I’ve been very busy, so today’s posts is a couple of links following up on previous posts as well as some shameless self-promotion. In addition to my thoughts on the matter, here are some further arguments about why we need to be sending people and not robots to mars. In... [Read More]

It looks like NASA will be getting funding for a proposed mission to capture an asteroid.  Space.com reports on it here. I think the concept is very cool, and probably feasible given enough money.  However, I’m going to have to bet against the project making actual headway due to the... [Read More]

It looks like Russia and the European Union are hopping on the “send robots to putter around Mars looking for life” bandwagon. I don’t want to malign the technological advances spurred by these projects. If you have doubts, consider that they actually pulled off this plan without a hitch.  I... [Read More]

Sometimes I don't need to justify space exploration - space will just speak for itself (with a little help from NASA) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Jl_qA5I_ycA In a similar vein, I also highly recommend the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) if you haven't seen it before. The daily pictures motivate me each morning... [Read More]

On space.com today, one of these reports is not like the others: http://www.space.com/20449-swiss-private-rocket-plane-2017.html http://www.space.com/20461-russia-moon-robots-missions.html http://www.space.com/20452-scotland-first-satellite-launching-soon.html The first two are articles describing a space mission or technology concept accompanied by a slew of excellent computer-generated graphics, an impressive description and an ambitious timeline. These hyped-up but meat-lacking reports are a strong... [Read More]