Book Series
Check out the latest pre-release review of Scratching the Surface! Thank you for the kind words, Mrs. Fig.
“GENERATION MARS fills the “hard science fiction” hole in early middle grade bookshelves…I hope this book will hook some of our young readers (and parents) who aren’t as easily entertained by the silly stuff.”
Some details on SpaceX’s Mars plan and the issues they are working on.
Dr. Phil Metzger posted an epic 48 tweet thread on Twitter explaining why megaconstellations (e.g. SpaceX’s Starlink) are inevitable, as is their eventual demise as better tech comes online.
Looking at the evolution of life, from single celled organisms to bipedal apes rapidly outgrowing the planet, as the exponential growth of information is a novel (to me at least) approach and provides an interesting perspective.
“I would bet that if we find alien civilizations somewhere else in the galaxy, or in a galaxy far, far away, we will discover that they ALL developed megaconstellations right before they got industry off their planets & divorced their information systems from their biosphere.”
This is wild stuff and well worth a full read.
Ostensibly about the SpaceX Raptor engine, it’s really so much more. If you’ve ever had a hankerin’ to learn more about rocket engine design, Everyday Astronaut‘s latest video is a great place to start.
You can send your name too by registering with NASA at https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/mars2020/
A brief but inspiring interview with Robert Zubrin:
“… that’s what we need: a place where the rules haven’t been written yet, so people can give new ideas a try. Martian society will be an engine for invention.”
Insight picks up the first quake on a celestial body other than Earth or the Moon.
What Scratching the Surface is really about.
background: illustration by Luis Peres for Scratching the Surface
Here’s the most thorough evaluation of the the latest push for the Moon that I’ve found. The TL;DR is that the winds are all over the place. This push is likely to fail. But we should root for it anyway because it’s shaking things up.
Wowza! He’s talking about an Orion atop a ULA second stage atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. We live in interesting times.
Tumblr 
Ars Technica 
WPR 
