Congress strikes back: The REAL Space Act

U.S. Congressman Bill Posey is at it again, this time indirectly taking aim at President Obama’s new commercial space initiative. With a cohort of cosponsors, Posey has introduced a new bill, (H.R. 1641,) entitled, “REasserting American Leadership in Space Act,” a.k.a., the “REAL Space Act.” It’s aim? To send us back to the moon in a decade – this time to […]

Following Lockheed Martin’s “Stepping Stones” to Mars

The wake of the cancellation of NASA’s Constellation Program has been devastating to Lockheed Martin’s Orion spacecraft plans. They had been counting on the subsequently-canceled Ares series of rockets to loft Orion to the International Space Station (ISS) as a replacement for the retiring Space Shuttle, with eventual plans as the command module for future […]

Tales from a nuclear rocket station

One of the great pleasures of my research into the ’60s development of nuclear rockets for space exploration are moments like the following, which I pieced together from archival records and oral history… (If I find enough of these to write, I might collect them into a book sometime. Feedback welcome.) Richard Nutley, a supply […]

A Radioactive Astronaut-Hopeful (Space update)

By education and trade, I’m a geologist, having worked now in the professional world for more than six years getting my boots dirty performing hydrogeology, water resources, drilling, geomorphology research, and environmental contaminant transport and remediation work in some of the most remote territory this country has to offer. However, in my push toward becoming […]

Year 2069 on the Moon: Fort Rille

Well, being that the Moon Ball is already past us and I my inbox hasn’t lit up, I imagine I didn’t win anything and it’s safe to submit my concept of “Fort Rille” to the world. What is it, exactly? It’s a concept for a future lunar settlement (year 2069, 100 years after Apollo 11,) […]

Buzz “Lightspeed” Aldrin: Rocket Hero

If there’s one guy that isn’t slowing down with age, it’s legendary Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Shortly after I returned to town last weekend, my wife discovered that he was doing a book signing at the Luxor Hotel here for his new memoir/autobiography, Magnificent Desolation. And let me tell you, a new book only scratches […]

Artificial Intelligence and Space Exploration

IBM appears close to cracking functional Artificial Intelligence (AI). They’ve recently created a computer system named “Watson” that uses hundreds of processing algorithms simultaneously to filter, interpret and understand human language – relating questions to knowledge in a systematic way that lets it answer normal, spoken questions with uncanny results. -Truly uncanny. I mean, from […]

Titan eclipses Mars

Titan has eclipsed Mars. Not literally, mind you, but conceptually. With active surficial geology the likes of which are known only to Earth, and considering the recent discovery of possible biochemical signatures of alien life, to me Titan has become the most interesting exploration destination in the solar system. Take the above image, for starters. Whereas […]

Military powered exo-skeleton to create future SuperAstronauts?

A quick note today on emergent technology. Right now, aerospace and defense mega-contractor Lockheed Martin is working with the military to develop the HULC exoskeleton. (That’s “Human Universal Load Carrier.”) The exoskeleton, which is moving into human beta-testing now, improves the endurance and load-carrying capacity of a given person nearly an order of magnitude. My […]

Book Alert: Spacesuits (from Smithsonian)

A note on a a recently released book – entitled Spacesuits – by Amanda Young with photos by Mark Avino. Released by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the book includes never-before-seen images, plain language history, and gripping tales of the clothing that stood between our first off-world explorers and certain death. A must-have […]