Europa Report and National Space Centre

Bit of a space filled weekend. Watched Europa Report on Friday night, which I really enjoyed and went to the National Space Centre

Europa Report

My sort of film and I thought it was a pretty good portrayal of how a trip to some place far away might pan out in the early days. Briefly, its about a space mission to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, which is a top candidate at the moment for being a potential host to life. It is a moon completely covered in ice with a suspected ocean underneath all the ice. This liquid water environment could be a host to life and has led to Europa being one of the Solar System's most interesting body in terms of the search for extra-terrestrial life. Here is a great infographic about the structure of Europa from space.com.

This movie is about a mission to Europa to search for life. I think, sending people rather than just robotic missions was justified by the need to boost human space travel...to put something (or someone) out there and just do it! Just doing it would pave the way and encourage others to do it (compete?). Plus having people on site is always going to be more productive in terms of science accomplished, as humans can change the plan, make on the spot decisions which robots may not be able to do.

Pirate Cakes!

My wife (Lisa) enjoys making cakes (much to my pleasure as chief taster) and has done it again! She has been asked a few times to do cakes for kids parties and she has spent most of yesterday pretty much preparing these lovely little cakes.

Its obviously a pirate themed party and I think the kids (and the adults) are going to love them! Brilliant stuff!

Some more from a previous occasion:

Trip to Portland, Dorset, UK

This last weekend (03 January 2014), my wife and I managed to get away for a small 2 night break in a hotel she found on Wowcher. The hotel was the Venue Hotel which is located high up on top of Portland, which is situated on a small piece of land that juts out from the mainland, connected to Weymouth by a very thin strip of land (literally just a road).

We were set to go just when bad storms were hitting the south coast of England (great timing), but we had rearranged the date several times already so did not want to put it off again. We didn't have the kids with us so we wouldn't have to worry about entertaining them in the rain. Being on our own we could just do something to suit ourselves...for a change! I think it was the first time we had both been away from the kids (currently 3 and 5) for two nights.