Gadgetory

tonight 2018 we laughed we cried we shut a car into space it's been a big year in space and most of us haven't even left the earth so what exactly did 2018 bring us and when is Elon Musk gonna return that space Tesla to the garage and Claire Riley welcome to watch this space from the Senate studios in Sydney this is your weekly guide to everything on earth you need to know about space and tonight power drills on Mars galactic troopers defending our interplanetary borders 2018 has been a pretty wild ride and here at watch this space we're taking a look back at the biggest space stories of the year in the only way we know how with terrible puns and topical humor about Soviet Russia first up time to bake the universe's biggest birthday cake because NASA turned 60 it was created with the stroke of President Eisenhower's pen in 1958 why the Russians are coming the Russians are coming just don't panic NASA has taken us to the lunar surface out past the farthest boundaries of the solar system and it's even got plans to get us on Mars we sure have come a long way since racing Soviet space dogs to the moon but after such a big milestone there's no doubt the next 60 years will look very different for NASA as it partners with companies like SpaceX to further its goals and continues to prove its relevance for the next era of space travel and on the topic of a new era in space welcome to the age of Donald Trump's space force in June this year President Trump announced plans to form the sixth branch of the Armed Forces the space force it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space we must have American dominance in space so important that's right Uncle Sam is putting on his Astro helmet and defending America's interests in the sky we don't know a great deal about the space force but the administration was still putting the final touches on a plan in December and vice president Mike Pence says it will be created by 2020 but rest assured that in the coming decades as we expand our space horizons and explore the infinite beauty of realms untouched by human hands the military-industrial complex will never be too far behind us speaking of hot takes put on your oven mitts we're touching the Sun that's right our next big space story of the year was the launch of the Parker Solar Probe in August the Parker probe set off to fly closer to the Sun than any human made object has gone before the probe is exploring the Stars Corona that's the fiery ring of plasma around the Sun that for some unknown presumably terrifying reason is actually hotter than the surface of the Sun earth space just when I thought I had you figured out the Parker mission sent back its first photo inside this atmosphere in December and it's a cracker next NASA hopes the mission will teach us more about solar wind and how energy emanates from the Sun and affects the rest of the solar system but it wasn't all new missions this year 2018 was also the year we said goodbye to some old friends after launching in 2009 and spending almost a decade finding thousands of new planets beyond our solar system NASA announced in October that the Kepler space telescope had been put into sleep mode and just like your beloved childhood pet it wouldn't be waking up just a few days later NASA also confirmed that the dawn mission which has been investigating the two largest objects in the asteroid belt was also being sent to the great space farm in the sky but we're old missions passed on new spacecraft came up in their place while Kepler is gone the test mission NASA's transiting exoplanet survey satellite will pick up where it left off hunting out new worlds and finding planets just like our own which leads us to our favorite space story of the year that's right we're talking about NASA's insight mission to Mars after blasting off in May 2018 NASA's insight Lander successfully touched down on the surface of Mars on November 26 let's do impressive feat in its own right before you even consider they had to program the entire landing sequence beforehand and reach the perfect speed and angle to get the Lander through the Martian atmosphere and onto the surface without falling over all while being on an eight-minute communications delay but insight is already an overachiever it's sent back selfies and even recorded the sound of MA and wind and that's all before it starts drilling deeper into the red planet than ever before so there you have it five big stories from an impressive year but here at watch this space we like to celebrate all of our space achievements large and small so as we end the year and as we end the first season of the show let's look back at all the weird wonderful and downright insane stuff we've seen this year Oh could i get some backing music please like the time nasa shot four hundred and fifty thousand gallons of water into the air for science all the time the astronauts found a hole in the International Space Station and plugged it with their thumb and then there were the Martian dust storms and the first SpaceX launch from the west coast lighting up the California sky who could forget when Buzz Aldrin schooled Twitter users on his selfie skills or when Richard Branson finally sent people into space with Virgin Galactic after promising to do it for literally ten years and then there was the Japanese Space Agency's photos from the surface of an asteroid and of course Elon Musk literally shooting money into the sky when he straps a Tesla to the side of a rocket so if 2018 has gotten you down with politics climate change and whatever the hell's happening with Bitcoin at the moment just remember how much we've achieved away from Earth and remember we're just getting started we'll see you in 2019 with more watch this space and in the meantime goodnight and Godspeed that's not normal I don't what does this sound up to I don't think anyone's really looked into that it bothers me maybe the Sun doesn't even exist BAM get flattered thing I'm a no Sun up and then one day I came back to a party like six months later and now like oh yeah the cat died except in this instance the cat is Kepler I guess and the vast abyss of space is the crushing loneliness I felt it's really a small miracle that they let us have this show for so long 2019 I'm hoping we can just come back and no one will know