Let's Get Off This Rock Already!
An Author's Adventures in Space Travel, Science Fiction, and Worlds Beyond
56 years ago today1, Apollo 11 made the first manned landing on another world. Ask the average American about it, and they'll likely be able to name the mission's commander, Neil Armstrong, who famously made his “one small step” speech as he climbed out of the Lunar Module Eagle; they might also remember Edwin “Buzz”... Continue Reading →
Back in February I handed down the definitive ranking of all the planets in our Solar System. Today, I'm going to finish the job with a corresponding ranking of the Solar System's moons—rich and varied worlds in their own right, some larger than the smallest planets. This will not be an exhaustive list. Jupiter alone... Continue Reading →
Robert Zubrin is a persistent man. An engineer, author, and above all, space advocate, he's lobbied for a human voyage to Mars for about three and a half decades now, even as the US government has dilly-dallied its way through various questionable exercises in pork-barrel spending. It's 2025 and human boots haven't even returned to... Continue Reading →
Some of you may remember my previous posts about secret Apollo missions: Apollo 18, the ill-fated landing which fell victim to rock spiders, and Apollo 20, a joint US-Soviet effort which recovered a living alien from the far side of the Moon. Both are fictional, of course. One is a horror movie, the other a... Continue Reading →
Very early on, my family instilled in me a love of coffee table books: hefty, hardcover volumes, large enough to double as paperweights or even footstools1, bedecked with photographs and artwork from front to back. Instead of reading straight through, you could open one to whatever page you fancied. They covered all sorts of topics,... Continue Reading →
It was on October 7, 1959, that the dark side of the Moon finally came into the light. Mind you, it was never "dark" in a literal sense; all parts of the Moon undergo a complete day/night cycle, with the far or "dark" side being lit when the near one is in shadow, and vice... Continue Reading →
The absolute smallest angular distance resolvable by the human eye is 28 arc-seconds1. That's about 0.008 degrees, or the apparent size of a quarter at 132 meters, and for those of us not blessed with impeccable vision, that value will be a lot worse. Thankfully modern technology far surpasses the limits of human eyesight, seeing... 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 →
Today's post will be a tad unusual---a personal essay about a fond memory, not unlike my Star Trek piece from a while back. Enjoy! For all that I've been enthralled since childhood by the mysteries of deep space, reverent of humanity's forays beyond this rock we call home, I went through most of my life... Continue Reading →
