service, also they are publishing their API so all you MashUp junkies, start coding.

Labels: GUI, Programing, Space, Visualisation

Many people have trouble visualizing the shear size of the universe. They may look like dim lights in the night sky but some of most recognizable stars are almost the size of our solar system.

Labels: Design, Space

I've been a Trekkie as long as I can remember and has always wanted to be emerged in Star Trek universe interactively. Discovery's, space battles and diplomacy are main components of Star Trek, or at least I thought they were.

A new Star Trek game came out and I was very eager to check it out. So a couple of hours ago I downloaded a demo and started to play.

What was the last good Star Trek game anyone on the planet has played? It seams that people that are trying to create Star Trek games are ruining them on purpose. One such example of late is Star Trek Legacy. I waited a long time for some decent ST game but Star Trek Legacy absolutely fail to live up to any expectation. I even dare to say it is the worst ST game ever. Or, this may be an overstatement as there are worst ST games out there.

Not to totally tarnish ST gaming as there are shining examples of good ST games like; ST Elite force I and Elite Force II, ST Bridge Commander and even ST Armada to some extent.

Star Trek Legacy has nothing to offer to gamers, its engine is retarded and old. The entire game has a feel that it was made in 2000 and not 2006. "In game" shots posted on line are nothing like the game engine can render. Ships break apart always the same way, not to mention that they are block of something and nothing near "realistic". The speed of the game is good until you get to some nebula and it starts grinding, I PLAY FEAR ON HIGH SETTINGS IN HIRES, and you can't manage to render a fucking nebula right?
The gameplay is frustrating. slow and after 10 minutes, boring. Control of your fleet is nonexistent except that you can switch from one ship to another. A homeworld 2 style of combat would have been allot better. There is something that resembles a story line but game doesn't allow you to choose anything. There are no upgrades for ships. Shall I continue?

I don't get one thing. Why didn't Universal Studios take ST Bridge Commander and just improved the graphics, added more depth to it, more exploring? ST Bridge Commander is one of my favorite games out of ST universe. There is still a lot of activity around this game. Moders added more animation to consoles, more variations in bridge designs and more ships. Why not take that game idea and just expand it.



Watch the GameSpot video review to see what I mean.

I can't imagine that anyone at Universal Studios didn't play ST Legacy before they embarrassed all the fans with yet another absolute failure. As a Trekkie, if something doesn't change soon in the direction in which the whole ST universe is going and people in charge of it aren't removed, I QUIT. Stargate offers more than Star Trek and at least they cancel games that don't live up to the challenge of fans.

Star Trek Legacy is an insult to any Star Trek fan.

addition> Oh MY GOD... uninstall lasts longer than installation.... its over 10 minutes and it's not over....

Labels: Games, Space

Rutan won the $10M Ansari X-Prize for SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded craft to enter space twice in a 2-week period.

Labels: Space