Thanks to Ganesha, I became aware that a sequel to Carl Sagan’s seminal “Cosmos” was going to premier last night (Sunday), on Fox of all places. My first impression was, “What, has Seth McFarlane run out of off-color gags?” But, no, that'll never happen. Seth is actually one of the producers of this, oddly enough. Also, Brannon Braga, “The Man Who Killed Star Trek,” is a producer. Disconcerting. On the other hand, it starred Neil DeGrasse-Tyson as our host/narrator, so, you know, not entirely without promise.

At 11:27 PM September 6, a five stage Minotaur rocket carrying the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer was launched from NASA's facility on Wallops Island in Virginia.

I remembered that it was scheduled to launch tonight...at 11.31 PM.

Welcome to "Effortlessly Interesting," our low-impact feature that we throw up to fill space when there's something kinda' snazzy out there that's worth sharing, but at the same time we're not really invested in it.

What with this being a science fiction website, and what with the embarrassingly poor science education afforded people in our country, it's easy to overlook the fact that a few starships have *actually* been designed. Nothing's built, obviously - NASA can't even be bothered to put people in space anymore, so good luck with that whole "Alpha Centauri" thing - but there have been several concepts developed to a greater or lesser extent.