Free Republic

[This is cool! While the planet discovered is too hot for life, there probably are others and some might be in that orbit where water can be liquid and life can exist. So maybe with future ion drive ships, suspended animation, or whatever human colonies might be established there. Neat!] Bringing the search for another Earth about as close as it will ever get, a team of European astronomers was scheduled to announce on Wednesday that it had found a planet the same mass as Earth’s in Alpha Centauri, a triple star system that is the Sun’s closest neighbor, only...

Imagine a future in which terrorists seize an embassy and police can send in a remote-controlled insect outfitted with a microscopic video camera that reveals where the gunmen are hiding and what kind of weapons they hold. Or a time when adventure travelers fly to the moon to spend a week at a space colony under the glittering lunar skies--in the way they now visit Antarctica or the North Slope of Alaska. Or a U.S. constitutional convention where delegates draft a new governing document that allows the rest of the world a say in American decision-making. Sound far-fetched? Over 1,000...