To get us to Mars and beyond, a team of students from around the world has a plan involving lunar rovers mining ice and a space station between the Earth and the moon.
Every moment of life on our planet has had the force of gravity in the background. But the prospect of long-distance space travel means it’s time to figure out what happens to our biology in its absence.
Inflatable space habitats, like the one installed on the International Space Station this week, could see wide application in space and planetary exploration.
Four decades later, I find myself surveying 13 billion years of cosmic history and mapping events that really did happen a long time ago in galaxies far, far away.
Many people think relativity puts a hard speed limit on the universe, but it actually opens up the possibility of faster-than-light travel - if we can overcome some significant practical hurdles.
Hollywood may already have done it but when we eventually send real astronauts to Mars, what medicines should we arm them with? And will they work the same way as they do on Earth?