James Webb Space Telescope

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The Mission: A True Story by David W. Brown

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Berlin Wall, Columbine, Gregor Mendel, heat death of the universe, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Kickstarter, Kuiper Belt, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, obamacare, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, Pluto: dwarf planet, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Silicon Valley, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Strategic Defense Initiative, transcontinental railway, urban planning, women in the workforce, Y2K, zero-sum game

Wright, October 31, 2007, oral history transcript, NASA at 50 Oral History Project, NASA, Johnson Space Center, https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/NASA_HQ/NAF/WeilerEJ/WeilerEJ_10-31-07.pdf. 136.NASA, “Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Arrival,” press kit, March 2006, https://mars.nasa.gov/mro/files/mro/mro-arrival.pdf. 137.NASA, “Phoenix Landing: Mission to the Martian Polar North,” press kit, May 2008, https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/phoenix-landing.pdf. 138.With apologies to Jerry Pournelle. 139.National Research Council, New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2003), 318, https://doi.org/10.17226/10432. 140.The Next Great Observatory: Assessing the James Webb Space Telescope—Full Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Space, December 6, 2011, video, 1:43.57, https://science.house.gov/news/videos/watch/the-next-great-observatory-assessing-the-james-webb-space-telescope-full-committee. 141.J. K. Alexander, Science Advice to NASA: Conflict, Consensus, Partnership, Leadership (Washington, DC: NASA, Office of Communications, NASA History Division, 2017), 89, https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/275710-science_advice_book_tagged.pdf. 142.National Research Council, New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy. 143.Ibid., 196. 144.Major Savings and Reforms in the President’s 2006 Budget (Washington, DC: Office of Management and Budget, 2006), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2006-SAVINGS/pdf/BUDGET-2006-SAVINGS.pdf. 145.

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In 2003 the rovers Spirit and Opportunity launched to get good looks at Martian soil and rocks in order to better understand the water processes at work. By now, Ed had managed to double the space science budget on such achievements before taking a job as director of Goddard Space Flight Center, a lateral move that placed him closer to his beloved Hubble and its successor in development: the James Webb Space Telescope.135 The Mars milestones, meanwhile, didn’t stop. In 2005 the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched from Cape Canaveral with a mandate to map Mars in greater detail than ever before and to give planetary scientists a global view of Martian weather conditions.136 Each mission arrived successfully at the Red Planet.

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Astronomy is expensive, and their decadal reports were a way for the field to focus on big questions and the big things necessary to answer them. It’s how astronomers came to support so effectively the great telescopes of the twentieth century—the Very Large Array, Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra—and the cornerstone of the twenty-first, the James Webb Space Telescope, which, in addition to luring Ed Weiler to Goddard Space Flight Center, had by 2006 nonupled in price, five hundred million to four-point-five billion, threatening to engulf the agency’s entire space science budget.140 When spreadsheet cells stretched ever rightward like that, the Decadals were how you kept White Houses and Congresses from losing their nerve.141 The planetary science community had no such document, and its unceasing political problems reflected this.

First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time by Emma Chapman

Albert Einstein, All science is either physics or stamp collecting, Arthur Eddington, complexity theory, correlation does not imply causation, cosmic microwave background, cosmological constant, dark matter, Edmond Halley, Edward Charles Pickering, endowment effect, Ernest Rutherford, friendly fire, Galaxy Zoo, Harvard Computers: women astronomers, horn antenna, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, loss aversion, low earth orbit, Magellanic Cloud, Neil Armstrong, Olbers’ paradox, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the long tail, uranium enrichment, Wilhelm Olbers

I don’t understand, then, how people shoulder the responsibility of modern space missions. Take the James Webb Space Telescope,1 known as JWST. Conceived in 1996, the mission will launch at the earliest in Summer 2021, at a cost of $9 billion.1 The telescope has been in planning for such a long time that several of the technologies that it will use did not exist during the formulation stages and were invented for use by JWST. Unlike my culinary worship of the Mary Berry cookbook, those behind JWST are rather more avant-garde in the kitchen, creating delectable dishes on the fly. The James Webb Space Telescope The telescope itself reminds me of an old Transformers toy you found under the tree on Christmas morning, or perhaps an origami swan napkin on the dinner table.

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It took me several months to spell it confidently, let alone pronounce it, and trust me when I say that no one turns up to your public lectures if you advertise it as the topic. Change the title to ‘The dark ages of the Universe and the first stars’, however, and you’re in the money.1 Reionisation We have come a long way in our search for the first stars. We have looked near, using stellar archaeology, and far, preparing to push even the James Webb Space Telescope to its limits. As we wait for further success from these fields, we can continue looking for evidence similar to the EDGES result. There, the warming of the primordial hydrogen gas pervading the Universe signalled the formation of the first stars: the Cosmic Dawn. Now we apply this idea to slightly later times and use how the first stars warm and then ionise that hydrogen to deduce their presence and properties.

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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 493, issue 2: 2596–2605. 27 Simon, J. 2019. The faintest dwarf galaxies. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 57: 375–415. Chapter 9: The Cosmic Dusk 1 www.jwst.nasa.gov. 2 www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTxLAGchWnA. 3 www.theverge.com/2018/8/1/17627560/james-webb-space-telescope-cost-estimate-nasa-northrop-grumman. 4 Surace, M. et al. On the detection of supermassive primordial stars – II. Blue supergiants. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 488, issue 3: 3995–4003. 5 Pawlik, A. et al. 2011. The first galaxies: assembly of disks and prospects for direct detection.

The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester

Albert Einstein, ASML, British Empire, business climate, cotton gin, Dava Sobel, discovery of the americas, Easter island, Etonian, Fairchild Semiconductor, Fellow of the Royal Society, Ford Model T, GPS: selective availability, interchangeable parts, Isaac Newton, Jacques de Vaucanson, James Watt: steam engine, James Webb Space Telescope, John Harrison: Longitude, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, lateral thinking, Lewis Mumford, lone genius, means of production, military-industrial complex, planetary scale, Richard Feynman, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Skype, trade route, vertical integration, William Shockley: the traitorous eight

Air Force) Ops room of Second Space Operations Squadron ASML EUV photolithography machine (courtesy of ASML) Gordon Moore (courtesy of Intel Free Press) John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain First Bell Labs transistor (courtesy of Windell H. Oskay, www.evilmadscientist.com) Chart showing progress from Intel 4004 to Skylake (courtesy of Max Roser/Creative Commons BY-SA-2.0) Main mirror for James Webb Space Telescope Aerial view of LIGO Hanford Observatory LIGO test mass (courtesy of Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab) Seiko Building with clock in Ginza (courtesy of Oleksiy Maksymenko Photography) Quartz watch (courtesy of Museumsfoto/Creative Commons BY-SA-3.0 de) Makers of Grand Seiko mechanical watch Bamboo creation from Met exhibit (courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art) Example of fine urushi work (courtesy of the Japan Folk-Craft Museum) Prologue The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.

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This is why everything that goes on within the ASML boxes does so in warehouse-size rooms that are thousands of times cleaner than the world beyond. There are well-known and internationally agreed standards of cleanliness for various manufacturing processes, and while one might suppose that the clean room at the Goddard Space Center in Maryland, where NASA engineers assembled the James Webb Space Telescope, was clean, it was in fact clean only up to a standard known as ISO number 7, which allows there to be 352,000 half-micron-size particles in every cubic meter of air. Rooms within the ASML facility in Holland are very much cleaner than that. They are clean to the far more brutally restrictive demands of ISO number 1, which permits only 10 particles of just one-tenth of a micron per cubic meter, and no particles of any size larger than that.

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And with spaces that small, leakage of some properties of one transistor (whether electric, electronic, atomic, photonic, or quantum-related properties) into the field of another will surely soon be experienced. There will be, in short, a short circuit—maybe a sparkless and unspectacular short circuit, but a misfire nonetheless, with consequences for the efficiency and utility of the chip and of the computer or other device at the heart of which it lies. The main mirror for the James Webb Space Telescope. At more than twenty-four feet in diameter, it will, from its location a million miles from Earth, vastly increase our ability to peer into the very edge of the universe, and at the time the universe was forming. It is due to be launched in 2019. Thus is the tocsin being sounded. And yet, to a true chipaholic—or to a true believer that the world will be a better place if Moore’s law is rigidly observed and its predictions are followed to the letter—the mantra is a familiar one: “Just one more.

Interplanetary Robots by Rod Pyle

Apollo 11, autonomous vehicles, Elon Musk, independent contractor, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Pluto: dwarf planet, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SpaceShipOne, Stephen Hawking, Strategic Defense Initiative, X Prize

Various techniques, many deriving their functionality from the same principles that govern a sailboat, must be investigated in order to complete something more profound than a quick (very quick) flyby of the distant star system—stopping there and orbiting the local planets would be the most desirable outcome. But the scientists, engineers, and policymakers leading the high-profile team in charge of the program have not identified anything they consider to be a deal breaker, to use their own term. In a few years, NASA will launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the first optical instrument capable of limited imaging of worlds circling other stars. It will join the recently launched TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, in the identification and assessment of nearby candidate stars and worlds that surround them. The ever lengthening list of confirmed extrasolar planets will grow quickly, and some will likely show signs of possible biological activity in their atmospheres, such as the presence of methane or other gases that can be the result of metabolism.

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This lab has the ability to seek biosignatures and organic compounds in the soil, so this is a true astrobiology mission. The drill also carries an infrared spectrometer in the bit, so it can examine the borehole as it drills. Original plans included NASA in the effort, but the ever-hungry James Webb Space Telescope budget consumed the funds previously allocated for this, and NASA was forced to pull out of the partnership. Landing sites are still under discussion, and a final selection will be made in 2019.2 Europa Clipper: After more than a decade of consideration, NASA's Europa Clipper mission finally got the nod to move ahead.

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Russia is in discussions to partner on the mission with the Europeans, and their participation opens the possibility of using a Russian nuclear power supply instead of solar panels (which can be damaged by long exposure to Jupiter's radiation). The JUICE team is even looking at a possible lander add-on to descend to Ganymede and analyze the surface properties. Instrumentation includes cameras, spectrometers, and a surface-penetrating radar that would peer up to six miles below the ice surrounding these worlds.4 James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): While not a planetary probe per se, the JWST is a giant space telescope slated to launch in 2021. The sectional mirror will unfold after the JWST reaches its final position beyond the moon's orbit. JWST's mirror is 21.4 feet in diameter, and is truly a “big eye” when compared to the Hubble's eight-foot mirror; some truly amazing planetary science came from Hubble over the years, so the JWST should expand this reach dramatically.

Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond Our Solar System by Ray Jayawardhana

Albert Einstein, Albert Michelson, Arthur Eddington, Boeing 747, cosmic abundance, dark matter, Donald Davies, Eddington experiment, Edmond Halley, fake news, invention of the telescope, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Johannes Kepler, Kuiper Belt, Late Heavy Bombardment, Louis Pasteur, Neil Armstrong, Pierre-Simon Laplace, planetary scale, Pluto: dwarf planet, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, seminal paper

If funding permits, SOFIA may fy three or four nights a week starting in 2010 (it had the frst fight in May 2010, but regular operations start in 2011) for ten years or more, out of Edwards Air Force Base in California. It will build upon Spitzer’s legacy of characterizing exoplanets, while also studying a variety of other astronomical objects—from star-forming clouds in our cosmic backyard to newborn galaxies in the distant universe. The James Webb Space Telescope, a 6.5-meter successor to Hubble operating at near-and mid-infrared portions of the spectrum, is the next big thing on the horizon. Scheduled for launch in 2014, it should be able to sense the heat from hot Neptunes and possibly even big terrestrial planets. The next time you hear about “the storm of the century,” it may well be from astronomers rather than meteorologists, talking about violent weather raging on a steaming world circling a distant solar twin.

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Invented by the French astronomer Bernard Lyot in 1930 to observe the Sun’s outer realms without having to wait for a solar eclipse, a coronagraph at its simplest is an occulting mask placed inside a telescope (or instrument) to block the bright, central part of the Sun. Modern designs use more sophisticated shapes for the mask, to improve the suppression of starlight while revealing extremely faint companions in the surrounding area. Co-ronagraphs will also be used for planet imaging with the James Webb Space Telescope, the 6.5-meter successor to Hubble, scheduled for launch in 2014. Even with these instruments, we will be limited to imaging giant planets, mostly around youngish stars in the solar neighborhood. Faint Blue Dots In principle, though, an advanced coronagraph could do much better.

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Cataloguing and monitoring that many low-mass stars in search of an eclipsing Jupiter with a terrestrial sister is a daunting task. “While the odds of success are highly uncertain and the observations are technically challenging, at least we don’t need to wait a decade to start the search for extrasolar life,” Jura argued. Our prospects of detecting biosignatures will improve somewhat with the launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled for 2014 (see chapter 7). In principle, it will be capable of looking for imprints of various molecules—like oxygen, ozone, water, and carbon dioxide—in starlight that skims the atmosphere of a large terrestrial planet during transits, the same way that the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have already done with transiting Jupiters (see chapter 5).

Exoplanets by Donald Goldsmith

Albert Einstein, Albert Michelson, Carrington event, Colonization of Mars, cosmic abundance, dark matter, Dava Sobel, en.wikipedia.org, Great Leap Forward, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, Kuiper Belt, Magellanic Cloud, Mars Rover, megastructure, Pluto: dwarf planet, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Stephen Hawking, time dilation

As has been true in the past, some of ­these ave­nues ­toward success interact with, as well as complement, one another. In the interest of simplification, however, let’s proceed along our now well-­known pathways in an attempt to peer one or two de­cades into the ­future. 175 EXOPLANETS Soon to Come: The James Webb Space Telescope Before the end of 2020, if all goes well, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the successor to the amazingly successful Hubble Space Telescope, ­will fi­nally achieve its orbit, and a year ­later it ­will have passed all tests and acquired full functionality. Once known as the Next Generation Space Telescope, the JWST received its new name in 1992 in honor of James Webb, who led NASA throughout most of the 1960s, as the manned space program Apollo passed from its earliest stages into final preparation for the launches that sent 12 men to the moon from 1969 through 1972.

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For the time being, we may feel ­free to speculate that TRAPPIST-1d and its somewhat cooler neighbor TRAPPIST-1e possess pools, lakes, and seas, since they may have the proper temperatures to maintain liquid w ­ ater on their surfaces. All that remains would be to check w ­ hether this hypothesis can receive verification from ­future investigations. Spectroscopic observations to be made by the new James Webb Space Telescope, once it becomes operational, may provide just such an opportunity (see Chapter 12). Orbital Resonances and Planetary Masses The orbital periods established for ­these planets exhibit what astronomers call orbital resonance, a phrase reminiscent of the harmonic resonance of sound waves.

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Biosignatures How can we find evidence for life on planets many light years from Earth? The most promising approach lies in analyzing a planet’s atmosphere, searching for chemical compounds that arise from life and cannot other­wise be produced—­according, of course, to our current and best understanding. This search ­will begin in earnest with the James Webb Space Telescope (see Chapter 13), which should provide astronomers with the first instrument capable of 171 EXOPLANETS making a detailed spectral analy­sis of the atmospheres of Earthlike exoplanets. Soon ­after the new space telescope, usually called the JWST, begins to amass data, three ­great Earthbound telescopes of the ­future, each of them with mirrors 30 meters in dia­meter (also described in Chapter 13) should provide complementary spectroscopic observations.

The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets by Alan Boss

Albert Einstein, Dava Sobel, diversified portfolio, full employment, Gregor Mendel, if you build it, they will come, James Webb Space Telescope, Johannes Kepler, Kuiper Belt, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Neil Armstrong, Pluto: dwarf planet, Silicon Valley, space junk, wikimedia commons, zero-sum game

By 2004, Hubble was down to only three functioning gyroscopes. The expectation was that another gyroscope might fail by 2005, and yet another by 2007. At that point, Hubble would be as good as dead. Without SM4, the Hubble Era was nearly over. Hubble would then have no overlap with the Next Generation Space Telescope, which was now called the James Webb Space Telescope in honor of the early NASA administrator who insisted that NASA balance human space flight with a healthy program of scientific investigation. The Webb Telescope was now planned for launch in 2011, and its launch might slip further. The plan was that the Space Telescope Science Institute would continue to be supported in the interim before the launch of the Webb Telescope gave everybody something to do again.

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May 11, 2005—Griffin sent Congress a revised budget plan for the current fiscal year (FY) that deferred the launch of both SIM and the TPFs to indefinite dates in the future and delayed the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, intended to search for microbial life on Mars, from 2009 to 2011. These deferrals and delays were caused by Griffin’s need to find the money to pay for the SM4 Hubble repair mission and for cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope. Webb’s costs had risen by $1 billion, bringing its total cost to at least $3.5 billion. In perhaps the understatement of the decade, Griffin said, “NASA cannot afford everything on its plate” and maintained that he preferred to drop lower-priority items rather than spread the pain of an inadequate budget.

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See HAT Huntress, Wesley Hutchison, Kay Bailey Hyades Hydrogen fluoride gas Hydrogen fusion IAU (International Astronomical Union) Executive Committee General Assembly (Prague, Czech Republic, 2006) General Assembly (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2009) meeting (British Columbia, Canada, 1998) Planet Definition Committee and Pluto Transiting Planets Symposium (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2008) Working Group on Extrasolar Planets Working Group on the Definition of a Planet Icarus Ice giant planets composition of See also Giant planets Ida, Shigeru Inaba, Satoshi Infrared Array Camera Infrared light , See also Light detection Infrared Spectrograph Institute for Astronomy (Edinburgh, Scotland) Institute of Astrophysics (Paris, France) Institute of Physics (Vienna Imperial University) Intelligent life Interferometers. See also individual interferometers International Astronomical Union. See IAU International Space Station James Webb Space Telescope. See Webb Space Telescope Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL; Caltech) and ExExP forum on exoplanets (Pasadena , 2008) Navigator Program and SIM and TPF Johnson Space Center JPL. See Jet Propulsion Laboratory Juno Jupiter and comets formation of Jupiter-mass planets Jupiter-Sun system Keck HIRES spectrometer (Mauna Kea, Hawaii) Keck Observatory (Mauna Kea, Hawaii) Keck Telescopes Kepler, Johannes (photo) Kepler Mission (NASA) and ATLO phase cost of and critical design review as Discovery Mission and ExExP launching of shake and bake tests on as Strategic Mission Kepler Science Center Kepler’s Third Law of planetary motion Kerr, Richard Kinney, Anne Konacki, Maciej Kornet, Kacper Kortenkamp, Stephen Kuiper, Gerard Kuiper Belt Kulkarni, Shri La Silla Observatory (Chile) Las Campanas Observatory (Chile) Laser comb technique Latham, David Laughlin, Greg Leger, Alain Lehrer, Jim Levy, Eugene Lewinsky, Monica Lick Observatory (Mount Hamilton, California) Light detection, from extrasolar planets Lin, Douglas Livesay, Leslie Lowell, Percival Lowell Observatory (Flagstaff, Arizona) M dwarf planets Pluto as See also Dwarf planets M dwarf stars and eccentric planets See also Dwarf stars Maran, Stephen Marburger, John Marcy, Geoffrey Marr, Jim Mars life on Mars Exploration Program Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mars Rovers Mission Mars Sample Return Mission Mars Science Laboratory cost of Marsden, Brian Martian meteorite Mather, John Max Planck Institute for Astronomy Mayor, Michel McArthur, Barbara McKay, David Mendel, Johann Gregor MER.

Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions by Temple Grandin, Ph.D.

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, 3D printing, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, air gap, Albert Einstein, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Apollo 11, Apple II, ASML, Asperger Syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, autonomous vehicles, Black Lives Matter, Boeing 737 MAX, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, clean water, cloud computing, computer vision, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, coronavirus, cotton gin, COVID-19, defense in depth, Drosophila, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, GPT-3, Gregor Mendel, Greta Thunberg, hallucination problem, helicopter parent, income inequality, industrial robot, invention of movable type, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Jony Ive, language acquisition, longitudinal study, Mark Zuckerberg, Mars Rover, meta-analysis, Neil Armstrong, neurotypical, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, phenotype, ransomware, replication crisis, Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, Robert X Cringely, Saturday Night Live, self-driving car, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Skinner box, space junk, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, TaskRabbit, theory of mind, TikTok, twin studies, unpaid internship, upwardly mobile, US Airways Flight 1549, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, web application, William Langewiesche, Y Combinator

National Transportation Safety Board. “Preliminary Report: Pipeline Over-pressure of a Columbia Gas of Massachusetts Low-pressure Natural Gas Distribution System [September 13, 2018].” October 11, 2018. Niler, E. “NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Plagued by Delays, Rising Costs.” Wired, June 27, 2018. https://www.wired.com/story/delays-rising-costs-plague-nasas-james-webb-space-telescope/. Norman, C. “Chernobyl: Errors and Design Flaws.” Science 233, no. 4768 (September 5, 1986): 1029–31. “NRC Nears Completion of NuScale SMR Design Review.” World Nuclear News, August 27, 2020. Onyanga-Omara, J., and T.

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It failed miserably, and dozens of bolts and fasteners were scattered. A good object visualizer in the shop could have addressed this problem. They would have visualized the effect of the shaking and designed fasteners that would have withstood liftoff. As of this writing, after months of calibration, the James Webb Space Telescope was sending back wondrous photos of galaxies from the farthest reaches of the universe. * * * When I was in college, researchers had to do many of the calculations they needed by hand. You may not recall the IBM punch card—they’re obsolete now—but it’s what everyone used to sort and process data back then.

