Star Trek - Secrets of the Universe

In order to honor the memory of Leonard Nimoy, we present today on Far Future Horizons the History Channel documentary Star Trek - Secrets of the Universe.

This documentary coincided with the release of the motion picture, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), the very last motion picture which Leonard Nimoy starred in and where he reprised his role as Mr. Spock.

Catastrophe - Episode 5 - Survival Earth

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the fifth and final episode of Catastrophe.

This spectacular five-part series, presented by Tony Robinson, investigates the history of natural disasters, from the planet's beginnings to the present, putting a new perspective on our existence and suggesting that we are the product of catastrophe.

Ninety-nine percent of all the creatures that have ever lived, no longer exist. They were wiped-out in a series of global catastrophes. Each disaster changed the course of evolution on earth. Without them mankind, nor any of the life we see around us, would be here today. For out of catastrophe comes rebirth. Evolution is a savage, imperfect and violent process. It's survive or perish. The earth's history of catastrophes has both molded the planet and determined evolution. For each disaster led to another leap forward on the evolutionary trail form single celled bacteria to humankind itself.

Catastrophe - Episode 4 - Asteroid Impact

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the fourth episode of Catastrophe.

This spectacular five-part series, presented by Tony Robinson, investigates the history of natural disasters, from the planet's beginnings to the present, putting a new perspective on our existence and suggesting that we are the product of catastrophe.

Ninety-nine percent of all the creatures that have ever lived, no longer exist. They were wiped-out in a series of global catastrophes. Each disaster changed the course of evolution on earth. Without them mankind, nor any of the life we see around us, would be here today. For out of catastrophe comes rebirth. Evolution is a savage, imperfect and violent process. It's survive or perish. The earth's history of catastrophes has both molded the planet and determined evolution. For each disaster led to another leap forward on the evolutionary trail form single celled bacteria to humankind itself.

Catastrophe - Episode 3 - Planet of Fire

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the third episode of Catastrophe.

This spectacular five-part series, presented by Tony Robinson, investigates the history of natural disasters, from the planet's beginnings to the present, putting a new perspective on our existence and suggesting that we are the product of catastrophe.

Ninety-nine percent of all the creatures that have ever lived, no longer exist. They were wiped-out in a series of global catastrophes. Each disaster changed the course of evolution on earth. Without them mankind, nor any of the life we see around us, would be here today. For out of catastrophe comes rebirth. Evolution is a savage, imperfect and violent process. It's survive or perish. The earth's history of catastrophes has both molded the planet and determined evolution. For each disaster led to another leap forward on the evolutionary trail form single celled bacteria to humankind itself.

Catastrophe - Episode 2 - Snowball Earth

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the second episode of Catastrophe.

This spectacular five-part series, presented by Tony Robinson, investigates the history of natural disasters, from the planet's beginnings to the present, putting a new perspective on our existence and suggesting that we are the product of catastrophe.

Ninety-nine percent of all the creatures that have ever lived, no longer exist. They were wiped-out in a series of global catastrophes. Each disaster changed the course of evolution on earth. Without them mankind, nor any of the life we see around us, would be here today. For out of catastrophe comes rebirth. Evolution is a savage, imperfect and violent process. It's survive or perish. The earth's history of catastrophes has both molded the planet and determined evolution. For each disaster led to another leap forward on the evolutionary trail form single celled bacteria to humankind itself.

Catastrophe - Episode 1 - Birth of the Planet

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the first episode of Catastrophe, a five-part documentary series, presented by Tony Robinson.  This series investigates the history of natural disasters, from the planet's beginnings to the present, putting a new perspective on our existence and suggesting that we are the product of catastrophe.

Catastrophe first aired on Britain’s Channel 4 on November 21^th, 2008.

The first installment of this series tells the story of Earth's difficult birth, and how the formation of our moon set us on a unique course to being a planet ripe for life.

Space Race Episode Four: Race for the Moon

Today on Far Future Horizons we are proud to present the final episode of the acclaimed BBC docudrama “Space Race” titled “Race for the Moon”.


