Tag Archives: space exploration

The difficulty of going to Mars

Posted on December 27, 2018 by

There’s been a lot of celebration this holiday season of the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission, the first time humans went into (relatively) deep space and orbited another body, the moon.  I’m glad to see Apollo 8 getting … Continue reading →

Posted in Space | Tagged , , , , | 23 Comments

The difficulty of interstellar travel for humans

Posted on July 22, 2017 by

Futurism.com has an article reviewing the results of a survey they conducted with their readers asking when the first human might leave the solar system.  The leading answer was after the year 2100, which make sense given our current level … Continue reading →

Posted in Space | Tagged , , , | 25 Comments

David Eagleman: Can a computer simulate a brain?

Posted on November 13, 2015 by

The other day, I highlighted the article by neuroscientist Kenneth Miller on the possibility of mind uploading.  Miller saw it as possible, but thought it might be thousands or maybe even millions of years before we could do it.  Here’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 38 Comments

NASA has never accidentally sent a probe into the Sun.

Posted on May 11, 2015 by

Last week, I was having lunch with some friends, which included a number of programmers.  One of them mentioned an old urban myth, that I hadn’t heard in several years, which claims that, due to a programming bug (involving a misplaced semicolon), NASA once … Continue reading →

Posted in Space | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Interstellar: more accurate than the typical sci-fi movie, but still had issues

Posted on March 22, 2015 by

This week, I watched the movie Interstellar, the Christopher Nolan film about travel to another galaxy, a black hole, a wormhole, and other exotic environments.  I enjoyed it immensely, although I also had some issues with it. In the film, at … Continue reading →

Posted in Science Fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

xkcd: Spacecraft and launch vehicle payloads, in horses

Posted on December 17, 2014 by

  Similar to the relative spacecraft and rocket sizes I linked to the other day, here’s xkcd’s version, in horse units.  At first I thought he was referring to horsepower, but then I realized it was horse mass.  (Click through … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Wanderers – a short film on exploring the solar system

Posted on November 29, 2014 by

This is pretty nice.   A short video by Erik Wernquist showing humans in various locations around the solar system, with a voiceover from Carl Sagan, always guaranteed to enrich the sense of wonder. via Wanderers – a short film … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

I would draw a similar graph for FTL and knowledge of physics

Posted on November 12, 2014 by

Click through for full sized version and the red button caption. via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Sometimes, learning science means discovering the constraints reality puts on us, and that part isn’t always fun.

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The movie ‘Interstellar’ and wormholes

Posted on November 6, 2014 by

The other day, I did a post on interstellar exploration which linked to one by Sten Odenwald on the problems with interstellar travel.  Well, he posted some follow-up remarks, expressing some surprise at the response, doubling down on the aspects of the limitations of … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Reaching the stars will require serious out-of-the-box thinking

Posted on October 23, 2014 by

Sten Odenwald, an astronomer with the National Institute of Aerospace, has an article up at HuffPost that many will find disheartening: The Dismal Future of Interstellar Travel | Dr. Sten Odenwald. I have been an avid science fiction reader all my life, but as … Continue reading →

Posted in Space | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments