Let's Get Off This Rock Already!
Musings on space travel, science fiction, and the radiant future
Post by Nic Quattromani: I’ve got some tragic news to share today: NASA’s Kepler space telescope, formerly our premier planet-hunter floating in the sky, has ceased operations. This was not due to any technical failure aboard the craft. Rather, it simply ran out of fuel, rendering it unable to conduct stationkeeping or even orient itself... Continue Reading →
Post by Nic Quattromani: Tidal locking is one of the more interesting phenomena in the realm of speculative fiction, partly because it clashes with our terracentric ideas of what a planet should look like. While our comfortable, spinning Earth has two icecaps sandwiching a hot equatorial region, its tidally locked counterpart, called an “eyeball world”... Continue Reading →
Post by Nic Quattromani: I’ve discovered a surprising craving lately, for straightforward—perhaps derivative—storytelling. Of course I appreciate sleekly inventive settings and genre deconstructions as much as the next nerd, but the problem is that that’s all we’ve been getting lately. Nowadays, to follow in the footsteps of another work is looked down upon as trite,... Continue Reading →
Post by Nic Quattromani: I’m sure many of us are familiar with the book and film The Martian, in which NASA ends up with one of its astronauts stranded alone on another world, and has to mount a desperate effort to rescue him. As far as space mishaps go, that is one of the most... Continue Reading →
Post by Nic Quattromani: All right, a few weeks ago I discussed the anthology Galactic Empires, and now I shall talk a bit about the trope behind it: the galactic empire. It is one of my favorite tropes of all time. Few other sci-fi backgrounds offer such rich possibilities for adventure and intrigue on an... Continue Reading →
Post by AJ Rise: Here’s a little bit of neat space technology history: Project Echo was one of the earliest experiments in satellite communication, launched in the 1960s, and it paved the way for communicating satellites, which remain essential to our everyday lives. Echo 1 was the very first passive communications satellite to be launched... Continue Reading →
Let's Get Off This Rock Already! 