NASA’s Most Surprising Spinoff The spinoffs that don’t directly go back into the space invention-discovery cycle nonetheless play a big…
The Sun Will Help Us Get to the Sun The most powerful spinoffs contribute to the invention-discovery cycle, even while…
Beer Into Rocket Fuel? The practical knowledge from NASA-funded discoveries and the inventions that enabled them fall under the rubric…
Crystals in Space Many branches of science—including Earth science, planetary science, astrophysics, and microgravity science—depend strongly on NASA and its…
The Invention-Discovery Cycle Non-scientists tend to think of science (when they think of it at all) as a series of…
Private Industry Needs NASA to Help It Fail Even while government and the private sector were working together to build…
Space’s Valley of Death Economist Mariana Mazzucato likes to describe the investment world as a landscape; a “bumpy and complex…
Is Space Worth It? The most common argument against a publicly funded space program is that we can’t afford it,…
The Martian Farm Act Matt Damon’s role in The Martian perfectly combines two of the greatest government investments in the…
The Gravity Well Is a Moral Well Americans seem to find their country stuck in place, with a deadlocked Congress…
Why Politics Gets Space Wrong An audacious public space program can bring incalculable benefits—along with some benefits that are not…
The Vault of Heaven Up until fairly recently in human history, people believed that a solid dome, studded with the…
Why Futurists Get Space Wrong Government’s role in space requires patience. Missions take years, even decades. The distance our probes…
Space Fact #20: This Movie Could Fund NASA in One Weekend The 2015 space movie, The Martian—the one in which…
Why Probe the Sun? For One Reason, to Help Predict a Disaster Artist’s concept, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Next…
The Best Books on Space Here are the ones I recommend (besides The Gravity Well, of course!). Leave your own…
An Asteroid Made of Platinum Someday, perhaps 30 years from now, companies will be grabbing asteroids and exploiting them for…
Missing: Audacity NASA has been suffering for two decades from the effects of American indecision about its space program. Declining…
Orbital Rush Hour It really wasn’t that long ago when the two greatest superpowers were vying to put satellites into…
What’s Weather Prediction Worth? Weather predictions have been pushed ahead dramatically since the 1960s, when an accurate forecast maxed out…
