Saturday Space Stories! *Historian Engineer Hat* Did you know they had Mechanical Semaphore Telegraphs?!?</p> Basically any modern technology can be used as a weapon. While rocks can't be used as WMD's they also can't get you to space. While there are a lot of qualifications, stuff like this just shows... [Read More]

While I agree that Paypal Galactic has me scratching my head a little. My first gut reaction was to dismiss it as just a way-over-the-tinfoil-hat-line publicity stunt. However, I’m keeping my mind and eyes open because honestly I don’t know enough about it to be dismissive – I suspect that... [Read More]

To everybody in the USA – happy Fourth of July! To everybody not in the USA – fourth of July.   Regardless of where you’re from, I hope you enjoy a little compilation of space-related fireworks, both manmade and provided by nature.  “The rocket’s red glare”  “The bombs bursting in air”... [Read More]

In his book, A Many Colored Glass, Freeman Dyson describes his vision of a future in which humanity uses synthetic biology (engineered life forms and the like) to expand across the solar system and eventually the galaxy.  As Arthur C Clarke said: “If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that... [Read More]

Today I visited the offices of MadeInSpace – a startup building 3-D printers for space applications- and spoke to one of the founders.  On top of the extremely cool technology, I was impressed by his outlook, which combined massive breadth and optimism with a hearty dose of reality.  Not a... [Read More]