14 April 2010
Obama to speak at NASA tomorrow
Well, it looks like president Obama will be making a short visit to Kennedy Space Center tomorrow, where he will give a speech clarifying the space agency’s future. There has been a lot of speculation about what exactly he will say. Will he just promote his original plan, or has all the wailing and gnashing of teeth had some effect? I don’t know, but there are rumors flying around that …
8 April 2010
Review: Bioshock
When Bioshock came out, I heard rave reviews about its revolutionary gameplay, deep storyline, tough moral choices, arresting visuals and general awesomeness. So of course, when I decided to give in to my old gaming addiction and get an XBox 360, it was near the top of the list of games I wanted. Well, I just finished playing and sadly, I was pretty underwhelmed. The premise of the game is …
7 April 2010
We've come a long way
Yesterday our Mars Journal Club met to talk about a book chapter from 1990 about geologic mapping on other planets. It was really useful and informative, but what really struck me was how much things have changed since then. When the chapter was written, the best images of Mars were the Viking orbiter maps. There were also a lot of lunar examples in the chapter along the lines of: “Clearly …
31 March 2010
More TED skepticism: Is science news the most important news?
Only days after a TED talk about Mars inspired this post correcting some of the misconceptions in the talk, another TED talk has me scratching my head. This one is by Kirk Citron, editor of “The Long News”, a project concerned with winnowing the few news stories from current events that will actually be seen as important 100 years or more from now. In his very brief talk he gives …
25 March 2010
TED Talk: Why we need to go back to Mars
I recently started subscribing to the TED talk RSS feed, and I really love coming home every day after work and listening to smart people talk about cool ideas. If you aren’t familiar with TED, you should be. Most of the talks are fantastic and very thought-provoking. So you can imagine I was excited when I saw that today’s talk was about Mars! The talk was given by Joel Levine, …
22 March 2010
Carnival of Space #146
I’ve been a bit of a delinquent blogger lately, but the rest of the astro-blogosphere has been busy! To get caught up on all the cool stuff that I have neglected to tell you in the past week, check out the Carnival of Space over at Simostronomy!
18 March 2010
Book Review: The Next 100 Years
You would think that since I’m working at Johnson Space Center right now, I would have exciting tales from inside NASA to share with you, but I’m afraid it has been pretty uneventful. I have however managed to read a couple of books, one of which was The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century, by George Friedman. This was a really fascinating book about using history and …
NASA Administrator Addresses Budget Misconceptions
The Planetary Society blog posted this excerpt of some remarks made by Charlie Bolden on the 16th regarding NASA’s new plan. I was going to just select some key points, but really, it’s all pretty key, so I’m just going to copy shamelessly with some added emphasis: “So let me just tell you a little more about this budget. Bear with me if you’re already knowledgeable here. At the highest …
10 March 2010
Review: Fallout 3
Other than Spore, which I played briefly (but intensely!) last year, and occasional multiplayer games when I visited with friends, Fallout 3 is the first serious single player game that I have played in a very long time. I used to be extremely addicted to video games, and for most of undergrad and grad school I had steered clear of them because I felt like I couldn’t afford the time. …
8 March 2010
Hailing Frequencies Open!
Check this out, Star Trek’s Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) at JPL, ready to communicate with the rovers!