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Seattle Times, June 22, 2019. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/the-inside-story-of-mcas-how-boeings-737-max-system-gained-power-and-lost-safeguards/. Gibson, E. J., and R. D. Walk. “The ‘Visual Cliff.’ ” Scientific American 202, no. 4 (1960): 64–71. Glantz, J., et al. “Jet’s Software Was Updated, Pilots Weren’t.” New York Times, February 3, 2019, 1, 18. “The Great, Late James Webb Space Telescope.” Economist, November 27, 2021, 76–78. Greene-Blose, J. M. “Deepwater Horizon: Lessons in Probabilities.” Paper presented at PMI Global Congress 2015—EMEA, London. Newton Square, PA: Project Management Institute. Gulati, R., C. Casto, and C. Krontiris. “How the Other Fukushima Plant Survived.”

Space at the Speed of Light: The History of 14 Billion Years for People Short on Time by Becky Smethurst

Apollo 13, Cepheid variable, dark matter, Galaxy Zoo, Harvard Computers: women astronomers, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Kickstarter, Stephen Hawking

The problem is that as objects in the universe get more distant, the signatures we use to trace supermassive black hole activity and star formation get redshifted so much that we can no longer see them with visible light. In other words, the Hubble Space Telescope can only see so far before there’s nothing left for it to see. It’s a good job that NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have a plan to launch another mission by 2021, called the James Webb Space Telescope, which will look at the sky in infrared light. This telescope will allow us to see the light from more distant objects as it gets redshifted from visible wavelengths down into the infrared. The stakes, and the expectations, for James Webb are high enough as it is, without the added excitement of finally solving the astrophysics equivalent of the age-old question: what came first—the chicken or the egg?

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., 4.1 properties of, 4.1 dark sky paradox, 7.1 Donovan, Eric, 10.1 Doppler shift, 4.1 Earth exoplanets like, 6.1, 6.2 magnetic field of, 5.1 -Moon system, 1.1 spin of, 1.1 tilted axis of, 1.1, 1.2 Eddington accretion limit, 9.1 Einstein, Albert, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 8.1 Einstein ring, 4.1 entropy, 1.1 European Space Agency (ESA), 9.1 Event Horizon Telescope, 3.1 exoplanets, 6.1, 8.1 Franklin, Benjamin, 10.3 galaxies destruction of, 1.1 formation of, 1.1, 9.1 number of, 8.1, 8.2 rotation speeds of stars in, 4.1 spectrum of, 2.1, 2.2 supermassive black holes at centers of, 1.1, 3.1, 9.1, 10.1 Galaxy Zoo, 10.1 general relativity, theory of, 3.1, 4.1 gravitational waves, 3.1, 4.1 gravity Einstein’s theory of, 3.1, 4.1 importance of, 1.1, 1.2 Newton’s law of, 1.1, 4.1 Haise, Fred, 5.1 Hanny’s Voorwerp, 10.1 Hawking, Stephen, 3.1 HI-SEAS experiment, 5.1 Hubble, Edwin, 2.1, 6.1 Hubble Space Telescope (HST), 8.1, 9.1, 9.2, 10.1 inflation, 9.1 International Space Station, 5.1 James Webb Space Telescope, 9.1 Juno probe, 5.1 Jupiter, 5.1, 5.2, 8.1 Kepler-438b, 6.1 knowledge, categories of, 10.1 Leavitt, Henrietta, 2.1 Lemaître, Georges, 2.1 LIGO detector, 3.1, 3.2 Lovell, Jim, 5.1 MACHOs (MAssive Compact Halo Objects), 4.1, 4.2 Mariner spacecraft, 5.1 Mars, 5.1, 5.2 Messier, Charles, 10.1 Messier 8.1, 3.1 Milky Way galaxy black hole at center of, 1.1, 3.1 destruction of, 1.1, 1.2 Sun’s location in, 8.1 Mir, 5.1 MOND (MOdified Newtonian Dynamics), 4.1 Moon formation of, 1.1, 1.2 missions to, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 orbit of, 1.1 phases of, 1.1, 1.2 spin of, 1.1 NASA, 5.1, 5.2, 9.1, 10.1 Neptune, 5.1 neutron stars, 3.1, 9.1 Newton, Isaac, 1.1, 4.1 Northern Lights, 5.1, 10.1 Olbers, Heinrich, 7.1 Opportunity, 5.1, 5.2 Penrose, Roger, 3.1 Pluto, 6.1 Poe, Edgar Allan, 7.1, 7.2 quasar light ionization echoes, 10.1 Rubin, Vera, 4.1 Saturn, 5.1, 8.1 seasons, 1.1, 1.2 singularities, 3.1 solar eclipses, 1.1 Southern Lights, 5.1 spacetime, 3.1 Standard Model, 4.1 stars formation of, 5.1 number of, 8.1 rotation speeds of, in galaxies, 4.1 Steve, 10.1, 10.2 Sun age of, 8.1 end of, 1.1 formation of, 1.1 location of, in galaxy, 8.1 properties of, 8.1 Swigert, Jack, 5.1 universe age of, 6.1, 7.1 early, 9.1, 9.2 expansion of, 2.1, 4.1, 7.1, 9.1 possible futures for, 2.1, 2.2 Uranus, 5.1 van Arkel, Hanny, 10.1, 10.2 Venus, 5.1, 8.1 VIRGO detector, 3.1, 3.2 Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, 5.1 WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles), 4.1 What’s next on your reading list?

Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier by Neil Degrasse Tyson, Avis Lang

Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Arthur Eddington, asset allocation, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, carbon-based life, centralized clearinghouse, cosmic abundance, cosmic microwave background, dark matter, Gordon Gekko, high-speed rail, informal economy, invention of movable type, invention of the telescope, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Johannes Kepler, Karl Jansky, Kuiper Belt, Large Hadron Collider, Louis Blériot, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mars Society, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, Pluto: dwarf planet, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SETI@home, space junk, space pen, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, the scientific method, trade route

The European Space Agency’s Integral satellite studies gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light, which arise from exploding stars and other violent cosmic events; NASA’s Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer searches for the most distant gamma-ray outbursts in the universe. Meanwhile, the Hubble Space Telescope will continue to work until its larger successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, reaches orbit, peering farther than any previous telescope as it chronicles the formation of galaxies and the large-scale structures they trace. Enlightened by our surrogate eyes in this busy vacuum of space, we should occasionally remind ourselves that Earth’s continents display no national boundaries.

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Akin to a modern version of a torch-wielding mob, they voiced their opposition in every medium available, from op-eds to petitions. Ultimately, Congress listened and reversed the decision. Democracy had a shining moment: Hubble would indeed be serviced one last time. Of course, nothing lasts forever—nothing except, perhaps, the universe itself. So Hubble eventually will die. But in the meantime, the James Webb Space Telescope beckons, designed to see deeper into the universe than Hubble ever could. When launched, funding permitting, it will allow us to plumb the depths of gas clouds in our own Milky Way galaxy in search of stellar nurseries, as well as to probe the earliest epochs of the universe in search of the formation of galaxies themselves.

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The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP for short), which was launched in 2001, reached the Sun–Earth L2 in a couple of months and is still librating there, having busily taken data on the cosmic microwave background—the omnipresent signature of the Big Bang. And having set aside a mere 10 percent of its total fuel, the WMAP satellite nevertheless has enough fuel to hang around this point of unstable equilibrium for nearly a century, long beyond its useful life as a data-taking space probe. NASA’s next-generation space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (successor to the Hubble), is also being designed for the Sun–Earth L2 point. And there’s plenty of room for yet more satellites to come and librate, since the real estate of the Sun–Earth L2 occupies quadrillions of cubic miles. Another Lagrangian-loving NASA satellite, known as Genesis, librated around the Sun–Earth L1 point.

Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars by Lee Billings

addicted to oil, Albert Einstein, Anthropocene, Apollo 11, Arthur Eddington, California gold rush, Colonization of Mars, cosmological principle, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, Dava Sobel, double helix, Eddington experiment, Edmond Halley, Ford Model T, full employment, Hans Moravec, hydraulic fracturing, index card, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Johannes Kepler, Kuiper Belt, Late Heavy Bombardment, low earth orbit, Magellanic Cloud, music of the spheres, Neil Armstrong, out of africa, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, planetary scale, private spaceflight, profit motive, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, random walk, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Searching for Interstellar Communications, selection bias, Silicon Valley, space junk, synthetic biology, technological singularity, the scientific method, transcontinental railway

After Hubble reached the end of its useful life sometime in the first or second decade of the twenty-first century, it would be de-orbited into the Pacific Ocean, and a new, even more revolutionary observatory would take its place. Hubble’s successor was announced in 1996 as the Next Generation Space Telescope before being renamed the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2002 in honor of the NASA administrator who had guided the agency in the glory days of Apollo. Its mission would be to fully unveil the universe’s very first galaxies, the objects that manifested only as tiny red blobs in Hubble’s deepest images. JWST would be only the beginning—the U.S. astronomy community rapidly made plans to pursue many additional big, ambitious space telescopes, like a hungry diner selecting not one but several gut-busting entrées from a menu.

…

“All this work is purely to make us ready for an eventual interpretation of unclear observations,” she parried, sipping her wine. “And some of this will start happening soon. First we’ll be able to look at some transiting super-Earths around nearby, quiet M-dwarfs, the ones with puffy, extended atmospheres that [the James Webb Space Telescope] and maybe even telescopes on the ground will be able to probe. But after that we won’t have infinite chances to find our Earth twin. Anything launched in our lifetimes will probably only be able to look at the nearest hundred stars or so, and that’s all we’ll have. So if we don’t have any Earth twins to survey in that space, how will we ever recognize any biosignature gases?

