Turning to Fiber to Move the Competition Along

In the last post (here), I wrote a few guesses about who might want to pay for something like SpaceX’s Starlink or O3b’s broadband constellations. The upshot of that whole exercise was to find out that perhaps the world’s poor probably won’t be the funders of these constellations. Even if these constellations might be cheap. […]

From German Tunnels to Space, Part 5–Liberation

In the previous post, slave prison laborers were working underground in a mountain, building rockets for the NAZIs. The slaves were very literally worked to death, producing hundreds of V2 rockets a month. Ruthless People, Brutal Numbers Between April 1944 and March 1945, the slaves produced about 4,575 V2 rockets . The conditions they worked […]

Win A (Sky)box Full of Imagery

Do you have a need? More specifically, do you have a need for European Space Imaging data using Skybox satellite imagery worth 20,000 Euros? What about your mom? Your dad? Okay–how about your school? Ah, there we go. That’s right, Copernicus-Masters has issued a challenge, and the prize to that challenge is Skybox imagery. What’s […]

Gravity Check: Thousands of Satellites Orbit Earth

Quick–just how many satellites, operational or not, are orbiting Earth? Pretend you’re trying to impress your fellow engineers. Even better, pretend you’re trying to impress people in a bar (although that strategy might backfire). Have you guessed? Do you really want to know if you’re correct or are you satisfied with impressing the folks in the […]

Only Vote Important: Pick Your Favorite NASA Spacesuit Design Element

Of all the places–I never expected to see information about a NASA spacesuit voting initiative on “@midnight,” a comedy game show, last night. But there it is. And here it is, the suits and voting buttons on this site. NASA is asking the public to vote on their favorite spacesuit design. They are calling this […]