April 2020
Replacing hydrazine fuel with a greener alternative
... as an oxidizer. Anyone watching hydrazine being put into a satellite would think they were watching a scene from Steven Spielberg’s ET - The Extraterrestrial. Significant effort and safety precautions are required during ground operations and full...
October 2017
The sci-fi noir world of Blade Runner
...popular culture is once again there to help us think. Blade Runner is an example of such effort in the form of a thriller. Steven Spielberg’s AI Artificial Intelligence is another, in a gentler and more cerebral genre. And many would agree that Isaac...
June 2018
Cosmic communications and the anthropology of outer space
... conundrum and might help astronomers see experimental data with fresh eyes. The celebrated NASA historian Steven J. Dick advocated early on that anthropology could inform space endeavours. Despite the early exclusion of social science...
August 2020
Revisiting the Drake Equation - a cultural addendum
... 1974 Arecibo Message, the most powerful radio broadcast ever deliberately beamed into space. The 1982 Steven Spielberg movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial features a lovable alien. The now legendary Drake Equation asked the...
May 2021
In-situ propellant design for Mars ascent vehicles
... than solid or liquid systems. Figure 2. Paraffin wax liquid entrainment mechanism during combustion [A. Karabeyoglu, B. Cantwell, J. Stevens, ‘Evaluation of homologous series of normalalkanes as hybrid rocket fuels’, 41st AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint...
16 October 2015
Hitchhikers no more: NASA picks 3 firms to launch cubesats
... 2017, SpaceNews.com reported. “Our price is relative to the level of risk the customer is willing to undertake,” said Steven Isakowitz, president of Virgin Galactic. “In the case of NASA, they wanted to fly on one of our early launches.” All...
