Book Series
I want to quickly follow up that Moon vs Mars video with this. With the recent confirmation of water ice on the surface at the Moon’s poles, some interesting possibilities open up.
Here’s a fascinating study that explores the logistics and economics of water mining on the Moon. Once again: these things are going to happen sooner than we expect.
Not to mention a 24 hour day and enough atmosphere to provide some modest protection from solar radiation and stabilize daytime temps to between -50C and 10C.
It’s not a paradise, but we can work with it.
background: NASA/JPL-Caltech
We don’t need to go to the Moon in order to go to Mars. But, if we’re going to go to the Moon, then let’s go to the Moon, not an orbit around it. And let’s dig in and make it stick.
Here’s a plan for doing just that with existing tech.
We need a backup.
background: NASA/JPL-Caltech animation showing known asteroids from 1999 to the present.
https://images.nasa.gov/details-JPL-20180716-ASTRDSf-0006-All%20Known%20Asteroids%202018-Feature%20version.html
A collection of creepy sounds from throughout our solar system.
background: NASA/JPL/MSSS; processing and mosaic: Olivier de Goursac, 2013 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Martian-Sunset-O-de-Goursac-Curiosity-2013.jpg)
The dry matter-of-fact tone of this article, and the report it refers to, reinforces that this stuff is coming sooner than we all expect.
Our unmanned efforts in space deserve great credit, but they aren’t enough.
background: NASA Juno Mission Collection 2 excerpt (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/multimedia/junoanimations.html), NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center MAVEN animation (https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11024)
Next up: a hazy memory of the Apollo era.
Background video footage: Apollo 11 montage from NASA
I got together with a friend and a green screen recently to shoot for a promo video. I can be chatty, so we ended up with more footage than I need, much of it quite good. I’ll throw some clips against the wall here over the next couple weeks and see what sticks.
background: Illustration for Scratching the Surface by Luis Peres.
The New Atlantis 
NASA