In a conversation the other day, the argument came up that most people aren’t excited about space because it doesn’t affect their lives directly. Sure, people are a lot more excited about the next big movie or phone, but take a look at a lot of the big exciting projects... [Read More]

Space flight needs a paradigm shift. Pessimists on the extent of our ability to become a spacefaring species point to how even with the best rockets that could theoretically exist, it would still be prohibitively expensive to go to space.  I don’t disagree with their math or their conclusions…given their... [Read More]

A few more thoughts on historiography following yesterday’s post:  I’ve come to realize that the history of anything, no matter how simple, never has just a single thread - it's a thickly bundled rope. Any one narrative can only observe a few threads of that rope at once. When you... [Read More]

An aside from historian-hat-wearing Ben:  Today on Quora I came across a thought-provoking paragraph. My reaction to it went something like this: “The idea that ‘history is written by the winners’ is a clichéd truism that isn't actually very true.” This could be insightful – go on…  “History is actually... [Read More]

Two news items today focus on the “privatization” of government space resources - parts of the ISS and Cape Canaveral. I feel like these developments fall into the category of “actions that have a label that sounds good in principle, but doesn't really have a benefit in practice.” It’s similar... [Read More]