Eyes in the Sky

Today on Far Future Horizons we celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Space Age. 


On October 4^th, 1957 Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, was launched and humanity entered the Space Age. 

To mark the occasion we will focus our attention on those ever present orbital sentinels and eyes in the sky that have become the indispensable tools of our technological civilization – the artificial satellite. Earth observation satellites continually monitor our world’s weather, environment and human activity (both civilian and military). Telecommunication satellites are the nerve cells of the twenty-first century’s telecommunications network.

Since October 4^th, 1957, with the launching of Sputnik I, satellites have transformed our world into a global village. As we enter the second phase of the Space Age we can expect satellites to play an ever increasing role in serving and maintaining human civilization in the areas of long term weather forecasting, global surveillance and perhaps even in controlling the world’s weather and climate.

To explore the role of the artificial satellite in our modern world we look back in time to the dawn of the space age with two very informative documentaries: Disney's Eyes in Outer Space (1959) and NOVA's Sputnik Declassified.

The entire collection of Walt Disney Treasures - Tomorrow Land: Disney in Space and Beyond is available on DVD from Amazon.com.

NOVA's Sputnik Declassified can be purchased on DVD from PBS Home video.

The Search for the Super Battery

Today on Far Future Horizons we go Search of the Super Battery in another episode of the acclaimed PBS science series NOVA.

NOVA - The Great Math Mystery

Today on Far Future Horizons we join NOVA on a mathematical mystery tour—a provocative exploration of math's astonishing power across the centuries.

The Boldest Hoax

Group portrait of the Piltdown skull being examined. Back row (from left): F. O. Barlow, G. Elliot Smith, Charles Dawson, Arthur Smith Woodward. Front row: A S Underwood, Arthur Keith, W. P. Pycraft, and Ray Lankester. Note the portrait of Charles Darwin on the wall. Painting by John Cooke, 1915

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode of the PBS documentary series NOVA. This instalment of NOVA concerns the infamous Piltdown hoax.

For decades, a fossil skull discovered in Piltdown, England, was hailed as the missing link between apes and humans. Entire careers were built on its authenticity. Then in 1953, the awful truth came out: "Piltdown Man" was a fake! But who done it? In "The Boldest Hoax," NOVA gets to the bottom of the greatest scientific hoodwinking of all time.

Hunting the Elements

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode from the acclaimed PBS Science documentary series Nova.

In this instalment of Nova we join the hunt for the elements, the fundamental building blocks out of which everything in the Cosmos is comprised.

Bombing Hitler's Supergun

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode from the acclaimed PBS science documentary series NOVA which aired May 11, 2016.

In this instalment of NOVA “Bombing Hitler's Supergun” we discover how Allied forces conspired to destroy one of Hitler’s most diabolical weapons. In the spring of 1943 World War II is slowly beginning to turn in favour of the Allied forces.

Life's Rocky Start

Today on Far Future Horizons we return to the topic of Biogenesis with another exciting episode of the acclaimed PBS documentary series NOVA where we take a look at Life’s Rocky Start.

Can Alzheimer's Be Stopped?

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode of the acclaimed PBS documentary series NOVA.

Inside Einstein's Mind

Today on Far Future Horizons we will take a voyage deep inside Einstein’s mind and retrace the thought experiments that inspired his theory on the nature of reality and the discovery of his greatest masterpiece the theory of General Relativity.

The Invisible Universe Revealed

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode of the award-winning PBS science documentary series NOVA about the amazing discoveries of our invisible universe made by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Rise of the Robots

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode of the award-winning PBS documentary series NOVA ~ Rise of the Robots, which aired on February 24th, 2016.

How will human-like robots change our future and how we see ourselves?

Antarctica ~ Secrets Beneath the Ice

Today on Far future Horizons we visit the vast frozen wasteland of Antarctica to glean the secrets of our planet’s climatic history and perhaps a glimpse of our future.

NOVA Power Surge

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode of the acclaimed PBS science series NOVA. “Power Serge” attempts to answer two fundamental questions Are we finally on the brink of a clean energy revolution? And, can emerging technology defeat global warming?

Chasing Pluto

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the latest installment of the acclaimed PBS documentary series NOVA which goes behind the scenes of the New Horizons flyby of Pluto.

On July 14, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft, one of the most advanced ever built, is scheduled to fly by Pluto to take the very first detailed images of the dwarf planet. After nine years and 3 billion miles, we will finally get a close look at this strange, icy world, but only if the craft can survive the final, treacherous leg of its journey, which could take it through a dangerous field of debris.

To the Moon

U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin salutes the U.S. flag on the surface of the Moon after he and fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first men to land on the Moon, July 20, 1969. 

For two hours in the July of 1969, the world stood spellbound as two men landed and walked on the moon. Tens of millions watched it happen, on blurry black and white television sets as the event unfolded a quarter million miles across the heavens.

For the first time in human history, all humankind was united as one as two of our number took their first fleeting steps on the Moon.

Secrets of the Lost Empire ~ Easter Island

Today on Far Future Horizons we premiering a new documentary series titled “Secrets of Lost Empires”. In the first episode we return to the enchanting and mysterious island of Rapa Nui, better known today by its modern name of Easter Island.

Hunting the Edge of Space ~ The Ever Expanding Universe

Today on Far Future Horizons we  continue to celebrate the Golden Age of Cosmic Discovery.

In the second episode of NOVA’s “Hunting the Edge of Space” we explore how the advent of the telescope forever altered humanity's view of the Cosmos and how it revolutionized human thought across science, philosophy and religion, forever expanding humankind’s intellectual and mental horizon to the very edge of the known universe.

Hunting the Edge of Space – The Mystery of the Milky Way

Today on Far Future Horizons we  celebrate the Golden Age of Cosmic Discovery with an exciting documentary from the acclaimed PBS series NOVA titled “Hunting the Edge of Space: The Mystery of the Milky Way”.

This documentary which examines how the telescope has fundamentally changed our perception of the Universe.

At The Edge of Space

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode from the PBS science documentary series NOVA.  

In this episode of NOVA we will be entering the realm where such mysterious upper atmospheric denizens known as Sprites, Elves and Blue Jets have recently been discovered.

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.