When I would take my astronomy students to Lynchburg College’s (now the University of Lynchburg) Belk Observatory in rural Bedford County, Virginia, I was surprised at how many of them had never seen the Milky Way. Growing up in urban…
Year: 2023
A TALE OF THREE ROCKETS
How many rocket engines does it take to lift off on your way to the moon? Five? Thirty? Thirty-three? This is the tale of three very different booster rockets, all of them designed to send humans to the moon, and…
Data in Trickles and Floods
In July 2015 the New Horizons spacecraft flew by the dwarf planet Pluto, taking thousands of images and as many other scientific measurements over the course of a few weeks and days. Views both global and close-up revealed the nature…
In Praise of Darkness
A classic science fiction story (“Nightfall” by Isaac Asimov) was set on a planet in the midst of a globular cluster, its sky ablaze with six suns that prevent true night from ever falling. Once every 2000 years or so,…
Mars, Humans, and Nuclear Power
Getting humans to Mars will be hard. Getting them back safely to Earth will be harder. Let’s look at what it will take. We’re going to get successively more technical as we go, so if you want to bail out…
Tagged with: Nuclear Thermal Propulsion
Blue Moon Blues
Supermoon! Blue moon! Full moon! People do get excited about this, at least if media coverage and social media posts are any indication. Do I? Well, a full moon means I can see to put the garbage out more easily…
Orbits
To put an object into orbit around the Earth takes an impressive amount of power. You have to punch your way through the lower and thicker parts of the atmosphere, gradually change your direction from vertical to horizontal, and accelerate…
Tagged with: orbital mechanics
Where Does Space Begin?
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic flew its first commercial passengers to space today (June 29, 2023), joining Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. There are significant differences in the achievements of these three billionaire-funded ventures, however. SpaceX is by…
Tagged with: Space Tourism
Four for the Solstice
Four short takes for the 2023 June solstice. 1. Solstice At 10:58 a.m. EDT (14:58 UTC) on June 21st, the Sun will have reached its highest point in the sky as seen from the northern hemisphere, and the lowest point…
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