Out among the stars

When I was a child, Boxing Day usually meant a Bond movie on the television. That was fun, but the adverts dealt a ruthless kill-shot to the season with scenes of sun-soaked beaches and the urgent advice to book your summer hols without delay. As an antidote to that, here's a vision of another trip, a 150-year mission to another star system. (If you spot the mistake in their mission plan, for there is one, let's hear about it in the comments.)

In the shorter term, and closer to home, here are the first steps we'll need to take to become a spacefaring civilization:

To round off the year, I'll leave you with this quote by Hemingway. He wasn't talking about generation starships but I like to take it that way:

“Because we know now that there will be no landfall we must keep the boat up very well and be very good to each other. We are fortunate we have good people on the boat.”