Poor Deep Impact. Also, will it STOP orbiting the sun when it runs out of fuel? Is there a better way than peer review? Celebration of a less-fragile spacecraft - are there ways to achieve these bonus missions without human prediction? It's potential projects like this that made me think... [Read More]

I thought today I would take a little break and let Mason Peck do the talking. Admittedly, he’s my graduate advisor in addition to the Chief Technologist at NASA, but he does such an exquisite job of keeping those roles separate (so well it’s frustrating sometimes) that I don’t think... [Read More]

This TED talk by Stuart Firestein (who has an awesome last name by the way) touches on a ton of topics that I find interesting: from the fuzzy nature of science, to how the brain works, and more. What really gave me a brain-spark was this paraphrased quote (in reference... [Read More]

To follow up Monday’s pessimistic post with some optimism in the same Antifragile-inspired thought-domain, here are some speculations on how space exploration could become more robust (fairly realistic) and possibly antifragile (woooo everybody put on your tinfoil hats!) Some robustification ideas: In-space manufacturing via 3-D printers or other means Fuel... [Read More]

And now for something completely different! The world has seen a long and illustrious legacy in which two outstanding things are combined to make a third, even more outstanding thing: Han Solo and Chewbacca. Computers and Motors (robots). Rum and Coke. The Avengers. Space and anything. And of course, sword-chucks.... [Read More]