This series chronicles the major events and characters in the American/Soviet space race up to the first landing of a man on the moon. It focuses on Sergei Korolev, the Soviet chief rocket designer, and Wernher von Braun, his American counterpart. The series was a joint effort between British, German, American and Russian production teams.
 

Space Race Episode Three: Race for Survival

Today on Far Future Horizons we are proud to present the third episode of the acclaimed BBC docudrama “Space Race” titled “Race for Survival”.


This series chronicles the major events and characters in the American/Soviet space race up to the first landing of a man on the moon. It focuses on Sergei Korolev, the Soviet chief rocket designer, and Wernher von Braun, his American counterpart. 

Space Race: Race For Satellites

Today on Far Future Horizons we are proud to present the second episode of the acclaimed BBC docudrama "Space Race"  the “Race For Satellites”.

This series chronicles the major events and characters in the American/Soviet space race up to the first landing of a man on the moon. It focuses on Sergei Korolev, the Soviet chief rocket designer, and Wernher von Braun, his American counterpart. The series was a joint effort between British, German, American and Russian production teams.


In the second installment as the Cold War intensifies, Korolev is asked to build a rocket capable of carrying a five-ton warhead to America - he designs and constructs the R-7 Semyorka, the first ICBM, and is later allowed to use it to launch the first satellite, Sputnik 1, quickly following up with the rushed Sputnik 2. 

Space Race : The Race for Rockets

Today on Far Future Horizons we are proud to present the first episode of the acclaimed BBC docudrama "Space Race - Race for Rockets”.

Spaceplanes - The Ultimate Journey

Today on Far Future Horizons we present “Spaceplanes - The Ultimate Journey” an episode from the acclaimed Discovery Channel series Extreme Machines.

The Day After Disaster – What if Washington, D.C. got Nuked?

  

In the current climate of widespread national security concerns in the U.S. and recent sabre rattling by North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, many people worry that the threat of a nuclear attack on American soil is more plausible than ever.

Today on Far Future Horizons we explore this chilling scenario, and get a firsthand look at what would happen if a nuclear bomb exploded in the heart of Washington, D.C.

Windscale Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Disaster

Today on Far Future Horizons we present a BBC documentary that reveals how political ambition fuelled the Windscale fire of 1957 and then dictated that the heroes of Windscale be made the scapegoats.

Is an Urban Tunguska Close at Hand?

 

In the wake of the meteorite explosion the Russian city of Chelyabinsk people two years ago today on Friday February 15^th, 2013, we ask the question: Is Urban Tunguska Close at Hand?

The meteorite exploded with thirty times the explosive yield of the atomic bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima and injured about 1,100 people.

A possible disaster scenario where a sizable asteroid or meteorite explodes over or impacts a major urban center can no longer be treated as mere science fiction whimsy.

The Chelyabinsk  Event was a relatively minor incident. Next time we may not be so lucky.

Disaster: This graphic shows the sequence of events which led to the meteor crashing in Russia (the Daily Mail)

According to the Daily Mail:

Fireball from outer space: 1,000 injured as 40-ton meteor travelling at 33,000mph explodes over a terrified town

• Large object flashed across the sky at 9.20am local time
• Pictures show a streak of smoke followed by several bright blasts of flames
• 82 of the injured are children and two are in intensive care
• Landed in a lake near Chebarkul, a neighbouring town
• 6,000 square feet of a roof at a zinc factory collapsed
• One local said it 'was like a scene from the Armageddon movie'

 

