No water required? Not sure how this relates to the recent stories about liquid water.
Category Archives: Space Science
The Geminids
Looks like they should be great this year, with an almost new moon. Might drive up to the mountains or desert, if it’s clear.
Bootstrapping A Solar-System Civilization
Encouraging thoughts from David Brin on what he calls the “best year for space since the 70s.”
“Space Exploration”
I hate op-eds like this. They’re meaningless.
I oppose "space exploration." It's a meaningless phrase. I favor space development.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) October 20, 2015
How Scientists Fool Themselves
…and how they can stop.
Hollywood And Mars
[Monday-afternoon update]
Even the film-makers had doubts:
“If you had told me two years ago when we were walking into Fox to pitch the approach and what this movie would be, if you told me I’d be on the phone talking about how this is a big spectacle movie, I would have been delighted,” he tells Esquire. “At the time, we knew it was going to be expensive, but we thought it would be more niche than Ridley made it.” Nope.
What made The Martian unique also made it a difficult sell. It was not an action movie. The film’s star would spend his time farming potatoes harvested from his co-astronaut’s feces. The Rock would not show up to blow away aliens halfway through the second act. Mind would prevail over muscle. And that’s not easy to write for the masses.
I hope it will break some of the stereotypes, and make it easier to make these kinds of films.
[Bumped]
Curiosity
Andy Weir says to send it to check out the water.
I’m pretty sure that would violate current planetary-protection protocols.
[Late-afternoon update]
Keith Cowing has a review of the movie up now.
This Weekend’s Super Lunar Eclipse
Unfortunately, looks like it’s only partial on the Left Coast.
NASA Advisory Council, Day Two
I’m going to switch from listening to NTSB meeting to hear the status on exploration systems at 9 AM PDT. Phil McAlister will be discussing Commercial Crew status later this morning. I would note that in this morning’s meeting in the House, Chairman Culberson was very enthusiastic (as expected) about the Europa mission, but he still insanely imagines that SLS is the solution to it.
