Phil Plait is an astronomer and major sci-fi geek. He writes the Bad Astronomy Blog for Discover Magazine and is also the host of the Discovery Channel's science show "Phil Plait's Bad Universe." You can follow him on Twitter at @BadAstronomer. On September 13, 1999, a tragedy befell all mankind. An accident of unknown origin at the nuclear waste dumps on the far side of the Moon caused a massive explosion which hurled the Moon out of Earth orbit.

Last week, legendary futurist Ray Kurzweil gave us his take on the failings of science fiction cinema. Now Nick Sagan, son of iconic astronomer and Contact author Carl Sagan, has his own bone to pick with sci-fi filmmakers. Unlike Kurzweil, he's only got one complaint, but it's big enough to cover just about every alien invasion flick ever made.

Astronauts have always been allowed to take certain non-essential keepsakes home with them when they complete a NASA mission, but what if they try to sell them? The space agency's lawyers have taken aim at three different astronauts in the last few months attempting to auction off space-flown artifacts, claiming the artifacts weren't the astronauts' to sell.

If you've all been waiting for scientists to finally come up with a Star Trek-like warp drive—so that you could finally start building your very own Starship Enterprise in your basement/garage/backyard—then you're outta luck.