…

., 196, 198, 215, 221–23 Butler, Paul, 55, 58–70, 96, 114 Caldeira, Ken, 181 California, 105–7, 112–13 gold rush in, 105–6, 111, 112–13 Calvin, Melvin, 15, 19–20, 25 Cambrian Period, 138–39, 143–45, 182 Cameron, James, 258 Campbell, Joseph, 261 Canada, 244–48 Canadian Shield, 246 Capella, 239 carbon, 123, 131, 132, 134, 135, 140, 141, 175, 179, 182 carbonate-silicate cycle, 175–81, 184 carbon cycle, organic, 175 carbon dioxide (CO2), 124, 132, 134–37, 140, 141, 157, 159–62, 168, 170, 172, 173, 175–82, 184 Carboniferous Period, 131, 132 Carina Nebula, 238 Carnegie Institution, 251 Carpenter, Scott, 100 Carter, Jimmy, 240 Cash, Webster, 219–20 Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, 96 Challenger, 3, 188–89 Chandra X-Ray Observatory, 192, 209 Chaotian Eon, 139 Charbonneau, David, 228–30, 232 charged-coupled devices (CCDs), 51–53 China, 21–22 chlorofluorocarbons, 134, 142 chlorophyll, 141, 143 Christmas Tree Cluster, 238 Clinton, Bill, 196, 215 clouds, 161–62, 164, 206 coal, 125, 131, 134, 136, 137, 144, 160, 184 Columbia, 189, 196 comets, 2, 3, 19, 76–77, 140 Halley’s, 3 Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, 192, 209 computers, 43–44 Constellation program, 196, 198, 203, 204, 215, 221, 223 convergent evolution, 21 Cook, James, 85–86 Copernican Principle (principle of mediocrity), 83, 89, 91 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 81–83, 86, 87, 89, 91, 200 Cornell University, 39, 42 coronagraphic TPF, 217–22, 224, 231, 249 coronagraphs, 217 cosmology, 77–82 Copernican Principle (principle of mediocrity) in, 83, 89, 91 inflationary theory in, 89–92 modern, 86–87, 91 see also astronomy Cosmos, 240 Costanza, Robert, 74–75 Crab Nebula, 30 Crabtree, William, 84 Crutzen, Paul, 134–35 Cuban missile crisis, 23–24 cyanobacteria, 140–44, 175, 183 Daily Mail, 74 dark energy, 88, 90 dark matter, 206 Darwin, Charles, 200 Davidson, George, 113 deep time, 145–46 Democritus, 79, 80, 92, 238 Demory, Brice, 259 De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) (Lucretius), 80–81 De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Orbs) (Copernicus), 82 Devonian Period, 128, 130–32 Diamandis, Peter, 258 dinosaurs, 30, 136, 144 Discovery, 189 DNA, 40, 141, 143, 170 dolphins, 16, 20–21 Drake, Frank, 9–17, 27–45, 101, 167–68, 240 Arecibo transmission of, 39–41 orchids of, 37–38 Drake equation, 16–25, 28–29, 38–39, 41, 42, 183 longevity of technological civilizations (L term) in, 22–25, 38–39, 41, 42 Draper Laboratory, 256 Dyson, Freeman, 104 Dyson spheres, 104, 105 Earth, 109 asteroid strike on, 30 atmosphere of, 3, 132, 134–35, 139, 140, 144, 157–60, 168–69, 174–77, 206, 238 “Blue Marble” images of, 212, 239–41 carbonate-silicate cycle on, 175–81, 184 climate of, 123–24, 128, 132–37, 142, 144, 156–57, 160–62, 173–75, 184 in early cosmology, 77–82 energy consumption on, 103–4 extinctions on, 43, 135, 184 faint young Sun problem and, 173–75 formation of, 2, 7, 20, 139, 173 geologic time periods of, 128–45 glaciation on, 132–34, 142, 174, 176, 178, 179, 183 human population of, 43, 100, 134, 136 ice caps of, 128, 132–33, 135, 136, 184 Laughlin’s idea for moving orbit of, 76–77 Laughlin’s valuation of, 73–76 oxygen on, 139–44, 159, 171, 180–82, 200, 238 Snowball Earth events, 142, 174, 179 Sun’s distance from, 83, 86 tectonic plates of, 30, 105, 111, 128, 140, 144, 176, 229 union of organisms with geophysical systems on (Gaia hypothesis), 175, 176, 178, 183 water on, 3, 30, 158–61, 174, 177–80, 182 Earth, life on, 31, 154 diversification and explosion of, 138–39, 143, 144, 182 emergence of, 4, 7, 19–20, 238 end of, 7–8, 31–32, 75–77, 159, 180–83 essential facts of, 29–30 humanity’s ascent, 144–46 intelligent, 20–21, 182–83 jump from single-celled to multicellular, 28 redox reactions and, 168 Earth-like planets, 29, 32–34, 71–72, 99, 227–28 Earth-size or Earth-mass planets, 6, 53–54, 56, 200, 227, 251 ecology and economics, 74 economic growth, 102, 103 Eddington, Arthur, 35 Edison, Thomas, 106 Einstein, Albert, 35, 87 Elachi, Charles, 211–12, 214, 221 electricity, 103, 136 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 254 Endeavour, 190 endosymbiosis, 143 energy, 103–4, 136–38 from fossil fuels, 103, 124–27, 137, 154, 160, 184 Engelder, Terry, 126 Epicurus, 80 Epsilon Eridani, 10–11 Eshleman, Von, 35 ethanol, 137 eukaryotes, 143, 144 European Southern Observatory (ESO), 60, 64, 66 European Space Agency, 222 evolution, 183 convergent, 21 of universe, 88–89 exoplanetology, 13, 14, 34, 51, 193 exoplanets, 5, 27–28, 87, 222–23, 263 51 Pegasi b, 50, 53, 54, 58–59 Alpha Centauri Bb, 98–99 biosignatures and, 167–72, 261–62 Blue Marble images of, 212–15 distinguishing between various compositions of, 251 Earth-like, 29, 32–34, 71–72, 99, 227–28 Earth-size or Earth-mass, 6, 53–54, 56, 200, 227, 251 formation of, 109 GJ 667Cc, 65–69, 72 Gliese 581c, 163 Gliese 581d, 163 Gliese 581g (Zarmina’s World), 63–64, 68, 69, 72, 163 Gliese 876b, 60 habitability of, 154–83 HD 85512b, 163–64 Jupiter-like, 13, 28, 50, 56, 59, 60, 108, 109, 226, 228, 248–49 Laughlin’s valuation of, 71–77 migration theory and, 108 Neptune-like, 56, 108–9, 251 “Next 40 Years” conference on, 225–35, 263 observation of stars of, 33 snow line idea and, 110 super-Earths, 228–29, 251, 262 transits of, 53 TrES-4, 228 exoplanet searches, 5–7, 13–14, 32–33, 69–70 and false-alarm discoveries, 52–53 press releases on progress in, 163–65 SETI and, see SETI spectroscopy in, see spectroscopy, spectrometers see also telescopes Ferguson, Chris, 185–86 financial markets, 111–12 Fischer, Debra, 59, 61, 62, 69, 96 Ford, Eric, 249–50 Ford, Henry, 125 fossil fuels, 103, 124–27, 137, 154, 160, 184 fracking (hydraulic fracturing), 126–27 Gaia hypothesis, 175, 176, 178, 183 galactic planetary census, 54 galaxies, 87, 88, 99, 238 Andromeda, 31, 191, 238 Hubble Telescope and, 191 Local Group of, 88 Milky Way, see Milky Way Galileo, 241–42 Galileo Galilei, 81–83, 210 Galliher, Scot, 257 Garrels, Robert, 178 gas, natural, 125–27, 137, 184 Gemini telescopes, 199–200, 203 General Dynamics Astronautics time capsule, 100–103 geologic time periods, 128–45 geology, 110–11, 123 glaciers, 132–34, 142, 174, 176, 178, 179, 183 Glenn, John, 100 Goldin, Dan, 194, 211, 215, 242 governments, Urey on, 102 gravitational lenses, 35–37 Great Observatories, 192, 197, 209 Greece, ancient, 77, 92, 238 Green Bank conference, 15–25, 27–28, 101, 167–68, 240 greenhouse gases, 124, 134, 137, 157, 160, 174, 175 carbon dioxide, see carbon dioxide methane, 140, 142, 168–71, 174, 200 Grunsfeld, John, 197–99, 225–26, 235 Guedes, Javiera, 96 Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, 74–75 “Habitable Zones around Main Sequence Stars” (Kasting), 155–56, 159 Hadean Eon, 139–40, 156 Halley, Edmond, 84 Halley’s comet, 3 Hart, Michael, 174, 178 Hays, Paul, 176–79 heliocentrism, 79–82 Hiroshima, 23 Holmes, Dyer Brainerd, 100–101 Holocene Epoch, 133–35, 145 Horrocks, Jeremiah, 84 Howard, Andrew, 62 How to Find a Habitable Planet (Kasting), 167 Hu, Renyu, 259 Huang, Su-Shu, 15, 19 Hubble, Edwin, 86–87 Hubble Space Telescope, 189–93, 195, 197–99, 205–7, 209, 218–19, 226 human genome project, 234 hydraulic fracturing (fracking), 126–27 hydrogen, 159, 170–72 Icarus, 155 ice ages, 132, 133, 142–43 Industrial Revolution, 22, 134 inflationary theory, 89–92 Ingersoll, Andrew, 159 intelligence, 20–21, 23, 32, 182–83 interferometry, 213–14, 216, 231 International Space Station (ISS), 187, 189, 197, 202, 207–8, 210 interstellar travel, 44–45, 100–101 iron, 141 James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), 193–99, 202–4, 209, 215, 216, 218, 220, 225, 262 Jensen-Clem, Becky, 259 Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 211–12, 216, 219, 221–25, 231 Johnson, Lyndon B., 101 Journal of Geophysical Research, 178 Jupiter, 76, 109, 191, 239 Galileo’s study of, 81 Kepler’s laws and, 83 moons of, 28, 110 Jupiter-like planets, 13, 28, 50, 56, 59, 60, 108, 109, 226, 228, 248–49 Kasdin, Jeremy, 219–20 Kasting, Jerry, 150–52 Kasting, Jim, 150–67, 169–84 children of, 153 Kasting, Sandy, 150 Kasting, Sharon, 153 Keck Observatory, 59, 60, 62, 66, 118 Kennedy, John F., 224 Kennedy Space Center, 185 Kepler, Johannes, 82, 83 planetary motion laws of, 82–84 Kepler field stars, 41 Kepler Space Telescope, 13–14, 53–54, 56, 62, 71–73, 98, 108–9, 166, 201, 225, 229–30, 263 Kirschvink, Joseph, 142 Knapp, Mary, 259 Korolev, Sergei, 186 Kuchner, Marc, 217–18 Kuiper Belt, 76 Large Magellanic Cloud, 238 Lasaga, Antonio, 178 Late Heavy Bombardment, 3, 140 Laughlin, Greg, 5–6, 48–50, 53–57, 69–70, 93–100, 107–12, 114–15, 117–20 Alpha Centauri planet search and, 94–98 idea to move Earth, 76–77 magnetic toy of, 93–94 SETI as viewed by, 99 valuation equation of, 71–77 laws of nature, 155–56 Lederberg, Joshua, 15, 16, 167–68 Le Gentil, Guillaume, 85, 117 Leinbach, Mike, 185–86 Lick, James, 112–14 Lick Observatory, 58, 61, 62, 70, 113–19 life, 32 on Earth, see Earth, life on intelligent, 23, 32 single-celled, 20 technological, see technological civilizations light: photons of, 72, 89, 115–16, 156, 191, 193–94, 201, 202, 213, 216, 237–38 polarization of, 115–16 waves of, 213–14, 216 Lilly, John, 15–16, 20–21 Local Group, 88 Lovelock, James, 168, 170, 174–76, 178, 181–83 Lucretius, 80–81 Lyot, Bernard, 217 Madwoman of Chaillot, The, 36 Manhattan Project, 23 Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research, 127, 149 Marcellus formation, 126–30, 137, 138, 141, 144, 160 Marconi, Guglielmo, 48 Marconi Conference Center, 48–50, 53–57 Marcy, Geoff, 57–63, 69, 70, 114, 194, 230–32, 235 Margulis, Lynn, 175 Mars, 19, 50, 87, 100, 107, 109, 155, 167, 179, 191, 192, 239 Kepler’s study of, 82, 83 missions to, 187, 188, 196, 207, 221 water on, 28, 179 Marshall, James, 105–6, 112 Martian Chronicles, The (Bradbury), 98–99 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 251–52, 259 ExoplanetSat project, 256–57 “Next 40 Years of Exoplanets” conference at, 225–35, 263 Mayor, Michel, 58 McPhee, John, 145 mEarth Project, 228–29 mediocrity, principle of (Copernican Principle), 83, 89, 91 Mercury, 82, 109, 239 meteorites, 20 methane, 140, 142, 168–71, 174, 200 methanogens, 140, 142, 169 microbes, 28 Miletus, 77 Milky Way, 16–17, 25, 31, 39, 41, 79, 86–87, 191, 237, 238 Sun’s orbit in, 95 Miller, George P., 101 Miller, Stanley, 19 Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, 48, 74 mitochondria, 143 Moon, 3, 76, 100, 229, 242 in early cosmology, 78, 83 formation of, 30, 139 Moon, missions to, 188, 196, 221, 224 Apollo, 1, 50, 151, 187, 202, 212, 239 Morrison, Philip, 15, 18–19, 21, 23–24 Mosely, T.

Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military by Neil Degrasse Tyson, Avis Lang

active measures, Admiral Zheng, airport security, anti-communist, Apollo 11, Arthur Eddington, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, Carrington event, Charles Lindbergh, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Colonization of Mars, commoditize, corporate governance, cosmic microwave background, credit crunch, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, Dava Sobel, disinformation, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, Dr. Strangelove, dual-use technology, Eddington experiment, Edward Snowden, energy security, Eratosthenes, European colonialism, fake news, Fellow of the Royal Society, Ford Model T, global value chain, Google Earth, GPS: selective availability, Great Leap Forward, Herman Kahn, Higgs boson, invention of movable type, invention of the printing press, invention of the telescope, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Johannes Kepler, John Harrison: Longitude, Karl Jansky, Kuiper Belt, Large Hadron Collider, Late Heavy Bombardment, Laura Poitras, Lewis Mumford, lone genius, low earth orbit, mandelbrot fractal, Maui Hawaii, Mercator projection, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, New Journalism, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, operation paperclip, pattern recognition, Pierre-Simon Laplace, precision agriculture, prediction markets, profit motive, Project Plowshare, purchasing power parity, quantum entanglement, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, skunkworks, South China Sea, space junk, Stephen Hawking, Strategic Defense Initiative, subprime mortgage crisis, the long tail, time dilation, trade route, War on Poverty, wikimedia commons, zero-sum game

Although Northrop Grumman characterizes itself as a “leading global security company” and foregrounds its military work—“We provide products, systems and solutions in autonomous systems; cyber; command, control, communications and computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR); strike; and logistics and modernization”—it is also the prime contractor for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a state-of-the-art, state-of-the-science infrared observatory designed to orbit the Sun a million miles from Earth as, alongside other goals, it tracks the birth of galaxies in the early universe. Conceived in 1996 as the follow-on to Hubble, the Webb telescope, named for the administrator of NASA during much of the Apollo era, represents a total cost of about $9 billion—about $375 million per year when spread from birth to launch.

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Because the NRO had begun to use even better ones. Unfortunately for the future of astrophysics, the White House’s FY2019 budget request completely eliminates funding for WFIRST, on the grounds that “developing another large space telescope immediately after completing the $8.8-billion James Webb Space Telescope is not a priority for the administration.”39 Let’s put that in context. For many years, NASA’s budget—covering all ten NASA centers, the astronaut program, the International Space Station, and all space probes and spaceborne telescopes, including Hubble—has been less than one-half of one percent of the federal budget.

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Hubble was adored not only by scientists but by civilians, who in 2004 took ownership of it. When NASA proposed to cancel the telescope’s final servicing mission, the outcry from the general public was greater than that from the scientists. Congress relented, and the mission was reinstated. Hubble’s successor, the infrared-tuned James Webb Space Telescope, has, as far as we know, no military doppelgängers—yet. 7 MAKING WAR, SEEKING PEACE Space is a physics battleground. Gigantic magnetic fields loop through the frigid emptiness. Bursts of plasma erupt from the surfaces of suns. Black holes flay and swallow every object that wanders near.

On the Future: Prospects for Humanity by Martin J. Rees

23andMe, 3D printing, air freight, Alfred Russel Wallace, AlphaGo, Anthropocene, Asilomar, autonomous vehicles, Benoit Mandelbrot, biodiversity loss, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, carbon tax, circular economy, CRISPR, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, decarbonisation, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, demographic transition, Dennis Tito, distributed ledger, double helix, driverless car, effective altruism, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Geoffrey Hinton, global village, Great Leap Forward, Higgs boson, Hyperloop, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Johannes Kepler, John Conway, Large Hadron Collider, life extension, mandelbrot fractal, mass immigration, megacity, Neil Armstrong, Nick Bostrom, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, off-the-grid, pattern recognition, precautionary principle, quantitative hedge fund, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, Rodney Brooks, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, smart grid, speech recognition, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Stanislav Petrov, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Stuxnet, supervolcano, technological singularity, the scientific method, Tunguska event, uranium enrichment, Walter Mischel, William MacAskill, Yogi Berra

But it makes sense to start with what we know (the ‘searching under the streetlight’ strategy) and to deploy all available techniques to discover whether any Earthlike exoplanet atmospheres display evidence for a biosphere. Clues should come, in the next decade or two, from the deep space James Webb Space Telescope and from the E-ELT and similar giant telescopes on the ground that will come on line in the 2020s. Even these next-generation telescopes will have a hard job separating out the spectrum of the planet’s atmosphere from the spectrum of the brighter central star. But, looking beyond midcentury, one can imagine an array of vast space telescopes, each with gossamer-thin kilometre-scale mirrors, being assembled in deep space by robotic fabricators.

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See also inorganic intelligences Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 39, 40, 58 International Atomic Energy Agency, 218 international institutions, 10, 32, 218–19 International Space Station, 140, 146 international tensions, 100 International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), 54 internet: leveling global education and health, 83–84, 220–21; national and religious divisions on, 100; security on, 220. See also information technology (IT); social media internet of things, 104 interstellar travel, 8, 79, 154 invasive species, 74 in vitro fertilisation (IVF), 67, 68 Iranian nuclear weapons programme, 20 iris recognition, 84–85 James Webb Space Telescope, 137 jobs: declining wages and security, 91; disrupted by technology, 5; in personal services, 96–97; resurgence of arts and crafts, 98; shortened working week, 97–98; taken over by machines, 91–94 Juncker, Jean-Claude, 28 Kardashev, Nikolai, 156 Kasparov, Garry, 86, 87–88 Keeling, Charles, 38 Keeling, Ralph, 38 Kennedy, John F., 17 Kepler, Johannes, 131 Kepler project, 131–32 Khrushchev, Nikita, 17 kidneys sold for transplant, 71 killer robots, 101–2 The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch (Dartnell), 217 Kolmogorov, Andrey, 172 Kolmogorov complexity, 172, 174, 193 Kuhn, Thomas, 205 Kurzweil, Ray, 81, 108 Large Hadron Collider, 206–7 Lee Sedol, 88 Lehrer, Tom, 17 Leonov, Alexey, 138 life: Earth as only known home of, 121; habitable planets and, 125, 126–27, 133, 135–36; origin of, 128–29, 135–36; universe fine-tuned for, 186, 197–98.

The End of Astronauts: Why Robots Are the Future of Exploration by Donald Goldsmith, Martin Rees

Apollo 11, Biosphere 2, blockchain, Colonization of Mars, cosmic abundance, crewed spaceflight, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, gravity well, hydroponic farming, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, Kuiper Belt, low earth orbit, Menlo Park, microplastics / micro fibres, Neil Armstrong, operation paperclip, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, place-making, Planet Labs, planetary scale, Ronald Reagan, satellite internet, self-driving car, South China Sea, SpaceX Starlink, Stephen Hawking, UNCLOS, V2 rocket, Virgin Galactic, Yogi Berra

Because ESA typically ranks as NASA’s ju­nior partner in funding, and b ­ ecause United States residents typically think almost entirely of NASA when they think of space, ESA’s contribution often receives ­little attention, even though proj­ects such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Infrared Space Telescope, and the soon-­to-­be-­launched James Webb Space Telescope have relied on ESA throughout their history. Eu­rope has contributed about 8 ­percent of the operational costs of the International Space Station, including the Columbus laboratory, the Cupola observatory, the Tranquility and Harmony modules, and the computers that collect data and provide navigation, communications, and operations capability for the Rus­sian segment of the ISS.12 ESA’s five Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATVs) ­were massive and versatile supply ferries that provided the ISS with supplies and boosted its orbit for increased stability.

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February 10, 2021 China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft enters orbit around Mars and prepares to send a rover to the Martian surface. February 18, 2021 NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars. April 19, 2021 The Ingenuity he­li­cop­ter makes the first aerial flight on another planet. December 2021 NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope scheduled for launch from French Guiana. Notes Introduction 1. David Shayler and David Harland, The Hubble Space Telescope: From Concept to Success (New York: Springer Praxis Books, 2016) and Enhancing Hubble’s Vision: Ser­vice Missions That Expanded Our View of the Universe (New York: Springer Praxis Books, 2016). 2.

The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy by Moiya McTier

affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Arthur Eddington, Burning Man, Cepheid variable, cosmic microwave background, cosmological constant, dark matter, Eddington experiment, Edward Charles Pickering, Ernest Rutherford, Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis, Harvard Computers: women astronomers, heat death of the universe, Henri Poincaré, Higgs boson, Isaac Newton, James Dyson, James Webb Space Telescope, Karl Jansky, Kickstarter, Large Hadron Collider, Magellanic Cloud, overview effect, Pluto: dwarf planet, polynesian navigation, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Stephen Hawking, the scientific method

Some of the star’s photons are blocked and absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere, so your astronomers see a gap in the spectrum at those photons’ corresponding wavelengths of light. Thus far, both methods have worked only for planets with thick atmospheres like Jupiter, but human astronomers are confident that the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will change that. The telescope was previously called the Next Generation Space Telescope, and there was a push by some astronomers for the name to be changed again so as not to memorialize a man who discriminated against and persecuted his colleagues simply for daring to love another human with the same-shaped fleshy bits.5 Sounds like a reasonable request to me; that kind of silly, small-minded human thinking shouldn’t be celebrated.

