Tag Archives: science
Exoplanets: The Kepler-62 System Compared to Our Solar System
This is so cool. This graphic diagram comes courtesy of the stunning Kepler mission searching for extra-solar planets. Here is the description of this poster: The diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-62, a five-planet system … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “Geographies of Mars: Seeing and Knowing the Red Planet”
Geographies of Mars: Seeing and Knowing the Red Planet. By K. Maria D. Lane. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Illustrations, acknowledgments, notes, bibliography, index. 266 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. ISBN: 978-0-226-47078-8. $45.00. Mars has long held a special … Continue reading
Greetings Earthlings, This Day Belongs to the Planet and All Who Live Here
It’s time to stop and ponder the needs of the Earth on this beautiful spring morning. April 22 is Earth Day. In commemoration, I have highlighted a blog post I wrote a few years ago about the photograph of the … Continue reading
Redirect: “5 Changes in Space Travel Since Yuri Gagarin’s Flight”
On Friday, April 12, 2013, journalist Luna Shyr wrote a good story for National Geographic Daily News entitled ”5 Changes in Space Travel Since Yuri Gagarin’s Flight.” Of course, I like the story in part because she quoted me in the … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “Realizing Tomorrow: The Path to Private Spaceflight”
Realizing Tomorrow: The Path to Private Spaceflight. By Chris Dubbs and Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011. Hardcover with dustjacket. 344 pp. Illustrations, notes, index. ISBN 978-0-8032-1610-5. US $34.95. Should spaceflight in the United States be dominated by … Continue reading
A New Moon Race?
It’s amazing when you think about it. One might think that there is a new race to the Moon underway, this time with robotic spacecraft rather than astronauts and cosmonauts. There has been a small armada of space probes sent … Continue reading
Comment on Story: “How the Air Force and SpaceX Saved Dragon from Doom”
Yesterday Ken Kremer published a story on-line at universetoday.com entitled “How the Air Force and SpaceX Saved Dragon from Doom.” He quoted liberally from an e-mail I had sent to Nancy Atkinson on March 5, 2013, when she contacted me about … Continue reading
Nuclear Power Systems for Spacecraft: The Transit Navigational Satellite Connection
Flying in space requires reliable, uninterrupted, stable electrical power, not only for engines to maneuver and navigate but for systems on spacecraft performing a range of functions. During the first two decades of the space age in the 1950s and … Continue reading
Competition for 2013 Sacknoff Prize for Space History Announced
Scott Sacknoff, publisher of Quest: The History of Spaceflight, has announced a call for submissions for the 2013 Sacknoff Prize for Space History. Details on the prize can be found at: http://www.spacehistory101.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1824. For eligible candidates with manuscripts please consider submitting for this … Continue reading
Venturing to the Outer Solar System: Pioneer 10 and 11 and the Technology of Long Duration Space Exploration
As the first attempt to send robotic probes to any part of the outer solar system, in 1964 NASA scientists first conceived of what became Pioneer 10 and 11, missions that undertook a “windshield tour” of Jupiter and Saturn as … Continue reading
