Let's Get Off This Rock Already!
Musings on space travel, science fiction, and the radiant future
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 →
On June 20, 1944, a test launch of the German V-2 missile reached an altitude of 176 kilometers, becoming the first object to cross the Kármán line1 and enter space. It was not intended to be a triumph of science; the milestone was simply a byproduct of Nazi weapons research, not recognized for many years.... Continue Reading →
When I was young, Ceres and Pluto were the biggest blank spots on the map of the Solar System. Most of the other interesting places had been long since explored, from Mercury all the way out to the moons of Neptune, but when I opened my astronomy books to the two minor planets, I saw... Continue Reading →
Sometimes, the underdog really does win against the odds. Sometimes, a small, plucky band of visionaries, armed only with a dream, really can rise to dizzying heights and reshape the world into something better. Sometimes, their success is so profound and transformative that later generations think it was inevitable all along. Mars One was not... Continue Reading →
Everyone knows space fighters are an absurd idea, right? It's practically the first rule of hard science fiction: this isn't Star Wars you're writing, so no fighters, period. They make no economic or military sense, and they're exceedingly small and vulnerable, and they're not nearly as maneuverable as you'd think because space has no air... Continue Reading →
Let's Get Off This Rock Already! 