The planned drop tower at Baylor University strives for 1.5 seconds of high-quality microgravity environment targeting researchers as well as industry. Its design combines lessons learned as well as a low-cost design approach and is built on international collaboration between universities on two continents.

The premise of this article is at the same time modest and rather shameless. It is modest as I, as a philosopher-mathematician, want to ask questions and not necessarily provide any of the answers...

Mankind’s activities in outer space have become increasingly numerous and complex and, as we approach the fiftieth anniversary year of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, now provide vital space-based infrastructure for a diverse number of applications.

In the final year leading up to Rosetta’s approach to comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko and subsequent landing of Philae, an outreach campaign was initiated and run by the European Space Agency (ESA) using a variety of media and techniques.

Outer space as a potentially hazardous area of human activities regularly sends us warnings - like the notorious meteorite shower in Chelyabinsk - that we are not ready to respond quickly and efficiently to challenges from space.