Building a Bussard ramjet isn't easy, but the idea has a life of its own and continues to be discussed in the technical literature, in addition to its long history in science fiction. Peter Schattschneider, who explored the concept in Crafting the Bussard Ramjet last...
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When Will We See an Ice Giant Orbiter?
With NASA announcing that its Discovery program would fund both Davinci and Veritas, two missions to Venus, it's worth pausing to consider where we are in the realm of Solar System exploration. This is not to knock the Venus decisions; this is a target that has been...
‘Oumuamua: A Shard of Nitrogen Ice?
I’m only just getting to Steven Desch and Alan Jackson’s two papers on ‘Oumuamua, though in a just world (where I could clone myself and work on multiple stories simultaneously) I would have written them up sooner. Following Avi Loeb’s book on ‘Oumuamua, the...
Space Development Futures: Spacefaring Infrastructures of Indifferently Spacefaring Civilizations
How do we go about crafting a spacefaring civilization? Nick Nielsen has been exploring the issues involved in terms of the choices cultures make and their conception of their future. Change the society and you change the outcome, with huge ramifications for our...
OSIRIS-REx: Sample Collection at Asteroid Bennu
A spacecraft about the size of an SUV continues operations at an asteroid the size of a mountain. The spacecraft is OSIRIS-REx, the asteroid Bennu, and yesterday’s successful touchdown and sample collection attempt elicits nothing but admiration for the science team...
M-dwarf Superflares and Habitability
We could use a lot more information about flare activity on M-dwarf stars, which can impact planetary atmospheres and surfaces and thus potential habitability. Thus far much has been said on the subject, but what has been lacking are details about the kinds of flares...
Thoughts on Immensity
The Hubble Deep Field images of 1995 and 1998 gave us an unprecedented look at a small patch of sky with few nearby bright objects, a region about one-tenth the diameter of the full Moon in the constellation Fornax. The ensuing Hubble Ultra Deep Field, released in...
The Technological Indispensability Hypothesis: An Addendum to ‘Bound in Shallows’
Is there a single technology that can take us from being capable of reaching space to actually building an infrastructure system-wide? Or at least getting to a tipping point that makes the latter possible, one that Nick Nielsen, in today's essay, refers to as a 'space...
The People’s Space Odyssey: 2010: The Year We Make Contact
I've never known anyone as passionate about science fiction movies as Larry Klaes. His features on films ranging from The Thing from Another World to 2014's Interstellar have proven hugely popular. Today Larry looks at Peter Hyams' 2010: The Year We Make Contact, a...
Building the Psyche Asteroid Explorer
If all goes well (an often perilous assumption, as JWST so frequently reminds us), NASA's Psyche mission to the intriguing asteroid of the same name will lift off in about two years. We're now moving out of the design and planning stage into manufacturing the...