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A popular one was published by the Swedish International Academy of Astronautics in 1989: “Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence,” International Academy of Astronautics, 1989, https://iaaspace.org/wp-content/uploads/iaa/Scientific%20Activity/setideclaration.pdf. SETI and NASA have both drafted their own protocols influenced by the IAA’s. 5NASA refused to change the name of the James Webb Space Telescope, even after more than one thousand astronomers petitioned to change the name. It should be noted that the name wasn’t chosen through a typical formal process, and it is not uncommon for telescopes’ names to change (e.g., WFIRST changing to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, or LSST changing to the Vera C.

Red Rover: Inside the Story of Robotic Space Exploration, From Genesis to the Mars Rover Curiosity by Roger Wiens

Apollo 11, computer age, James Webb Space Telescope, Mars Rover, Mars Society, military-industrial complex, Ronald Reagan, Skype

In addition, the projected delivery date for the gears was getting later and later, which would require JPL to keep more people on the project longer, running up staffing costs. The rover was facing a cost crunch. But to NASA, this was only a part of a bigger picture of increases among all missions. In the NASA portfolio were missions at various stages. Some were almost ready to launch, while others, like the James Webb Space Telescope, were still in the planning and feasibility stages. Some missions, like the successful MER twins, had launched some time ago and were asking for mission extensions. All of these cost pressures were now brought up to a new NASA associate administrator for space science, Dr. Alan Stern. Dr.

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Accelerometers, 60 Aerogel collectors, 87 Aerogel, described, 86 Alpha-particle x-ray spectrometer (APXS), 109–110, 160, 171, 212 Aluminum, 17, 162, 174 American Association of Variable Star Observers, 9 Ames Research Center, 76, 77, 101, 169 Anders, William, 7–8 Antenna motor, 146 Apollo 7 mission, 6 Apollo 8 mission, 6, 7–8 Apollo 11 mission, 17, 71–72 Apollo 16 mission, 17 Apollo missions, 4 aim of, 6 capsules used for, 144 cost of, 20 costs since, 15 and Earth-based laser systems, 71–72 first of, to the moon, as a manned mission, 7–8 first planned return of a capsule since, 30, 47 laser altimeters on, 72 lunar soil from, 17 next logical step following, 87 as sample-return missions, 18, 20 and XRD instruments, 169 Apollo-Soyuz project, 95–96 Argonne National Laboratory, 27, 71 Arizona State University, 85 Arm motors, 145–146 Arm, rover unit, 75, 98, 99, 107, 109, 110, (ins. img. 15), 127, 142, 145, 162, 164, 171, 175, 195, 196, 212, 214 Arvidson, Ray, 77, 177 Assembly, test, and launch operations (ATLO) phase, 139–140, 146–147 Asteroids, 14 Atlantis, space shuttle, 188 Atlas rockets, 187–188 Atlas V, 187, 188, 191, 201 Baldonado, Juan, (ins. img. 3) Balloon tanks, 187 Barefield, James, 174 Barraclough, Bruce, 35–36, 38, (ins. img. 6), 130, 134, 186, 206 Basalts, 173–174, 213, 214 Baumgartner, Eric, 75 Bender, Steve, 153, 157–158, 162 Bernardin, John, 126 Beryllium, 126, 138 Bibring, Jean-Pierre, 180–183 Blake, Dave, 133, 169–170 Blaney, Diana, 106, 141 Boeing, 24, 96 Bolden, Charles, 209 Borman, Frank, 8 Bradbury Landing Station, (ins. img. 16), 211 Bridges, Nathan, 101 Burnett, Don, 4, 16–17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 27, 33, 35, 47, 49, 57, 59 Calcium, 174, 175 California Institute of Technology (Caltech), 3, 12, 13, 18, 26, 73, 85, 182 Caltech Division of Geology and Planetary Sciences, 26, 27, 172 Canada, 107, 171, 204 Cape Canaveral celestial mechanics involved in launching from, 41 first major launch at, since last shuttle launch, 188 launch of Genesis at, 185 space shuttle at, 45 Capsule Curiosity, (ins. img. 12), 161, 164, 188, 189, 193, 194, 203, 206, 208, 210, 217 Genesis, 30, 35, 39, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52–53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60, (ins. img. 1, 2), 193 Mars Science Laboratory, 144, 145 SCIM, 93 Stardust, 60 Capsules on the Apollo missions, 6, 18, 30, 144 for Mars Exploration Rovers, 145 reentry, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 47, 51, 52, 53 Carbon, 47, 64, 73, 175 Carbon dioxide, 146 Carbonates, 174, 175, 176 Cassini, mission to Saturn, 14, 160 Challenger disaster, 13, 92 Charge-coupled devices (CCDs), issues with, as detectors, 117–120, 137–138, 151, 152–153, 154, 155 ChemCam advantage held by, 106 ATLO phase and, 139–140 box protecting, on the Curiosity rover, (ins. img. 15) and budget issues, 110, 126, 130 cancellation of, 130–134, 135, 160, 172, 191, 192 CCD detectors for, issues with, 117–120, 137–138, 151, 152–153, 154, 155 challenge of interfacing, with the rover, 112–113 cold-temperature communication problem, 151 continued funding of, 135 cost review, 140–141 cost-cutting actions to stop cancellation of, 133, 135, 138, 152 deciding on naming LIBS instrument project as, 102 delivery date to JPL, 138, 139, 140 delivery review and performance of, 159–160 design review, 116 electrical cable damaging parts in, effect of, 134–135 French collaboration on, 102, 103, 108, 116–117, 122–123, 126, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 138, 139, 159, 160, 161 halfway into developing, euphoria wearing off during, 121–122 initial turn-on and electrical checkout after landing, 210 installation of, on Curiosity, 158, 161 instruments complementing, 109–110 laser accident and work on, 106 laser instrument testing, (ins. img. 6), 129 letter-writing campaign to save, 132, 135 likelihood of success of, presentations on, 191–193 Mars landing-site meetings and, 177, 181 mast and voltage issues, 126 and the MSL launch delay, 148 and the MSLICE program, 195 nearly finishing the prototype for, 124 new detectors for, 120, 153, 155, 156 optical fiber issues, 113–116, 120–121, 122, 126, 138 optical lens design and, 156, 157–158 potential disaster scenarios involving, and impact, 193–194 projected performance of, review of, 115–116 proposal for, submission of, 102–103 radiation and, 154 rebuilt demux for, 156, 157 restoring full funding of, 141 selection of, as a MSL rover instrument, 108–109 as a sentry, 109 “shake and bake” tests involving, 138, 156, 163–164 and simulations using a mirror, 123, (ins. img. 7) Slow Motion Field Test and, 173, 174 spark produced by the laser from, (ins. img. 8) team members of, gathering to watch Curiosity’s landing, 206 temperature issues facing, 151, 154, 155–156 testing, after installation on Curiosity, 161–164 total cost of, 160 turn-on and testing after landing, 212–213 weight issue involving, 126 whole team for operating, 196, 205 See also Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) CheMin XRD instrument, 133, 169, 170, 212 Chen, Allen, 207 China, 96 “Christmas tree” spacecraft, 15, 18, 20 Clark, Ben, 101 Clegg, Sam, 130, 173, 174, 175, 197, 204 Cold War, 28, 30, 188 Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, 55, 92, 93, 94, 185, 193 Comet Rendezvous and Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) mission, 14 Comets, 14, 19, 20 See also Stardust Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), 179 Contamination from an aeroshell, 89, 90 on Apollo missions, 17 from Earth, 19 Genesis mission and, 47, 52, 61 incoming, checking for, 139 COTS (commercial, off-the-shelf) parts, 78, 113 Cremers, Dave, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 102 Cronkite, Walter, 7 Curiosity anomalies present during the landing rehearsal for, 198–199 answering old and new questions with, 214 box protecting ChemCam on, (ins. img. 15) communications with, during landing, 203–204 complicated operating procedure for, 195–196 countdown to launch of, 188 delayed launch of, effect of, 160, 179 EDL stage of, 161–162, 164, 203, 208 electrical motors for, 154–155 firing on a Mars rock outcrop, (ins. img. 5) first images of Mars from, 208–209 gravel damage