NASA and JPL are already kicking their Mars 2020 project into high gear. One of the really exciting things about the mission, which is expected to launch in (you guessed it) 2020, is the fact that the Opportunity-like rover is going to launch a helicopter drone. That’s right. A helicopter....
SpaceX has successfully launched their new Falcon Heavy rocket! This was the massive rocket’s first test launch, and Elon Musk had given it a 50/50 chance of blowing up. But the launch was literally picture perfect, and rocket succeeded not only in delivering its cargo into orbit, but also managed...
On Friday, December 22nd, 2017, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenburg Air Force base, near Los Angeles, at around about 5:30 PST (around sunset). This was nothing unusual, but what was usual was the atmospheric conditions, and the fact that the rocket’s contrail caught the sunlight at a...
Launched in 1997 and arriving at Saturn in 2004, the Cassini-Huygens mission was a phenomenal success, lasting some 10 years beyond its initial 3 year mission. The spacecraft gave us thousands of pictures of Saturn, gigabytes of scientific data, and launched the Huygens probe into Titan, giving never-before-seen footage of...
Monday, August 21st, 2017, will mark the first total eclipse to span the entire United States since 1918! That’s a pretty big deal, and if both traffic and the weather cooperate, my family and I will hopeful be in the direct path of totality to see it. Here’s a great...
SpaceX has just launched its 12th resupply mission to the International Space Station, and has succeeded in its second landing of its stage 1 one Falcon 9 rocket on solid ground (instead of a barge at sea)! This is great news, as the better they get at landing their rockets...
SpaceX has become more and more successful at landing their first stage rockets, and Elon Musk says it is for reusability, which will save money in the long run and allow for quicker turn-around on launches. Sure, but, maybe there’s another reason, too. Elon Musk has become increasing vocal about...
Riding on my earlier post about the TRAPPIST-1 star system, I’ve decided to post a couple more informative videos. The first is a 9 minute PBS video describing some of the science behind the discovery and the possible implications for any life that might have evolved there. The second video is...
NASA has just announced the discovery of a star system (TRAPPIST-1) with not one, not two, not three… not six, but seven Earth-sized rocky planets, two of which are potentially habitable! The star system is just a Kessel Run away (12 parsecs, or 40 light years), so spin up the...
Tony Stark Elon Musk has announced SpaceX’s big plans for getting a human colony set up on Mars, perhaps sometime mid-century or so if everything pans out. That’s some pretty big ambitions, and it’s risky too, but ambition and risk are two things humanity must have in abundance if we...
