astronomycast revisits 1908 tunguska blast

The June 30, 1908 Tunguska blast remains an unexplained mystery.  Universe Today reports Astronomycast responded to requests by devoting episode 243 to the Tunguska event. The speculations are varied as to what happened in Siberia, over a hundred yeas ago. Explanations include the reasonable such as an asteroid or comet to Tesla test firing an energy weapon. Regardless, a fireball split the sky in the early daylight hours with sufficient force to throw people off their feet to land yards away at a distance of forty miles! Victims experienced also intense heat from blast that flattened over 60,000,000 trees in a 200 sq mile area. Astronomycast Episode 243 is well done, and Tunguska, a natural science phenomenon! Please listen to the hosts who provide recent evidence. A previous post on the Tunguska blast can be read here. It's very interesting stuff!

coming soon: space tourism

Have you seen ads or checked out ORBITZ for a space tourism package? There are no listings yet, but the wait may be shorter than you think? Fraser and Pamela of Astronomycast Episode 221 survey one of the few bright spots in human endeavors: space tourism. Are you ready to Space Boogey (Jeff Beck)? Fraser wonders if failure of Orion may be impetus to privatize space? Pamela sees big bet placed on space tourism, but also, space cargo and confident Elon Musk of SpaceX can get space tourism off the ground! BA330 (Bigelow Aerospace), 330 cubic meters of personal space, discussed on cast, which offers all the amenities of home almost, lavatory and "hygiene station"! The BA330 (pictured) is modular with ability to add more for a complete station. Pamela also mentions Spaceship Two (SS2), a joint effort by Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites. You can jump directly to test flight of SS2 (video), an impressive demonstration of the feathered suborbital space plane. The present writer isn't convinced to make either a BA330 or a SS2 booking, preferring to book into the Space Hotel !