Welcome to the ninth carnival of space!

I'm pleased to be hosting the ninth Carnival of Space, a self-selected tour of some of the past week's most interesting blog postings about space stuff. I hope you enjoy the trip!

Paul Gilster over at Centauri Dreams really makes you think about the challenges we face even considering interstellar travel.

James Watt at Surfin' English explains just a few of the very, very many ways that spaceships can have bad days.

Stuart Atkinson of Cumbrian Sky takes a break from work to daydream about where in the universe he'd most prefer to be, and invites you to do the same...

Ian Musgrave of Astroblog muses about what we'll find in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets.

Clark Lindsey of the Space Transport News Blog points out that technical revolutions happen slowly, and that we may be in the middle of one right now.

Annas Rahman at Astroversity explains why they don't land the Shuttle at Edwards Air Force Base every time.A Babe in the Universe also has shuttles on the brain, writing about the unknown future of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, stuck on Earth without a ride to the ISS.

Shubber at Space Cynics rants about an absurd statement that today's children will walk on a terraformed Mars.

Brian Wang of Advancednano reports on progress toward laser systems that could propel heavy spacecraft to Mars.

Tony Darnell of AstronomyBuff muses on the future of liquid mirrors for big telescopes.

And, last but certainly not least, Pamela Gay of Star Stryder explains how lenses of a different size altogether can make invisible objects in the universe visible.