2014 – A Space Odyssey

From probes landing on comets, to commercial space flight, to an Indian Mars mission, it’s been a phenomenal year for pioneering the stars– By James Sullivan.

Scientists are continuing to push the boundaries of space, slowly unravelling the mysteries of our universe, one space mission at a time. 2014 proved another year where impressive feats continued to be achieved, even the exciting prospect of commercial space flight...

 

The most impressive feat is that of the Philae probe. After initially launching in 2004 it finally landed on the designated comet. 

Despite a faulty landing prohibiting the solar battery recharging, the probe still collected information about the organic molecules on the comet, hinting at how life began on earth. Above all it proved just what scientists could achieve.

India also entered the Space Elite. On it’s first attempt it managed to launch a satellite in orbit around Mars with a budget of $74 million. Interestingly, the movie Gravity had a budget of $100 million.

In comparison, commercial space travel is surprisingly cheap. Virgin Galactic began testing SpaceShipTwo this year (although it ended in disaster), with hopes to transport over 800 space tourists, for the mere price of £150,000.

Branson is not the only person aiming a commercial takeover of the stars. The company World-View Enterprises is offering a staggering view from a capsule suspended by balloon, which is even equipped with a bar! It even costs a third of Virgin Galactic, just £45,000.

While perhaps not pocket change to you and me, it does offer the promise that commercial flights like these would become cheaper and more frequent in the future. 

An invaluable opportunity to witness the wonders of space with our very eyes. Wouldn’t that make one heck of a Christmas present?

Personality Power

Finding out who you are is a daunting prospect because you’re always growing as a person, but what if there was a way to learn about who you are?

Tom Hiddleston, self declared INFP.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (or MBTI for short) gives you the opportunity to learn just that. The assessment gauges your psychological preferences in how you see the world and ultimately how you make decisions: it can tell you if you’re introverted or extraverted, and give you a detailed view of your strong and weak traits which helps with personal growth.

 If that doesn’t interest you, famous authors, actors and other celebrities have been categorized into personality types, which means that you can see who shares the same type as you.

For instance: Tom Hiddleston, Johnny Depp and J.R.R Tolkien share the INFP personality type. Just the same as the INFP’s; Steve Jobs, Steve Martin and Jim Carrey share the ENTJ personality type – but there are still 16 other outcomes that you can get. The test analyses if you prefer sensing over intuition, thinking over feeling and judging over perception, as well as introversion and extraversion, and these traits ultimately make up your type.

 One misconstruction from the MBTI is that if a trait is given to you it means the other possible trait doesn’t apply, for example if you get perceiving as a result in the test rather than judging, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are more perceiving or less judgemental, it simply means that you have expressed a preference. But what’s probably the most interesting thing about the 16 different ‘types’ that the MBTI gives, is that our personalities are still hugely varied and that we can all interact and form friendships with completely different people. If you and a friend take the test (or you and your partner, it doesn’t matter who does) it can even lead you to find out about your relationships according to your type. 

An excerpt from an article on ‘personality café’ about the relationship between INFP’s and ESFP’s calls their relationship like ‘two peas in a pod’ – and goes on to liken their friendship to Rory and Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls and Harry and Ron from Harry Potter. Now, I could go on forever about the significance and insignificance of your MBTI type, and how it may help and affect your relationships, but this article has to stop at some point, so, to find out more information and learn what your type is, take the test on www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

Key:

Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving  

Extroverted Sensing Thinking Judging