What Juno anyway?!

Congratulations to all those involved in NASA's Juno mission!

After a five year voyage of 1.75 billion miles, their probe arrived into Jupiter's orbit this morning beginning a new chapter in our understanding of the gas giant and in turn solar system.

Watching the images of the swirling gas giant arrive over the coming months and years is going to be awe inspiring.

If anyone at NASA or ESA is reading, how about you start including faces in the designs of your probes. I'm having fun bringing a bit of character to the likes of Juno, Rose and Phile and New Horizons, but a bit of help from your end would make these little adventurers even more fun. :-) 

Godspeed

Michael Tyner Alsbury was killed on Friday, serving as a test pilot on Virgin Galactic's Space Ship Two.

For as long as I can remember I've had a fascination with space and I've watched with great interest as the Shuttle programme came to an end and the next chapter in space travel begun.

Whatever you think about the current drive towards space travel, be it rich man's folly or an unquestionable necessity, it would be foolishly short sighted to declare that 'we're done exploring'.

The benefits from other audacious and ongoing experiments are too numerous to mention and there are thousands of people dying every day for far less worthy causes. Putting your life on the line in the name of science is a cause infinitely more noble than most.

So for those who fall helping us climb, Godspeed.

Space. In colour.

The final frontier... to what exactly?

I've been playing the Elite beta. I loved Elite as a kid and this latest incarnation has not let me down. Same game play (more or less) but with the most breathtaking visuals you can imagine. The imagery inspired me to produce these pictures.

So we have the view of a sun from within an asteroid field, a gas giant with moons, so many moons, and the tail of a comet hurtling through space.

I have a few more ideas for further entries into this series as I was really pleased with how they turned out but thought I'd just post these for now.

Now, I need to go find me some Thargoid Invaders!

BRIAN BLESSED!

I attended a film festival at the Quad in Derby at the weekend where i was lucky enough to see Paddy Considine's seminar, do some networking and see the legendary BRIAN BLESSED in conversation (his name should never be printed in lower case). Conversation turned out to be a misleading term as the interviewer was barely able to sneak in two questions as BRIAN BLESSED erupted a continuous stream of dialogue for almost two hours. Turned up to 11. It was fantastic.

His enthusiasm for all things, but most importantly 'SPAAACE!', was infectious, and after meeting him briefly after the show I felt compelled to put pen to paper and try and recreate his enormous personality. As the man is more or less a living caricature this wasn't too tricky.