From German Tunnels to Space, Part 1

Stay with me here, this will eventually lead to space-related topics. When I was much younger, I was privileged to live overseas twice. Both times my Dad moved us to the Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland Pfalz for German speakers)/Eifel region of Germany. It was very pretty—forested and hilly with networks of small, curvy roads. The first time […]

Space Tourism, the Costly Frontier

In previous articles I’ve talked about cheap small satellites for the general public to buy and even use in orbit. But what if you want something more? What if you want to be, if only for a few minutes, an astronaut? “Space tourism is too expensive!” you say? Maybe, if you only follow Virgin Galactic’s sub-orbital efforts […]

The Satellite “Brown Note”

The DailyMail posted this article about the European Space Agency’s (ESA) use of sound in satellite development. The ESA likes to use satellites that can withstand the rigors of a rocket launch. One of those rigors is the loud, vibration-prone environment a satellite payload sits in during a rocket launch. Like the Mythbusters test to […]

Garbage Trucks for Satellites?

This article reads a bit like a press release for the German Aerospace Center (DLR). That’s probably because it is, but the Deutsche Welle post talks about all sorts of optimistic future projects, all accomplished by DLR as they support the European Space Agency (ESA). From cubesats to a “garbage truck for satellites,” it’s not […]

The ESA’s Rosetta Satellite: The Sleeper Awakes

On 20 January, 2014, a European Space Agency (ESA) comet-chasing satellite woke up for work. According to this MSN.com article, the satellite, named Rosetta, was in hibernation for 31 months. The ESA’s Rosetta satellite is waking up to meet with a certain comet in May 2014. The “OK, I’m awake” signal was relayed to the […]