NOVA - Meteor Strike

SPACEGUARD     Sooner or later, it was bound to happen.  On June 30, 1908, Moscow escaped destruction by three hours and four thousand kilometers—a margin invisibly small by the standards of the universe.  On February 12, 1947, another Russian city had a still narrower escape, when the second great meteorite of the twentieth century detonated less than four hundred kilometers from Vladivostok, with an explosion rivaling that of the newly invented uranium bomb.
    In those days there was nothing that men could do to protect themselves against the last random shots in the cosmic bombardment that had once scarred the face of the Moon.  The meteorites of 1908 and 1947 had struck uninhabited wilderness; but by the end of the twenty-first century there was no region left on Earth that could be safely used for celestial target practice.  The human race had spread from pole to pole.  And so, inevitably . . .
    At 0946 GMT on the morning of September 11 in the exceptionally beautiful summer of the year 2077, most of the inhabitants of Europe saw a dazzling fireball appear in the eastern sky.  Within seconds it was brighter than the Sun, and as it moved across the heavens—at first in utter silence—it left behind it a churning column of dust and smoke.
    Somewhere above Austria it began to disintegrate, producing a series of concussions so violent that more than a million people had their hearing permanently damaged.  They were the lucky ones.
    Moving at fifty kilometers a second, a thousand tons of rock and metal impacted on the plains of northern Italy, destroying in a few flaming moments the labor of centuries.  The cities of Padua and Verona were wiped from the face of the Earth; and the last glories of Venice sank forever beneath the sea as the waters of the Adriatic came thundering landward after the hammer blow from space.
    Six hundred thousand people died, and the total damage was more than a trillion dollars.  But the loss to art, to history, to science—to the whole human race, for the rest of time—was beyond all computation.  It was as if a great war had been fought and lost in a single morning; and few could draw much pleasure from the fact that, as the dust of destruction slowly settled, for months the whole world witnessed the most splendid dawns and sunsets since Krakatoa.
    After the initial shock, mankind reacted with a determination and a unity that no earlier age could have shown.  Such a disaster, it was realized, might not occur again for a thousand years—but it might occur tomorrow.  And the next time, the consequences could be even worse.
    Very well; there would be no next time.
    A hundred years earlier, a much poorer world, with far feebler resources, had squandered its wealth attempting to destroy weapons launched, suicidally, by mankind against itself.  The effort had never been successful, but the skills acquired then had not been forgotten. Now they could be used for a far nobler purpose, and on an infinitely vaster stage.  No meteorite large enough to cause catastrophe would ever again be allowed to breach the defenses of Earth.
    So began Project SPACEGUARD.  Fifty years later—and in a way that none of its designers could ever have anticipated—it justified its existence.
  From Chapter #1
Rendezvous with Rama
A novel by Arthur C. Clarke
Copyright 1973 

Today on Far Future Horizons, we present an exciting episode from the acclaimed PBS documentary series NOVA titled Meteor Strike. 

Today marks the second anniversary of the Chelyabinsk Event of February 15^th, 2013. On this date, a 10,000 metric ton asteroid exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk with thirty times the explosive yield of the atomic bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6^th, 1945.

The Chelyabinsk Event highlights the urgent need to establish a planetary defense system to protect the Earth from future impact events.

A potential disaster scenario where a sizable asteroid or meteorite explodes over or impacts a major urban center can no longer be treated as mere science fiction fancy. It happened on February 15^th, 2013 when over 1,000 people were actually injured. And, it will one day happen again perhaps with far greater devastating results. 

The Real James Bond?

Today on Far Future Horizons we revisit the world of espionage, secret agents, fast cars, incredible gadgets and fabulously beautiful woman to get behind the true story behind James Bond.

Author Ian Fleming wanted his suave secret agent to be the ultimate spy – but who provided the inspiration for Bond? This film reveals Fleming’s wartime service in naval intelligence and profiles two men who could have supplied the basis for Bond’s character.

On February 17^th 1952, Ian Fleming sat down at his typewriter in Jamaica to write the spy story to end all spy stories. The central character of this story would become one of the world’s best-known and best-loved fictional creations: James Bond. 

Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming

Today on Far Future Horizons we present Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming starring Jason Connery, son of Sean Connery, the actor who launched his career to stellar heights by bringing Ian Fleming’s James Bond to the silver screen with the motion picture Dr. No in 1962. 

