Kindle fire deal

Mars One, or Mars’ got talent

Following on from my last post about people with vision finally taking the first steps to true space industry. Comes the rather off the wall idea from dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, that the way to fund a mission to mars is not with government money ala NASA but with good old TV money.

Bas’ idea boils down to turning the mission into a reality tv event, and its not as crazy as you might think at first. A mars mission would inevitably be a huge event for the media anyway. Bas’ has just turned that on its head, lets use that media interest as the driver for the whole thing. The reality tv show would follow the prospective colonists through the selection process leading to the 4 people sent in the first mission or season/series being picked from a public vote. The show would than follow these 4 people as they travelled to mars and set up the first human settlement on another world. These 4 people would than be followed by subsequent missions expanding the settlement with the hope of it eventually becoming self sufficient.

Wait though before you put yourself forward. This is most likely a one way trip. No return is planned and any help is a considerable distance away. Add to that that a sizable minority of the viewers will be tuning in hoping for your horrible death and it is not for everyone.

Personally I’m not yet convinced. Its such early days and I can’t help but have concerns for any endeavour were the FAQs page starts with “Is this for real?”. They have done a lot of work for it to be some elaborate joke, and I’d love this to be the actual point were business starts leading us into the solar system.

Asteroid Mining!!

James Cameron and several Billionaire “friends” have decided to start a company with the express intention of mining near earth asteroids. They will start by designing and launching a fleet of prospecting “telescopes” into earth orbit that will be used to map and analyse near earth asteroids. They will than design and build prospecting and mining equipment. They hope to have an orbital depot of refined metals and water in orbit within 10 years.

I just hope they actually do it. Arguably space industry has been in humanities grasp for decades now, no one was willing to invest the money to get it started. The vast amount of resources literally on our front door, have enticed scientists and investors before but the initial cost has always been prohibitive. Once the space race was over national governments could not justify to tax payers the expense and the mega rich did not see a quick enough return of investment for their liking.

So space industry stalled before it even started. If someone had had the vision to take the chance 20 years ago who knows what world we would currently be living in. The availability of water and metals in orbit will make all kinds of space industry viable, by removing the need to boost raw materials into orbit from earth. The explosion in space industry will open other markets.

Its the bootstrap principle, if you look at the launch loop its technically probable now but economically unfeasible. There is not the payload tonnage needed to make it profitable but dramatically reducing the energy needed to get things into space would create the demand to pay for it. Its catch 22 and the weakness of short term capitalism. Planetary Resources will hopefully create that feasibility in cheaper methods of reaching and coming back from orbit.

It’s the tip of the iceberg, it’s fantastic news in a world struggling to regain economic growth. True industry lead growth into a near limitless new market.

Bring it on.

Grand National 2012 Sweepstake Kit v3

It final the declaration has been made.

Just 2 changes out are Le Beau Bai and Always Waining, in come Neptune Equestor and Kate's horse Hello Bud.

Grand National 2012 Sweepstake Kit v2

Updated with numbers, colours and just the runners as of today (11/04/2012)

****************************************
Version 3 now available here this is the final version.
****************************************

Grand National 2012 Sweepstake Kit v1

Its that time of year again. The country will soon be going Grand National crazy. Like last year I've created a simple sweepstake kit. The kit is most definitely version 1 as the full list of horses will not be available for some time yet. It contains the best guesses of the horses likely to be running, but hopefully might be of use for those that need a bit of time to organise a sweep.

Keep checking back for updates as we learn more about which horses will actually be running come the 14th. This sweepstake brought to you by Spree4.com.


*************************************************
Version 2 now available here
*************************************************

Roomzzz Newcastle

Got to admit I'm quite excited to hear Roomzzz's news that they will soon be opening their 5th hotel. Roomzzz's new hotel will be in Newcastle which is a little surprising as they have been talking about opening hotels in Bristol and London for a while now.

We only recently came back from a brilliant birthday weekend at Roomzzz's Manchester, and we are still as much in love with Roomzzz's as we were the first time. As we are fast approaching gold membership the addition of a new hotel is very welcome indeed. So long as they keep the quality as high as their other properties they should be on to a real winner here.