Well, gosh. My post last week on “Commercial Spaceflight” generated a lot of interesting comments. Thanks to Jeff, Clark, Colin, Ferris, and a few others for thought-provoking inputs. This post is not for them (well, it is a little, but I know that you’ll be able to handle it).
When a community of people becomes too […]
Archive for the 'space exploration' Category
In some ways, I’m a tremendous optimist when it comes to spaceflight. I believe, for example, that it should be possible to launch an automated probe to another star within the next 50 years. In other ways, I’m quite pessimistic. I believe, for example, that the current hoo-hah over space tourism and other new forms […]
Saving spaceflight
Published May 8th, 2007 in moon, space exploration, Mars and science. 29 CommentsEvery so often I become worried about whether we’ll have a future in space. Right now my thoughts run this way because we’re sacrificing so much to go boldly where we went 40 years ago.
The robotic Mars exploration program has been truncated, the Terrestrial Planet Finder and Europa Orbiter have been cancelled, work to […]
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on April 25 that Hayabusa (formerly called MUSES-C) has begun its long-delayed return to Earth. Though the spacecraft still has a long voyage ahead of it - it won’t reach Earth until June 2010 - JAXA engineers and flight controllers deserve praise for reaching this milestone. Through heroic […]
Pebbles on the seashore
Published April 10th, 2007 in extrasolar planets, astronomy, asteroids, moon, space exploration, sustainability, light pollution, Mars, dinosaurs and climate change. 2 CommentsI have three books to write. The new edition of my 2001 NASA publication Humans to Mars is due in a week and a half and I have two and a half chapters left to write. I spoke with the editor yesterday, and he says I can still make the fall 2008 publication date if […]