Government largesse, space exploration, and pants

This is another opinion piece, so just read on if you’re interested, or ignore it, click on your Amazon tab, and continue shopping. My encounter the other day with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website being down (you can go here to see that–or just type in http://www.nasa.gov) due to the government shutdown […]

Hostile hostels, hotels and Chinese satellites

This is a weird article, and I’m trying to figure out if part of the reason for the weirdness is if it’s a language thing. But according to the article, Chinese military analysts think China needs stealth satellites. And there’s really no good reason for stealth satellites other than military purposes. The article states the […]

The mini Death Star and its song

Engadget posted a nice, short article about Telstar 1. It’s not about the song (video of it played here), which was played by the Tornados and quite popular. Both were launched in the 1960’s, the song named after the satellite. Telstar 1 looked quite a bit like a space station from a certain popular sci-fi […]

Sometimes it’s good to have a bulge–in space!

A few smart folks have found that the Earth’s bulge is beneficial to satellites orbiting it. In this article, they explain why a perfectly spherical Earth would’ve been bad for a lot of satellites, resulting in plenty of satellite carnage (satellites falling from orbit more quickly). But it turns out that our spinning, bulgy planet […]

Spaceports everywhere!!

Okay, maybe not everywhere. But there are quite a few in the US according to Gizmodo in their article. 8 of them. I’m not as interested in “space tourism,” as I am in thinking this gives us some flexibility, if we’re smart about this, in replenishing satellite constellations. Not that I’d be against flying up […]