Boeing vs SpaceX
Boeing Starliner on the left. SpaceX Starship on the right. Boeing vs SpaceX Boeing Starliner and SpaceX Starship missions both achieved spaceflight milestones during the first week of June. Boeing’s Starliner overcame a series of technical problems including the malfunctioning of thrusters to dock at the International Space Station (ISS). Two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore […]
What Is The Importance Of A Helicopter On Mars?
If we could just stop polluting and warming our planet, and stop the dozens of wars underway, there would be no need to go to Mars. There are some signs of progress but avoiding nuclear war and major flooding is not a sure thing. In addition to establishing human settlements on Mars, there is a […]
The Limits to Growth
If you are a pessimist and revel in the gloom and doom the future may hold, robots and artificial intelligence (AI) can add a lot of fodder. Robots are mostly in manufacturing plants today, but their presence is growing in many other places, including hospitals, restaurants, retail stores, and homes. Millions of jobs will be […]
Why Should We Go To Mars?
https://youtu.be/rzmd7RouGrM Last July 30th, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket blasted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. On February 18, 2021, 203 days later, and having travelled 293 million miles, the spacecraft reached Mars. The the car-size Perseverance, the centerpiece of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, entered […]
Amazing Landing on Mars
This was a big week for NASA. The InSight spacecraft traveled 300 million miles to the red planet, slowed down from 13,000 mph to 5 mph and then gently landed on the dusty surface of Mars. Less celebrated but also technologically amazing was the MarCO project. Two CubeSats, made up of 4 inch square cubes […]