• Mars beckons

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    No comments on Mars beckons

    It’s now just over a week until I go to Mars – or more accurately, to the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station. Things are looking up – the Station took delivery of three new Kawasaki ATVs recently, and when I get there, the hab will have been in use for a month, meaning that…

  • Films

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    No comments on Films

    Not many updates recently, alas. I’ve been watching The Princess Bride and reading The Code Book, both of which I heartily recommend. I’ve also been emailing my crew mates for my upcoming mission at the Mars Society Desert Research Station in December and writing content for the MetaFilter wiki. I plan to write a couple…

  • Christmas on Mars

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    No comments on Christmas on Mars

    Today I received an invitation from Space School UK to their ‘Christmas on Mars Reunion Weekend’ (it’s not really Christmas, but mid-December). I went to a Space School UK course several years ago, and it was enormous fun – building rockets, going to lectures, and meeting lots of other teenagers who were interested in space.…

  • Talking

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    1 comment on Talking

    In ten minutes, I’m going to be interviewed on a national Japanese radio station about First Words. It’s been a while since I was last interviewed on the radio (BBC World Service) and that time wasn’t live – this time I’ll be live on air, plus it won’t be from an English speaking country. I…

  • High notes

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    No comments on High notes

    First Words ended today on a high note with a feature article in a major Australian newspaper. We could’ve kept the competition going on for a few more days and tried for some more publicity, but I felt that it was best to finish the competition and get the results published while we still had…

  • On Top Of The World

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    1 comment on On Top Of The World

    Forget about the Nobel Prizes and throw that article about the Space Shuttle into the bin, because at the time of writing, First Words is the top story on Discovery.com’s news homepage! The competition just broke through the 1000 entry barrier an hour ago, as well. I should probably say something about starting my new…

  • Interviews

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    No comments on Interviews

    The interview with the Discovery Channel correspondent went very well; we had a good chat about the competition and related things, and it was nice talking to a journalist who had a clue about space. Hopefully an article should be up on their website sometime tomorrow, and the journalist promised to drop a note to…

  • More First Words

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    No comments on More First Words

    I was a little disappointed at the response last week when I launched First Words – it didn’t seem that many people were visiting. If that wasn’t enough, my Slashdot article was turned down (grumble) and that didn’t help my mood. But slowly and surely, the might of the bloggers and the strength of the…

  • First Words launch

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    No comments on First Words launch

    The First Words competition (where we’re asking people what they think will be the first words on Mars) is about to launch ‘officially’ in under an hour. It’s the product of a lot of thought and work, and it’s nice to see that it’s all pretty much finally done. All the essential functionality is there…

  • A potential problem averted

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    No comments on A potential problem averted

    There’s been a bit of a disturbance on the New Mars forums I administrate. In the past two days someone has signed up and made 40 posts, all of which are hostile to space and Mars exploration. People got upset and complained (very politely though). I decided to do a bit of research. One peculiar…