Let's Get Off This Rock Already!
An Author's Adventures in Space Travel, Science Fiction, and Worlds Beyond
For today's entry we're welcoming back my friend Eamon Minges---who, as an engineer, brings a welcome dose of technical rigor to this website. You can find his other pieces here, here, here, and here. I wanted to start off by saying a quick thank you to my good friend Nic Quattromani, the originator of this... Continue Reading →
Author's note: I originally published this more than three years ago, and took it down because it proved to be a magnet for genuine UFO conspiracy theorists---not exactly the audience I'm attempting to cultivate. That being said, I'm still quite proud of the piece and I want it to be part of my site. Hopefully... Continue Reading →
Happy Halloween, everyone! We haven't had a proper Halloween special since my review of Event Horizon, all the way back in 2019, so I'm here today with something appropriately spooky: a conspiracy theory. Read on to uncover tales of ill-fated missions and doomed space travelers... First in space? Yuri Gagarin is recognized as the first... Continue Reading →
This piece is going to be about something very local. While I know I have a far-flung readership---just last week, I had visitors from Germany, South Korea, Thailand, and Poland, among others---it may still be of use for those of you who will one day visit the great state of Oregon. And for those who... Continue Reading →
A couple weeks ago, I wrote a piece on the next steps for American space travel, and speculated about a permanent lunar base within the next two decades. Today I have another guest post from my friend Eamon Minges, following up on my speculation with some hard numbers---he definitely has a knack for that sort... Continue Reading →
Happy Fourth of July, everyone! I have a special post for y'all, in the patriotic spirit of this great holiday. Right now, we're at a critical juncture in space history---any month now, we're supposed to see SLS and Starship take flight, after many years of waiting---and it's clear that there's a different energy in the... Continue Reading →
You may have noticed, reading this blog, that I don't dive into hard science or serious calculations very often. That is because I am a squishy liberal arts major who dropped out of engineering school three years ago. My good friend Eamon Minges, however, has me covered---he has previously furnished Let's Get Off This Rock... Continue Reading →
Nuclear power has had a long and complex history in outer space. Starting in the 1960s, both the US and USSR deployed full-on fission reactors aboard Earth-observing satellites; more recently, high-profile probes---Cassini, Curiosity, New Horizons---have all used safer but far less powerful radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), which extract energy from the waste heat of decaying... Continue Reading →
A think piece for today: If you want to get a rise out of space nerds, bring up Mars colonization1. These days it's the subject of countless op-eds and heated Facebook discussions. The Elon Musks and Robert Zubrins of the world are fierce proponents, viewing the expansion of humanity as a matter of survival; on... Continue Reading →
Hello! I've been absent for a bit---with midterms bearing down on me, I needed a two-week break---but I'm back with a guest post from my good friend Eamon Minges, who wrote about orbital skyhooks last year. He will be making a case for horizontally launched spaceplanes, as opposed to SpaceX's vertically launched Starship model. Enjoy!... Continue Reading →
