What’s going on with SpaceX and the FAA? Well, it appears to be complicated. But, with SN9 and SN10 stacked up at the launch pad, let’s hope they resolve their issues soon.
Ars Technica Iceland?
Recent study suggests early Mars may have been very much like Iceland.
Family photo
Here’s an image taken by something we built that is out there right now looking back at us. If that doesn’t make you stop a moment and say “huh”, I don’t know what will.
Mittens on Mars
Mars time
How will we keep time on Mars? It’s complicated.
More on Starship SN8
Here’s a nice summary of why this week’s Starship launch was a huge success, even though it failed to stick the landing.
Starship SN8 – before and after
This image of Elon Musk inspecting the wreckage really brings home the size of Starship.
(image: SPadre on Twitter)
(image: Spacex)
Food for thought…
Simulant
Science fair supplies for my youngest daughter: simulated Mars regolith. Thanks for making these simulants available, UCF Exolith Lab!
Air: Generation Mars, Book One
The surface of Mars has the biggest volcanic mountains and deepest canyons in the solar system. There are the remains of water features everywhere, both tiny and vast, yet water hasn’t flowed on the surface for over three billion years. The whole planet is red because it’s rusty. Actually, it’s not really red—more of a brownish orange with blacks and greys and whites mixed in. But someone long ago called it “the red planet”, and the name stuck. A day on Mars is about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth and is called a sol. The sunsets are upside down from those of Earth: shades of blue layering out from the Sun, diffusing into yellows and pinks and oranges above. Mars has two moons that move in opposite directions across the sky. There is very little atmosphere, and what there is consists mostly of carbon dioxide, the same gas that we exhale here on Earth. The wind blows hard at times, yet the atmosphere is so thin that you might barely notice it. Such winds can lift dust from the surface though, sometimes creating massive dust storms that blow for days. Occasionally, one of these storms will grow to cover the entire planet.
Which is all to say that it’s a weird place.
Air: Generation Mars, Book One
Available now: https://www.amazon.com/Air-Generation-Mars…/dp/1733731024
(image: composite logo with Luis Peres)