Musings on space travel, science fiction, and the radiant future
Space is rather more prosaic than we usually see in fiction. Star Trek postulates a galaxy stuffed to the brim with exciting bumpy-forehead humanoids; we're much more likely to find pond scum. The more nightmarish sci-fi visions are probably off the table, too---a lifeform from a totally different planet would be unable to parasitize a... Continue Reading →
Another short post this week1. Today, we will be exploring what has become a common theme on this blog, or rather a common destination: Neptune. Neptune is indisputably the Spooky Planet. If the Solar System had a haunted house, this would be it---a cold, dark, storm-wracked world made extra fascinating by its sheer remoteness. Only... Continue Reading →
I would like to begin this post by acknowledging a grave failure: a recent shortage of Soviet-related posts. It is simply an intolerable situation. The Soviet space program is a cornerstone of this website, but the last time I wrote anything about it was in November! So, to rectify this, I will today discuss one... Continue Reading →
"Only the incredible, unhuman massiveness of these vast stone towers and ramparts had saved the frightful thing from utter annihilation in the hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of years it had brooded there amidst the blasts of a bleak upland. 'Corona Mundi . . . Roof of the World . . .'" Long ago, in a simpler, more wholesome era---fall 2011, to be... Continue Reading →
I don't think I've really made it clear on this blog before, but I am, in fact, a huge Trekkie. Been one ever since I can remember. In kindergarten, I spent a day painting my rendition of the duel between the Enterprise and the Reliant, and in third grade, I would zealously record reruns of... Continue Reading →
Happy 2021! A new year dawns, as tends to occur every January. Opportunities beckon, fresh challenges present themselves, and, perhaps, hope dares to appear after the nightmare of 2020... it is certainly quite the time to be alive. Anyway, on to the post! One thing that you'll find to be conspicuously absent on this site... Continue Reading →
George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four defined the dystopian genre1. It became one of the greatest fictional examples of a totalitarian government ruling through fear and force, permeating every last aspect of its citizens' lives, and it tackled complex themes about individuality, resistance, and even the nature of reality itself. Altogether, the book is a timeless classic,... Continue Reading →
A couple posts ago, I reviewed a book about an expedition to Titan---arguably the most interesting celestial body in the Solar System---and I'd like to continue in that theme this week, turning my attention to a real, official Titan exploration project under development at NASA: the Dragonfly mission. Dragonfly will be a quadcopter aircraft sent... Continue Reading →
Oddball mission studies are my jam. Sometimes, they are NASA's jam, too---the agency is not afraid to occasionally explore the more speculative topics, spacecraft which rely on advanced technologies and are many decades away from ever seeing implementation. I stumbled across one such study when I was doing some reading on Pluto the other day.... Continue Reading →
My search for good indie sci-fi novels goes on. It is a perilous test of literary endurance, an endless journey through a wilderness of Kindle previews---perhaps an expedition into the heart of darkness itself. Some days I doubt I shall return with my health or sanity intact... Just kidding. There is no place for snobbery... Continue Reading →
Let's Get Off This Rock Already! 