osted by The Discovery Channel and with spinoff sites for Canada, Asia and Europe, Spaceref seeks to be the ultimate online resource on the topic of space science and exploration, a deep well of reference materials for students, professionals and space buffs everywhere.
The site is a dense nest of links and articles about every aspect of space, from current NASA missions to the dynamics of space weather. It has a gallery of photos and multimedia offerings and a calendar of space-related events like launches and scientific conferences. With Spaceref, a user can track the investigation into the space shuttle Columbia disaster, follow
current remote explorations of Mars or develop a basic layperson's understanding of proposed future technologies like a space elevator. Digging back a few years into the site's archives, visitors can also relive older space stories—read up on the demise of the Mir space station, for example—as if they were happening today.
Spaceref supports various space-related research projects, currently acting as sponsor to the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse. This structure is a remotely operated greenhouse located in Nunavut, Canada, designed to teach scientists about some of the ins and outs of possibly operating a greenhouse—or several—on the surface of Mars in the future.
Frequently updated, easy to navigate, and very rich in content, Spaceref is an obvious online stopping-place for anyone with an appetite for space news, facts and exploration science.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—January 26, 2004
t's a fan's, fan's, fan's, fan's world!
Back in the very early years of the 20th century, hobbyists with an interest in journalism began congregating in "amateur press associations," national groups that provided home-produced outlets for their writings. H.P. Lovecraft was perhaps the most famous member of such. With the birth of genre science fiction in 1926 and the magazine letter columns that facilitated contact among ardent readers, another network bloomed. Shortly, out of the fusion of these two subcultures, full-blown, true-blue science-fiction fandom emerged as we know it today, a welter of fanzines, personalities, conventions, customs and traditions. All other fandoms since—mystery, western, comic, romance and media—relied on the pioneering efforts of SF fans. And with the broader culture as a whole increasingly reflecting a fannish obsession with the entertainment industry's gossip and news, it's safe to say that the once outcast, nerdy fan is now Everyman.
If you'd like to learn more about the origin of fandom—and to stay in touch with its current incarnations—there's no better place to visit than The Fanac Fan History Project. The opening line on the main page describes its purpose perfectly: "This site is devoted to the preservation and distribution of information about science fiction and science fiction fandom." Galleries of photos await your inspection. Check out Robert Bloch sharing cocktails with Larry Niven. Or perhaps you'd like to brush up on fannish jargon. In that case, Rich Brown's Dr. Gafia's Fan Terms offers endless hours of fascination. You can look at digitized issues of famous old fanzines, such as Red Boggs' Sky Hook, or get pointers to several e-zines. Learn from the experts how to stage a convention. Finally, you can click on the SF Fandom Webring to be transported to a host of allied sites.
You might very well emerge from this experience chanting "FIAWOL!" And if you don't recognize that acronym, you need to visit Fanac now!
— Paul Di Filippo
Site of the Week—January 19, 2004
eeping it simple is the name of the game at How Stuff Works, a Web page that sets out to explain human inventions—from nuclear weapons to CD burners—to ordinary Web surfers.
Simply put, this site is an archive of well-written and deeply informative articles on science, technology, medicine, economics and virtually everything else. It is a researcher's paradise. Whether one is researching lockpicking, the nature of a disease like SARS, how crash testing of automobiles works or the newest advances in space science, the engineers and other experts behind How Stuff Works can spell it out—in a highly detailed and always straightforward manner.
How Stuff Works is also exquisitely cross-linked: The article explaining Mars Rovers leads a reader effortlessly to topics like terraforming, and from there to rocket engines and other types of propulsion systems. The banquet of facts, photos and diagrams is endless and inspiring, a feast for the imagination. In addition to referencing internal articles, links also lead to outside resources for further information, and often to relevant e-commerce sites, too.
For first-time visitors, one of the best ways to explore this site is to simply bring up its master list of articles and start scanning for items of interest. No matter what visitors' personal interests may include, they are certain to find dozens of How Stuff Works articles to satisfy their curiosity.
— A.M. Dellamonica
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