Setting aside very real concerns such as our lack of a spacecraft with suitable size and power to launch astronauts to Mars—much less the outer planets or other stars—suspended animation lingers more in the realm of sci-fi than reality. Yet the concept remains attractive, especially for longer journeys, because astronauts in a Rip Van Winkleâ€like stupor might be protected from the serious health hazards associated with distant space travel, and they wouldn’t need food—or entertainment.

Dept.: Geek Guide

Investigator: Steve Morgenstern

Home tech: PC-to-TV bridging

Cost: $200 and up

Encircled by hundreds of extravagant rings and orbited by 31 (known) moons, Saturn may be one of the most spectacular of our eight celestial neighbors. The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its largest moon, Titan—which will arrive on June 30 after a full seven years in transit—is expected to provide bold new insights.


Most of what we know to date about the second-largest planet comes from three earlier missions that flew by Saturn in the 1970s and 1980s—Pioneer 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2—and from the Hubble Space Telescope.


Among the highlights:

Ever since Chuck Yeager blew through the sound barrier in his X-1 in 1947, residents living near testing ranges have been bombarded by sonic booms. The thunderous booms rattle windows and scare pets, and are one of the reasons the Concorde never flew across the continental U.S. In "Whooshhh!" a story that appeared in our July 2004 issue, writer Bill Sweetman described a recent experiment with a modified F-5 fighter jet suggesting that with careful engineering tweaks, the sonic boom intensity can be reduced to tolerable levels.

Seven years ago, the largest and most expensive interplanetary probe ever built blasted off from Cape Canaveral. It was loaded with 12 advanced scientific instruments, 72 pounds of plutonium to power them, and a capsule destined to be jettisoned toward the only other object in our solar system protected by a nitrogen-based atmosphere. After launch, the spacecraft began its voyage through the void of space and was promptly forgotten by all but a few scientists and space enthusiasts.

Aerospace engineer David Graham and his three colleagues had a deadline, and a little brown tortoise was putting it in jeopardy. In a few hours, as the sun rose over the Mojave Desert on an August morning last year, two Northrop Grumman F-5E fighter jets would come racing over the horizon. Flying 30,000 feet above Harper Dry Lake and traveling at 920 mph, the airplanes would be trailing long sonic boomsthe distinctive aural signatures of supersonic flight that ordinarily make high-speed passages over land impossible.

Unless you live on a mountaintop, miles away from civilization, with a 15-inch-wide telescope at your disposal, you will have a hard time topping the celestial view slooh.com gives you. This new Web service affords users real-time access to four telescopes perched 7,900 feet above sea level on the Canary Islands’ Mount Teide. "We wanted to open up astronomy to people for whom the initial setup cost, their location or the base knowledge required was prohibitive," says Michael Paolucci, Slooh’s president and founder.

5,000 MPH Approximate top speed clocked by the X-43A hypersonic scramjet aircraft on March 27


720 MPH Relative speed of sound


11 SECONDS Approximate duration of the X-43A’s powered flight


15 MILES Distance traveled


2 HOURS Estimated flight time from New York to Hong Kong traveling 5,000 mph


1 MILLISECOND Time the X-43A engine takes to generate thrust


2,200 MPH Previous record for a jet aircraft


1,350 MPH Average cruising speed of Concorde jet

Creators: Antenna Design
Community: Urban dwellers with green leanings
Project: Tiny, natural, individualized power generator

Creators: Springtime-USA
Community: People about to be liberated by the U.s.A.
Project: 21st-century propaganda deployment