To boldly go beyond Earth’s orbital neighborhood is the next level of courageous, crewed exploration. To make it to that step, we’ll need a spaceship purpose-built with the idea that that crew will be gone for protracted amounts of time and will likely set up camp somewhere else. Continue reading
“NASA’s irrational approach to risk undermines its mission and costs thousands of lives.” Sadly, it’s a direct result of our PR-obsessed, risk-averse society. As callous as it seems, we definitely need to return to looking at the big picture of … Continue reading
OV-103. The space shuttle Discovery. Twenty-seven years of service. Thirty-nine times it lifted off and thirty-nine times it landed safely. All told it spend a year in space and traveled over 238 million km (148 million miles). That sort of use leaves its mark after a while. Continue reading
We are running out of helium. That light gas that floats kids balloons and raises the pitch of voices to heights of great hilarity is a limited natural resource on Earth. While it’s difficult to be certain, estimates has the US running out of helium by as soon as 2025 … just thirteen years from now, the worldwide supply a couple decades after that. We need to do something, quickly. Continue reading
Some people in congress don’t seem to understand that rocket science is…well…rocket science. It’s not easy. It can be made to look that way, but it really, really isn’t. Continue reading
Because when we invest in science, when we invest in space, when we invest in exploration, we always, always get far more back in return than we put in. And not just in dollars and cents. THIS is why we invest in … Continue reading
To the outside observer, it seems like the U.S. Government treats the funding of NASA with the same care and understanding as they do the United States Postal Service. The outside observer would be wrong; it’s not handled nearly as well. And the USPS is going bankrupt…so that sort of gives you an idea of how bad the problem is. Continue reading
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I’m a bit of a life-long space nerd. (I know!) Obviously, over the years, different launch vehicles have caught my eye. Much like worthy media celebrities, these rocket stars are more than just a pretty face…but the pretty face helps. Continue reading
“Our space program is one of the things that makes us great, that sets us far apart from other productive countries, that makes us respectable, that makes our advice worth listening to.” I was going to write a blog entry … Continue reading
I agree with the idea that we need a new way to name celestial bodies that helps the public feel a bit more in touch with the cosmos. We have two major problems with that now: the vast number of objects, and the limited number of thematic names we’ve traditionally used. Continue reading
When astronomers use numbers in the billions and larger, it’s hard to find a frame of reference to compare it to. For example, our galaxy, the Milky Way, is described as having upwards of 400 billion stars. What does that mean? Continue reading
On another site, someone posted a picture of the space shuttle Discovery and noted that it didn’t exactly look showroom clean: Continue reading
I’ve been arguing that accelerating expansion is an illusion for a couple of decades. Lacking sufficient math, I was limited to just arguing. The law of parsimony always seems to work against the idea of Dark Energy. The Accelerating Universe … Continue reading
Following the failure and crash of a Russian Progress M-12M cargo vehicle, there has been a lot of alarmist rhetoric about the future of the ISS as well as American spaceflight capability. Let’s take a step back to look at the situation without a “sky is falling” mentality. Continue reading
I still say we need to get good at traveling to the Moon first, but Mars needs to be the next stop after…the sooner, the better. The Case For Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We … Continue reading