to, 213–214 heat source for, 154, 178 imagining potential disaster scenarios involving, 193–194 impending launch of, 187 installation of ChemCam on, 158, 161 instrument turn-on and testing after landing of, 211–212 kickoff meeting for, 167–172 and the landing ellipse, (ins. img. 11), 202 landing of, 191, 193, 208 landing publicity for, 205 landing risk for, 192 landing site selected for, (ins. img. 11, 12, 16), 183, 201, 202 landing time for, by time zone, 203 landing trajectory for, 202, 203, 204 landing window for, 201 and landing-site meetings, 177–183 latest batch of images and spectra from, analyzing and discussing, 211 launch of, 188–189 launch rocket for, 187, 188, 191 launch stages for, 188 launch window for, 188, 201 lifespan of, 213 lowering of, by Sky Crane, (ins. img. 13), 162 naming MSL as, 148 and new questions arising from Glenelg site, 214 news about the landing of, 203 next set of Mars images from, 209–210 operating temperatures for, 154–155 operational readiness tests for, 194–195, 194–195, 196–199 parachute for, (ins. img. 12), 194, 204, 207, 210 at Paris air show, (ins. img. 9) press conference after landing of, 209 program for operating, 195 reinstalling RTG on, 164 remote operations of, preparing for, 213 revelations from first few sols of driving, 213 route for, 201–202 RTG-powered, 164, 178 “shake and bake” tests for, 163–164 simulated view of, as it approached Mars, 206, 207 Slow Motion Field Test for, 172–176 team leadership of, 167–172 testing ChemCam after installation on, 161–164 thermal mismatch in design of, addressing, 153–156 total cost of, 160 view of Mount Sharp from, (ins. img. 14) weight of, (ins. img. 10) See also Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Delapp, Dot, 212 Delta II rocket, 45 Descopes, 125–126, 128, 129, 132 Discovery missions approach to, 15, 16 competing for, 20–22, 27, 31, 34, 35, 85–86, 91 cost cap for, 20 fitting a sample-return mission into, 18 See also Genesis Disney, 148 Doppler tone, 198 Downlink leads, 195, 196, 197 Dugway Proving Ground, 52, 53 Dust-collection concept, 86, 87 See also Sample Collection for Investigation of Mars (SCIM) Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN), 212 Earth close approach of Mars to, 8, 9, 94, 147, 149 dominant rock types on, 174 gravity of, 19 half-ellipse configuration involving Mars and, 201 land area equal to, 177 magnetic fields surrounding, 19 nitrogen isotopes of, 64 orbiting the Sun, 8, 147 oxygen isotopes of, 62, 63 passing Mars, cycle of, 87, 147, 149 rock under the oceans of, 173 tilt of, for launching missions, 41, 45 Earth-to-Mars communications, simulating, 78 Eberswalde site, 181, 182 Edgett, Ken, 168 Elachi, Charles, 132 Electrical leads, 118–119 Engineering models, 111–112, 122, 124, (ins. img. 7), 125, 129, 134, 135, 137, 138, 142 Engineering teams, 112 England, London, 205 Entry, descent, and landing (EDL) stage activation of, 208 command for, 203 described, 161–162 rover mated with, 164 team involved with, 203, 205, 207–208, 209, 210 European Space Agency, 191 European spacecraft, Halley and, 14 Ferris, Monty, 78, 79, 80, 83, 98 FIDO (Field-Integrated Design and Operations) rover, 77 First Lagrangian (L1) point, 19 Fleming, Cliff, 52–53 Foehlinger, Chuck, (ins. img. 3) France proposals from, for the mobile laboratory, 107 Toulouse, people in, watching Curiosity’s landing, 205 French scientists, collaboration with, 98, 100–101, 102, 103, 106, 108, 116–117, 122–123, 126, 129, 130–131, 132, 133, 134, 138, 139, 159, 160, 161, 179, 180, 212, 213 See also specific scientists Gale Crater, (ins. img. 11, 12, 14), 179, 181, 182, 183, 202, 207, 210, 211, 213, 214 Galileo probe, 14 Gamma-ray detectors, 141 Gamma-ray spectrometers, 107 Gellert, Ralf, 171 Genesis, 8, 74, 79, 86, 87, 90, 93, 95, 118, 206 analysis of the samples from, 62, 63 attachment points of the capsule for, 53–54 building the prototype for, 27 contamination of samples from, 61 contingency measures for, 57, 59 crash landing of, and impact of the capsule, 55–56, (ins. img. 2), 193 delayed launch of, 42–43, 45, 46 designing improvements to the model for, 27–28 dry run presentations on, 28–29 and extraction of the solar sample canister, 57–58 failing final selection for first Discovery mission, 31–32 finessing the concept for, period of, 33, 35 first long-term countdown to the launching of, 45–46 full deployment of, (ins. img. 1) giving pre-launch interviews on, 41–43 good solar-wind samples from, obtaining, 58, 59 as a historic mission, 45 and the instrument used to collect oxygen and nitrogen, (ins. img. 3) launch of, 46, 98, 185, 188 launch readiness review of, 44 launch window of, 41 and locating the concentrator target, 58 main goal of, 62 measurement of solar-wind oxygen from, 63, 64 midair capture of reentry capsule planned for, 30, 51, 52–53, 54 month after launch of, 47–48 negative chute for, 55 nitrogen studies from, 64 opening of the capsule for, 47 overheating problem facing, 47–48 picked for the next Discovery mission, 35 planned trajectory of, and reentry sequence, presenting, 29–31 possible disaster scenarios considered in planning, 55–56 potential reentry wind issue and, 30–31, 35 presentation of, before NASA review board, 29–31 press conferences on, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58–59 proposal submitted for, as finalist selection, 27 purpose of, 42 reason for the crash of, 59, 60 and recovering the samples from the sample canister, 59, 61 and recovery of the capsule pieces, 56–59 representing, before a different NASA review board, 35 resonance ionization mass spectrometry and, 27, 71 resubmitting a proposal of, for the next Discovery mission, 34 results from, 63, 64 reviews of, prior to launch date, 44 sample canister lid from, (ins. img. 1) selected by NASA again as a mission finalist, 34 solar-wind concentrator for, 27, 35, 36, 37–38, 39, 58, 63, (ins. img. 1) as a success, 64–65 testing the prototype for, 28 time period to fully develop and test instruments for, 35 two years leading up to the launch of, 43–44 See also Solar-wind sample-return mission Geomorphologists, perspective of, 179–180 Germany, 107, 171 Getting-acquainted process, 112 Gibson, Bill, 140, 141 Glenelg, 211, 214 Goddard Space Flight Systems, 122, 168 Goldin, Daniel, 14–15, 20, 87 Grotzinger, John, 172, 181, 182, 206, 207 Gusev Crater, 214 Gypsum, 175, 176 Halley, comet, 14 Hassler, Don, 171 Hazcams (Hazard Avoidance Cameras), 204, 209 Heat shield, 53, 57, 145, 193, 208, 210 Herkenhoff, Ken, 101 HiRISE instrument, images captured by, (ins. img. 12), 199 Hohmann transfer, 201–202 Horz, Fred, 37 Hubble Space Telescope (HST), 14 Hughes, 96 Imagers, 102, 109, (ins. img. 14, 16), 160, 168, 212, 214 Infrared spectroscopy, 106, 110, 154, 179, 180 Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), 28, 96, 187, 188 Iron, 173 Isotope ratios, 62, 63, 64, 87, 99, 109 James Webb Space Telescope, 127–128 Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 26, 37, 41, 47, 59, 101 assisting in planning solar-wind sample-return mission, 20, 23–24, 25 ChemCam and, 114, 116, 119, 120, 122, 126, 131, 132, 134, 137, 138, 139, 140, 153, 155–156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161 dry run presentations by, involving Genesis, 28–29 first woman scientist at, 18 infrared spectrometers and, 106 and the landing of Curiosity, 191, 206 landing publicity videos released by, 205 and the launch of Curiosity, 189 Mars yard at, (ins. img. 10), 212 media relations at, 56 and the MSL engineering model, 112, 142 operational readiness tests at, 194–195, 196, 197, 198 operations hub at, 203 origins of, 74 payload managers at, 108, 120, 130, 137, 140, 156 press area at, 209 rovers and, 74, 75, 76, 77, 146, 147, 148, 167, 170, 173, 202 satellites and, 74 Slow Motion Field Test and, 174 thermal chamber at, 163 wooing scientists as possible leaders at, 18 See also specific JPL projects and personnel Johnson Space Center, 11, 37, 39, 92 Juno spacecraft, 188 Jupiter, 14, 20, 149, 168, 188 K-9 rover, 77, 113 Kennedy, John F., 6 Kennedy Space Center.

