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The content of this blog represents my personal opinions and conclusions. It does not reflect the positions of any of my affiliated institutions, companies, or organizations.
Category Archives: Space
Spacecraft Research is at it again
It’s been a little while since I checked in with the goings-on back at my Cornell research lab. Totally unsurprisingly, some very cool things are happening there! One is that the Sprite and KickSat project has gone all the way … Continue reading
Posted in Concepts, Graduate school, Research, Science Fiction, Space
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CubeSailing
Way back when I was looking at grad schools, I visited an MIT space propulsion lab where students and faculty were developing something called an electrospray thruster. This is a device consisting of a plate covered in tiny spikes, with … Continue reading
Posted in Concepts, Space
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Antares and tiny satellites
This weekend was full of excitement for commercial space fans. Orbital Sciences Corporation launched the Antares rocket, making them only the second private company to put a vehicle into orbit. Like the SpaceX Falcon 9, Antares is intended to carry … Continue reading
Posted in NASA, Space
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Where does the public see innovation?
The Lockheed Martin corporation recently conducted a poll in which they asked members of the public to choose the company’s “ultimate innovation.” There were a lot of fancy gizmos in the poll, including some very recent ones that definitely qualify … Continue reading
Posted in Space
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A spacecraft engineer’s review of Flotilla
I just picked up the latest Humble Bundle sale entirely because of the gameplay video of Flotilla. Flotilla is a terrific little gem of a game that puts players in tactical command of a small squadron of combat spacecraft, with … Continue reading
Posted in Games, Science Fiction, Space
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On the World Zarmina
…Preliminary report on image data from the LongShot-2 mission… The planet Gliese 581g – also known as Zarmina – is a circular world. It is not circular in the literal sense shown on pre-Columbian maps of the Earth, before we … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Concepts, Geology, Maps, Original fiction, Science Fiction, Space
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Marswhelmed
So, the Mars Science Laboratory “Curiosity” has discovered evidence that, about three billion years ago, the environment on the planet Mars could have supported Earth-like microbial life. Some news outlets (including the MSL Twitter feed) are billing this discovery as … Continue reading
Posted in NASA, Science, Space
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Heritage
Today, I saw a piece in The Space Review about what makes spacecraft launches complex and difficult. It occurred to me that this was a rather odd essay, coming as it does on the heels of the successful, high-profile flight … Continue reading
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Original Fiction: “Conference” (final draft)
I had been trying to sell this story for a while now, but was not successful. There’s a bit of a catch-22 to selling a short story for the first time: without any feedback from editors and readers, there is … Continue reading
What’s the deal with Lagrange Points?
You may have read about rumors that NASA is considering building a space station at a place called the “Earth-Moon L2 Point.” The “L” is short for “Lagrange,” and this is one of the places in space known as a … Continue reading
Posted in NASA, Science, Space
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