0508.12 Supplemental

Apologies for not posting last Sunday. I had intended to ahead of a short break, but you know how things are before packing for a holiday; time that always seems in abundance suddenly evaporates and before you know it you’re in danger of missing your train/flight/boat. Thankfully the only thing left behind in my holiday haste was an unfinished blog post and a pint of milk – both of which had to pitched upon my return for the same obvious reason.

You may be interested to know that I went to the Isle of Wight off England’s south coast, which was the site of the UK’s short-lived space program that started in the 1950s and lasted until the early 1970s, and was (according to some accounts) for a brief time in advance of the US rocketry program. Given the incredible advances in UK aviation in the 40s and 50s – advances which led to the mighty V-Force – there’s perhaps some truth in that  It’s been suggested that were it not for the efforts of British scientists posted at the ultra-secret High Down base (above), the Apollo moon landings would not have been quite so successful. Personally I doubt UK efforts were anywhere near as significant as has been made out, but it’s a noble concession to history.

Anyway, here’s me trying to hold in my paunch in front of the now derelict launch area.

Play: Kairobotica (Android), Warsow (PC, Mac, Linux), Solstice RTS (iOS), Gemini Wars v1.1 (PC), Stellar Impact – Science Vessel DLC (PC)

Invest: Moon Intern (PC, Mac, Linux), AR-K (PC, Mac, Linux, IOS, Android), Star Command (PC, Mac), Jack Houston and the Necronauts (PC), Super Motherload (PC, Mac), Space Fleet Command II (iOS), Defense Grid: Containment (PC), Project Lodus (PC), Bad Planet (PC, Mac, iOS, Android), eOurWorld (PC), Kickstarter Indie Bundle (incl. Ensign-1), Jetpack 2 (PC, Mac, Linux)

Read: , PlaySF 02 of course! Also, Dark Eden by Chris Beckett (“Like his previous novel, The Holy Machine, Chris Beckett’s Dark Eden is a superior piece of theologically nuanced science fiction” – The Guardian)

Watch: NASA showing the Mars Curiosity mission landing later tonight/tomorrow at 20:30PDT / 23:30EDT / 04:30BST /03:30GMT

Science: Apollo flags still standing, Iran’s space monkey, Martian Olympics