Author Archives: admin
One large step… (the first Dragon mission to the International Space Station)
Tuesday morning (May 22nd, 2012) at 3:44 AM (EDT), SpaceX will (again) attempt to take one large step forward on the path to the commercialization of space. The mission is an ambitious flight of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon … Continue reading
NASA Authorization Act of 2010: Back to the Past
Senator Bill Nelson (D, Florida) introduced the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 to the Senate commerce committee last week, and it is slated for a committee vote and discussion on July 15th. If enacted, the bill would add one or more … Continue reading
The Most Important Rocket Launch Since the First Space Shuttle
Starting Friday morning at 11:00 AM Eastern Time, a plucky startup company founded by Elon Musk, the cofounder of Tesla Motors and PayPal, will begin the first attempt to launch what is possibly the most important new rocket since the … Continue reading
NASA: The Moon Had At Least $88 Million Worth of Water Before We Vaporized It
Today NASA announced that the LCROSS mission found (and vaporized) around 100 kg of water near the south pole of the moon, worth around $88 million. NASA discovered this by impacting the Moon with two large objects: a Centaur rocket … Continue reading
Windows Vista Media Center Now Records DRM-free Cable TV
Users of Windows Vista (and Windows 7) Media Center and Cablecard TV tuners (specifically the ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner) will be thrilled to hear that we can now record TV shows without DRM encryption preventing us from playing … Continue reading
Recommendations to the US Human Spaceflight Plans Committee (the Augustine Commission)
There are only two ways that NASA can achieve more lofty goals in space – spend more money, or reduce the cost. The Apollo program successfully used the former strategy, but in the process demonstrated the difficulty of sustaining an … Continue reading
"Final" Hubble Space Telescope Repair Mission and the Inevitable Death of Hubble
The inclusion of the new docking port on Hubble means that NASA will have more options when it comes time to service Hubble again or deorbit it, and it’s likely that a commercial option might be the cheapest and best. Continue reading
New Animation Reveals Additional Details of SpaceX’s Dragon Spaceship
SpaceX yesterday posted a new animation to their Web site yesterday illustrating what a launch of their new seven-person spaceship, the Dragon, will look like, and some new details that are sure to make space geeks intrigued. Continue reading
An Improvement to McCain’s Concession Speech
I was extremely impressed with the graciousness of McCain’s concession speech last night as well as Obama’s victory speech. However, part of McCain’s speech struck me initially as slightly insensitive. Continue reading
Windows Vista Sucks; Vista SP1 Doesn’t
I think that Vista (original version) sucks, but that Vista SP1 is new and improved – it sucks less. Continue reading
Film vs. Digital – Marriage Counseling of Mr. Pixel and Mrs. Grain
The benefits of film vs. digital imagery, as told through marriage counseling of Mr. Pixel and his wife, Mrs. Grain. Continue reading
First Sample Return Mission From A Comet Performs Soft Landing at the Smithsonian
The first sample return mission from an object other than the Moon (I’m not counting solar wind), and the first space probe run by a friend of mine, principal investigator Dr. Don Brownlee, just performed a soft landing in the … Continue reading
SpaceX Achieves Orbit – Access to Space Just Got a Lot Cheaper
Today at 4:15 PM (PDT) the private company SpaceX successfully launched its partially reusable Falcon 1 rocket into orbit for the first time after a string of three prior failures. The rocket, and the company, was built from scratch over … Continue reading
Blu-ray is a Moribund Format – Why the Future is Online
Blu-ray is currently the king of visual and aural quality, but it’s days are numbered as online HD video comes into focus. Continue reading
Windows Live Writer, Blogs and WordPress
I just setup this new blog, and I’m trying out Windows Live Writer as my authoring tool with WordPress as my blog server (hosted by Godaddy). I started by using Windows Live Spaces, which worked pretty well, but was basic … Continue reading