Category: Space
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My Maximum Likelihood Solution to the Fermi Paradox: Not new but probably true
By far the most likely resolution to the Fermi Paradox is that there aren’t any aliens capable of interstellar travel or even interstellar communication (radio…
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Gateway: A sci fi novel from 1977 that has aged well
Gateway by Frederik Pohl won both the Nebula award and the Hugo, which was a bigger deal back when it came out almost 50 years…
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Photo of an Exoplanet: A discovery made by looking at old pictures
Initially, it was only possible to infer the presence from exoplanets indirectly from the way they made their star wobble, or when they transited in…
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The Soviet Space Shuttle
The Soviet Union had its own space shuttle program called Buran. It looked and operated similarly to the U.S. Space Shuttle. One Buran shuttle was…
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Life on Mars
In 1996, Bill Clinton announced that we had found signs pointing to life on Mars. A meteorite called Allan Hills 84001, originating from Mars, contained…
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Spinning Sun-Powered Space Catapult
For years now, I’ve been following what’s happening in the field of interstellar travel. Not closely, but close enough to know what kinds of technology…
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All That Is Earth Has Once Been Sky
Among the hills a meteorite Lies huge; and moss has overgrown, And wind and rain with touches light Made soft, the contours of the stone.…
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The Moon Landing as Signaling
Signaling, as in virtue signaling, has a bad reputation. This essay by Malmesbury on Telescopic Turnip makes the point that signaling can also involve great…
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Biosignature
Paul Gister on Centauri Dreams and Eric Hoel on The Intrinsic Perspective have good posts about the new data strengthening the case for a biosignature…
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Genetic Drift on Generation Ships
On Centauri Dreams, Alex Tolley writes about the challenges a generation ship would face. He mentions one potential problem that I find particularly interesting, even…
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Terraforming
Getting to Mars is hard and may take longer than we anticipate. Terraforming it in any meaningful way is going to be even harder and…
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Life Prefers Ice: Low temperatures are more compatible with order
Robert Frost holds with those who say the world will end in fire. Freeman Dyson was agnostic on whether the world will end in fire…
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Moon Diagrams
Bartosz Ciechanowski has created a wonderful page explaining a lot of what there is to know about the moon using animated diagrams. Also look at…
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Life Without Stars
In a recent blog post, Julian Gough argues not only that planets without stars (“Stanets”) may harbor life, but that most of the life in…
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Scaling up the Pioneer Plaques
The Voyager Golden Records and the Pioneer plaques will remain legible for billions of years. Where they travel, they’re protected from the destructive powers of…
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Railguns
In Jules Verne’s 1865 science fiction novel From the Earth to the Moon, three men travel to the moon aboard a projectile launched from a…
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Fermi Calculations: Getting order-of-magnitude estimates
Many years ago and on a different continent, I used to work for a management consulting firm with offices in all of the world’s major…
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Alien Artifacts
As a kid, before I knew better, I liked to read Erich von Däniken. In Chariots of the Gods, he explained that the pyramids were…
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Alien Oceans
2030 is going to be a big year for those curious about life in the solar system. The Europa Clipper spacecraft that just launched is…
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In Praise of Mystery
In a few days, the Europa Clipper spacecraft is going to launch towards Jupiter. After a journey of six years, it will arrive at Jupiter’s…
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Kim Stanley Robinson and Ken MacLeod: Two sci fi greats in the same room
Kim Stanley Robinson and Ken McLeod are two of the most interesting contemporary science fiction writers. Robinson’s Mars Trilogy and MacLeod’s Intrusion are among my…
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Where are the Aliens?
Jim Rutt discusses the Fermi Paradox with writer and physicist Stephen Webb (podcast). Webb proposes 75 solutions to the Fermi paradox. You can read my…
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Assumptions for Extraterrestrial Life
Out of Kevin Kelly’s twelve assumptions for extraterrestrial life, I agree with the first nine. However, he gets his tenth, and most important, assumption wrong:…
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Voyager’s Golden Record
Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is the human-made object most distant from Earth. It carries the Golden Record, a selection of sounds and images representing…
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Sunspots and Influenza
Fred Hoyle was an accomplished astronomer but also came up with a few controversial theories that didn’t take off, not that there’s anything wrong with…
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On Two Planets: Anti-colonialist German sci fi from the 19th century
On Two Planets by Kurd Lasswitz (or Laßwitz) may be the first science fiction novel to imagine an alien invasion. Published in 1897, it’s about…
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Pale Blue Dot: A Very Small Stage
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Look again at that dot. That’s…
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Pale Blue Dot: A Restless Few
For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled. Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven’t forgotten. The…
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