Sci-fi is full to overflowing with various new modes of transport, from interstellar ships to teleporters to hoverboards. While many of these are unlikely to become a reality, especially anytime soon (I still have hope that we’ll get a decent hoverboard by the end of this year, after all, Back to the Future 2 promised), one futuristic mass transit system, the Hyperloop, is inching towards us.

Next year, construction is scheduled to begin on the world’s first Hyperloop. While it won’t be able to quite reach the 800 miles per hour that is the ultimate target speed for this kind of technology, the five-mile track in the planned community of Quay Valley, California, this is the biggest step forward for this potential new transport system.

Well this is not good. Beloved Star Trek actor, and general awesome dude, Leonard Nimoy was hospitalized late last week with severe chest pains.

Sources in law enforcement told TMZ that the 83-year-old actor was rushed to UCLA Medical Center last Thursday after his symptoms prompted a 911 call. The paramedics didn’t waste any time dawdling around and got Nimoy to a doctor as quickly as they could.

Do your fingers ever start to go numb just from looking at the amazingly intricate work that some steady-handed artist had the time and dexterity to complete? I had to finish typing that sentence with my nose because these papercraft models are almost too amazing to be real. To kick it off, check out the lunar module from Apollo 13.

You might recall a few years ago when we talked about a beyond genius idea that the organization Singularity & Co. had where they started up a Kickstarter campaign to help save science fiction, in a sense, by bringing out-of-print books back into circulation, among other things. The success that campaign brought has inspired Singularity (not that one) to try it all over again. So if you missed out the first time, you have no excuses now.

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye are two of our favorites, so when they get together for some scheme or another, you can bet that it has our complete and total attention. And they’ve got a doozy of a project brewing this time, as they’re about to test their LightSail spacecraft.

The two popular figures in the scientific community, along with their partners at the Planetary Society, announced that they plan to embark on their first test mission in May of this year. Entirely funded by private citizens, the solar sail satellite will be a part of an upcoming launch of an Atlas V rocket.

NASA’s rovers have provided a wealth of information about Mars over the years and continue to ramble on. Devices like Opportunity and Curiosity have been exploring the surface of the Red Planet for more than a decade now (Opportunity touched down 11 years ago yesterday), but for everything they’ve revealed to us, they’ve explored relatively little in the way of area. With potential manned missions to Mars ramping up, the space agency is looking to expand its efforts in this area, and to do so they’re considering taking to the sky.

The rugged surface and unforgiving terrain exact a hearty toll on the hardware on the ground and a hindrance to easy movement. To combat that, and provide a wider view, NASA is toying with the idea of autonomous drones to accompany future rovers. The Mars Helicopter could potentially be an addition to the future excursion, and could provide all kinds of useful functions.