Question: what peice of evidence would you explore to develope the knowledge and understanding of space ?

Nazim Bharmal answered on 14 Mar 2012:

One of the hard things to do if you want to explore space is to get up there. Using a rocket is very expensive, and so you can only do a few experiments at a time. The other way of doing the exploration is from the ground, when you use a telescope to look at everything at night-time.

But the atmosphere is a problem because it is always moving, which we can feel everytime the wind blows, and this makes the light from distant objects wobble. It is also the reason that stars twinkle; in space they are still and steady but from the ground they change in brightness and look like they are moving around a bit.

So if we could make a cheap way of getting into space, that would be great. There are a few ideas: space elevators which are like lifts but they go up over 30,000km (which is about 10,000,000 floors!); super guns that shoot satellites into space (but not great for passengers); or space planes that are half-aeroplane, half-space shuttle. I think the last one would be amazing because you can bring things back, and there is a company in England that is actually trying to make one [REF].

So I would help research the engine for a space plane!