Sir Clive Sinclair: Anatomy of an Inventor

Sinclair meeting young inventors in Bristol, England in 1992

Today on Far Future Horizons we present a BBC Horizon documentary about the British Inventor who helped bring computers to the masses - Sir Clive Marles Sinclair.  

How to Build a Bionic Man

Today on Far Future Horizons we present a documentary about a team of roboticists that are creating the first ever complete bionic man. Where could this technology lead?

Ancient Megastructures - Angkor Wat

Today on Far Future Horizons we visit one of the most important archaeological sites in South East Asia, Angkor Wat in the acclaimed National Geographic Channel series Ancient Megastructures.

Situated deep in the Cambodian jungle, the majestic temple of Angkor Wat was designed to honour the Hindu god Vishnu and which took over 30 years to build.

Perfect Disaster ~ Super Tornado

Today on Far Future Horizons we present an episode from the acclaimed documentary series Perfect Disaster which examines the scenario of Dallas, Texas being devastated by a Super-tornado, one exceeding an F5 on the Fujita scale.

Alien Hunters

Today on Far Future Horizons we present one of the few episodes of the History Channel’s documentary series UFO Files, that I actually liked.

The Universe - The Milky Way

Today on Far Future Horizons we are going to explore our home galaxy -The Milky Way.

The Universe – Gravity

Today on Far Future Horizons we take a close look at the most pervasive yet the weakest force in the Universe. It is an attractive force between all matter and is very weak as compared to the other forces of nature.

How to Explore the Universe in Style

Will such futuristic technologies as depicted in our favourite science fiction television shows ever become a real possibility?

Today on Far Future Horizons we join physicist Michio Kaku as he designs and unveils his plan for a way to explore the universe in style.

The key to its design is that staple of any great space adventure series - the warp drive. As any Star Trek fan knows the warp drive is the common name for various types of faster-than-light spacecraft propulsion systems, both fictional and hypothetical.

What Really Killed the Dinosaurs?

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another episode of the acclaimed BBC science documentary series Horizon that investigates the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction that annihilated the dinosaurs and several other species some Sixty Five Million years ago. Was this extinction event really triggered by the impact of an asteroid or comet?

Could one of the best known and most glamorous scientific theories be wrong? Until recently most scientists thought they knew what killed off the dinosaurs. It was a 10 km-wide meteorite which smashed into Yucatan in Mexico. It caused world-wide forest fires, tsunamis several kilometres high, and an 'impact winter' - in which dust blocked out the sun for months or years. It was thought the dinosaurs were blasted, roasted, and frozen to death, in that order.

The Last Day of the Dinosaurs

Today on Far Future Horizons we travel back 65 million years with the acclaimed documentary series National Geographic Explorer to break down the chain of events that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and changed the world forever.

Einstein's Beautiful Equation

More than a century has elapsed since Einstein unveiled his famous equation equating mass with energy. 

It is perhaps one of the most quoted and widely seen physics equations in the public domain. Yet contained in this short and concise equation is the heritage and ultimate destiny of our species. 

This equation expresses succinctly the process by which all the matter found in stars, planets, galaxies and people came into being. This equation expresses the very essence of cosmic history in a very brief and yet poetic phrase. For contained in this equation is the very essence of cosmic history and how in the span of fourteen billion years energy evolved into matter and matter evolved into life and consciousness. 

It also explains how within the first three minutes of the big bang pure energy condensed into matter and later , through the process of nuclear fusion, heavy elements were forged in the hearts of distant and massive suns. It’s the existence of these elements that make the existence of living things a possibility. Porpoises, petunias and people owe there existence to the laws of physics expressed and revealed within the expression E=mc².

How To Kill A Planet

Today on Far Future Horizons we take a close look at five possible ways of totally obliterating the Earth.

Earth is a 4.5-billion-year-old, 6-trillion-trillion-ton ball of rock. So what would it take to destroy it? NGC challenged some of the world’s greatest scientists to devise their own doomsday situations.