Space 2.0 by Rod Pyle

additive manufacturing, air freight, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, barriers to entry, Boeing 747, Colonization of Mars, commoditize, crewed spaceflight, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, experimental subject, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mars Society, mouse model, Neil Armstrong, overview effect, Planet Labs, private spaceflight, risk-adjusted returns, Scaled Composites, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, SpaceShipOne, stealth mode startup, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jurvetson, systems thinking, telerobotics, trade route, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, wikimedia commons, X Prize, Y Combinator

This phenomenon was identified by Stanley Rosen in 1976 and written about extensively by American author Frank White in 1987.17 The resulting impulse prompts the astronauts to share their feelings about the fragility of the earth, the pettiness of human conflict, and the need to work cooperatively for the betterment of all humanity. Technicians working on the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Many NASA employees will tell you that the exploits of the agency during the space race inspired them to careers in aerospace and science. Image credit: NASA It’s not always easy for astronauts to explain their feelings on such matters—these are people who, quite often, have spent a large part of their lives indoctrinated in the military precision of training as a test pilot (or military aviator), and the words don’t always come easily.

…

., 133 Falcon Heavy construction of, 123 defined, 289 Delta IV Heavy and, 142, 146 first launch of, 129, 255–257, 256, 258–261, 261 for interplanetary travel, 128 New Glenn and, 136, 137, 245 reusability of, 259 and SpaceX, 11 as US rocket, 55 Farshchi, Shahin, 161 FCC (Federal Communications Commission), 131 feathering system, 98–99 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 99, 131, 220 Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 131 femtosats, 103 Final Assembly, Integration, and Test Hanger (FAITH), 95, 100 Firefly Aerospace, 103 flight surgeons, 73, 79, 108 Forbes magazine, 151 Founders Fund, 126 France, 79, 172–173 Freedom space station, 166, 166 French postal services, 211 Friedman, Louis, 265 Friendship 7 spacecraft, 164 fuel for achieving orbit, 16 cost of, 128 for leaving Martian surface, 63 liquid methane as, 138 for radiation shielding, 88 for SpaceX rockets, 144 storage of, 148 fuel depots, 159, 204, 208, 235 fuselages, 122, 123 G Gagarin, Yuri, 42, 42 galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), 83, 90, 290 Garver, Lori, 30, 30, 209, 226, 251 Gateway, 241–242, 246, 249, 289 GCRs (galactic cosmic rays), 83, 90, 290 Gemini 4 mission, 71 Gemini spacecrafts, 44, 45, 71, 192 genetic damage, from radiation, 86 George Washington University, 186–187 geostationary Earth orbit, 59–60, 130 geosynchronous Earth orbit, 59–60, 206 German Aerospace Center, 172–173, 176 Gerstenmaier, Bill, 168, 210–211, 242 getting involved, 263–271 citizen groups, 264–265 expanded opportunities for, 263–266 indirect involvement, 264 and the internet, 264 organizations for, 266–271 Glenn, John, 42, 142, 164 Goddard Space Flight Center, 31 GOES weather satellite, 235 Google, 160 government spaceflight, 246 GPS, 28 gravity artificial, 80, 80–82 on Earth, 20, 20 effects of, on astronauts, 22 micro-, 82, 292 overcoming, 16–18 Greason, Jeff, 217, 219, 251–252 Great Britain, 177, 211 Griffin, Mark, 35, 237, 238 Gross Space Product, 207 Guardian, 98 H H3 launch vehicle, 175 Hadfield, Chris, 179 “handshake in space,” 166 Harvard University, 36 Haughton-Mars Project Research Station, 270–271 Hawking, Stephen, 35, 235 Hayabusa probe, 175, 175 Hayn Crater, 62 heat-absorbing tiles, 18–19 high-altitude aircrafts, 69–70, 70 The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space (O’Neill), 240, 241 Highway 58 (California), 94 HI-SEAS simulator, 78 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Adams), 261 Hopkins, Mark, 36, 265 Hoshide, Akihiko, 28 HTV spacecraft, 173–174, 175 Hubble Space Telescope, 2 Hudson Bay Company, 251 Human Exploration and Operations, 168, 210 humans destinations for, in space, 59–66 and need for gravity, 81 spacecrafts for transporting, 49–55 in spaceflight, 44–48, 158, 177–178, 264 survival of, 20–21, 34–36, 234–236, 238 human waste, elimination of, 70, 107 Huygens probe, 169–170 hypersonic grid fins, 127, 127 I IBM, 157 Icarus Interstellar, 270 ICBMs, 230 IKAROS spacecraft, 175 incentives, for space settlement, 250–252 Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), 148 accomplishments of, 176–178 collaboration with Russia, 177–178 lowering launch costs, 246 Mangalyaan Mars orbiter, 177 Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), 177 NASA partnership with, 177, 178 PSLV rocket, 176 space entrepreneurs in, 181 Indian Space Society, 269–270 infrastructure. see space infrastructure In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), 290 Institute of Biomedical Problems, 79 International Astronautical Congress, 236, 244 international cooperation, 163–181, 164, 266–271 and international accomplishments, 172–179 and international space agencies, 180–181 ITAR, 168–170, 172 space race as example of, 163–168 International Space Development Conference, 35 International Space Station (ISS), 53, 168 air circulation in, 74 aluminum hulls in, 87 Antares rocket and, 153 Apollo mission and, xiii–xiv Atlantis mission and, 2–3, 5–6 aurora as seen from, 61 BEAM module on, 54 cargo on, 210 centrifuges on, 81 cost of, 168 decommission and privatization of, 246 defined, 290 Dragon and, 50 Dream Chaser and, 52 and European Space Agency, 172 as example of international cooperation, 48, 163, 165, 195 as Freedom station, 166, 167 hardware on, 153 HTV cargo, 173 Kelly brothers on, 75 André Kuipers on, 82 launching to, 15–16 in low Earth orbit, 59 Elon Musk and, 117 NASA and, 65 National Laboratory, 216 permanent occupation of, 53 private space companies and, 9, 210 shuttle approaching, 46 Soyuz and, 49, 185, 189 Starliner and, 50 3-D printers on, 107 Unity module, 171 window structures aboard, 77, 77 International Space University, 268 International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 168–170, 172, 195, 198–199, 290 internet, 29, 130–132, 264 investors. see space investors involvement in space, 263–271 Iran, 180 isogrids, 122, 123 ISRO. see Indian Space Research Organization ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilization), 290 ISS. see International Space Station ITAR. see International Traffic in Arms Regulation Iwamoto, Hiro, 174–175 J Jackson, Michael, 34 James Webb Space Telescope, 31 Japanese National Space Agency (JAXA), 290 accomplishments of, 174–175 Hayabusa probe, 175 HTV cargo, 174 Mars missions of, 175, 177 modules, 166 partnerships with, 48, 167, 175 probing by, 243–244 Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 34, 41, 169, 198, 239, 265, 290 Johnson Space Center, 30–31, 73–74, 195 JPL. see Jet Propulsion Laboratory Jupiter, 20, 177, 197 Jurvetson, Steve, 126, 131–132, 155, 158–160, 159, 212 K Kelly, Mark, 75, 75–76 Kelly, Scott, 73, 75, 75–76 Kennedy, John F., 13, 42, 164, 164–165 Kennedy Space Center, 6, 12, 30–31, 113, 255 Keravala, Jim, 250–251 Khrushchev, Nikita, 164, 164–165 kinetic impactor, 229 Kistler Aerospace, 137 Knight, Peter, 70 Kuipers, André, 82 Kymeta, 107 L L5 Society, 265 Lagrange points, 60, 64, 229, 237, 240, 248 Laser Bees, 230 LauncherOne, 100, 102 launch vehicles, 186, 187 lava tubes, 89, 243 LEO. see low Earth orbit Leonov, Alexei, 45, 166 Link Space, 194 LMO (low Mars orbit), 60 Lockheed Martin, 50, 63, 141, 142, 144 Logsdon, John, 186–187 long-duration spaceflight, 75 Long March boosters, 49, 192–193 LOP-G. see Lunar Orbiting Platform-Gateway Los Angeles International Airport, 121 Lovell, Jim, 7 low bone density, 72 low Earth orbit (LEO) aluminum hulls for shuttles in, 87 Apollo 17 in, 205 aurora in, 61 capsule design for, 55 defined, 290 exploration beyond, 10 outposts in, 61–62 and radiation, 21, 82–85 satellites in, 107 as travel destination, xiv, 7, 59 low Mars orbit (LMO), 60 Luna 2 spacecraft, 183 Lunar and Planetary Institute, 233 Lunar Module, 141 Lunar Orbiting Platform-Gateway (LOP-G), 187, 241, 241–242, 247, 290 lunar rovers, 248 Lunar Roving Vehicle, 205 lunar space stations, 246–247 Luxembourg, 161, 180, 219 Luxembourg Space Cluster, 180 M Made In Space, Inc., 106–107 Maezawa, Yusaku, 129 magnetic field, on Earth, 22, 83, 84, 90 Manber, Jeffrey, 106 Mangalyaan Mars orbiter, 177, 177, 178 Mao Zedong, 192 Marius Hills, 243, 243–244 Mars Aldrin Cyclers on, 213 as candidate for human spaceflights, 62–63, 63 capsules orbiting near, 55 Chinese intentions of reaching, 197 collecting resources on, 218 colonies on, 34–35, 89, 238, 244 cost of sending humans to, 27 as destination, 60 and Earth’s gravity, 16 European probes on, 173 galactic radiation on, 84–85 and Gateway, 242 Indian orbiter, 177, 177, 178 JAXA plans to reach, 175 journeys to, 66 landings on, 46, 249, 250 as long-term goal for space travel, xiv, 161, 172 moons of, 60 orbiting of, 60, 249 and Orion capsules, 52 robotic rocket, 249 rovers on, 196, 239, 239 settlements on, 249–250, 253 simulation of bases on, 78–79 SpaceX plans for, 125–126, 129 successful trips to, 177 survival on, 20, 21 timeline to get to, 240–250 and United Arab Emirates Space Agency, 180 water-ice shields for living on, 91 water on, 206, 219 Mars-500 simulator, 79, 79 Mars Base Camp, 63 Mars Exploration Rover, 196 Mars First advocates, 62–63 The Mars Institute, 270–271 Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), 177, 177, 178 Mars OXygen In-situ utilization Experiment (MOXIE), 239, 239 Mars Sample Return, 249 Mars Science Laboratory, 84 The Mars Society, 265, 266 mass, of spacecrafts, 77, 87–88 mass reduction, 122, 123, 123 Maxar Technologies Ltd., 179 medical research, 27–28, 72–76 Mercury program, 2, 18, 19, 43, 44, 53, 59, 137, 178 Mercury Redstone 3 (MR-3), 43, 44 Merlin engine, 126, 128, 131 metamaterials, 107 Meyerson, Rob, 137–141, 139 microgravity, 82, 292 Microsoft, 102, 107 militarization of space, 170, 170–171 Mir space station, 2, 44, 46–47, 48, 54, 73, 166, 166–167, 184–185 Mitchell, Edgar, 32, 33 Mojave, California, 94 Mojave Airport, 94 Mojave Desert, 98, 111 Mojave Spaceport, 94–95 MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission), 177, 177, 178 moon (Earth’s), 20, 158, 161 bases on, 247 as candidate for human spaceflight, 62 capsules orbiting near, 55 collecting resources from, 205, 206, 218 as destination, 60 exposure to radiation on, 83 first humans on the, xiii–xiv galactic radiation on, 84 and Gateway, 242 landing on, 247 manufacturing on, 247 mining on, 88, 89, 247 north pole of, 62 as objective for SpaceX, 125 orbiting of, 59, 59, 60 orbit of, during SELENE mission, 175 and Orion capsules, 52 outpost on, 237 as short-term goal for space travel, 172 space settlements on, 242–245 storage depots on, 221 surface of, 60 travel to, 66 water ice on, 206 Moon Express, 211, 218, 220 Moon First advocates, 62 moons (in general) of Mars, 60, 175 Saturn’s moon Titan, 170 “Moon Village,” 65, 173, 242, 243 Moscow, Russia, 28, 79 MOXIE (Mars OXygen In-situ utilization Experiment), 239, 239 Mueller, Rob, 251 Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, 2 Murray, Bruce, 265 muscle mass, reduction in, 73 Musk, Elon “billionaires’ club” and, 151, 154 Charles Bolden and, 116 on colonizing Mars, 34–35 and creation of SpaceX, 115–119 on doing something that is important, 1 Falcon rockets and, 255–257, 259–261 and international space agencies, 181 Steve Jurvetson and, 158, 159 lunar base supported by, 244 on moving humans to space, 236 prediction of launch prices by, 148 and reusability, 39 and SpaceX, 7, 118, 123–126 Tesla roadster, 260–261 mutual funds, for private investors, 154 Myhrvold, Nathan, 107 N N1 booster, 43 N1 moon rocket, 185 NAFCOM (NASA Air Force Costing Methodology), 215 NanoRacks, 105, 105–106, 154, 157, 198 nanosats, 103 NASA. see National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA Air Force Costing Methodology (NAFCOM), 215 NASA Ames Research Park, 106 NASDA (National Space Development Agency), 174 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 290. see also Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) asteroid detection systems, 224 and Bigelow Aerospace, 54 budget of, 26–27, 178 Bill Clinton’s changes to, 167 Commercial Crew Program, 135 and cost of launching water into orbit, 88, 89 and crewed landings, 247 and Dream Chaser, 52, 52 and European Space Agency, 170 and Falcon Heavy launch, 257 history of, 1–13 and human spaceflight missions, 61, 65 legal constraints around, 168–170 Lunar Orbiting Platform-Gateway, 60 mapping of asteroids by, 224, 226, 227 medical professionals from, 73–74 MR-3 flight timeline from, 44 National Space Council and, 213, 214 partnerships with, 9, 129–130, 140–141, 153, 158, 174, 175, 177, 178, 179, 247 and permanent space settlement, 237–239 psychologists/psychiatrists working at, 77–78 and public-private partnerships, 209–211 safety regulations at, 99–100, 107 simulations created by, 78 and SLS/Orion, 52, 53, 55 and spaceflight-capable nuclear reactors, 90 space infrastructure and, 209–217 Space Portal, 199 and space race, 42–44 and space settlements, 237–239, 241–244 and SpaceX Dragon, 50, 50 sponsored events for start-ups, 156 study of space colonies by, 236 study of space radiation by, 84 use of robotics by, 239 US workforce and spending by, 29–30 National Aeronautics and Space Council, 213, 214 National Defense Authorization Act (2016), 119 nationalism, 163–164 National Laboratory, 216 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 235 National Space Council defined, 290 NASA and, 65, 213, 214 Scott Pace and, 171, 198, 237 reactivation of, 10, 10 rules of the new, 218, 220 National Space Development Agency (NASDA), 174 National Space Society, 266 defined, 291 founding of, 264–265 International Space Development Conference, 35, 36 Bruce Pittman and, 199 Space Settlement Summit, 204 George Whitesides and, 97 National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), 99 Navy, 76, 77 near Earth objects (NEO), 290 New Armstrong, 51 New Glenn, 51, 136, 136–139, 244, 245, 290–291 New Horizons Pluto mission, 132 New Line 1 vehicle, 194 New Shepard, 51, 51, 136–139, 137, 139, 290–291 NewSpace, 137, 152, 291 new space race, 135–148 Blue Origin and, 135–141 United Launch Alliance and, 141–148 New Zealand, 104 normal bone density, 72 North Korea, 180 Northrop Grumman Corporation, 102, 121, 152, 154 Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, 12, 102, 152, 174 Northwestern University, 125 Norway, 153 NSS (National Space Society), 291 NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board), 99 nuclear reactors, for spaceflight, 90 O Obama, Barack, 6, 9, 56–57, 219, 226 “offshoring,” 178 OffWorld, 250 O’Neill, Gerard, 240–241, 250, 265, 269 O’Neill space cylinders, 240–241, 241 One Space, 194 OneWeb, 131 Orbital ATK, 12, 102, 103, 152, 153, 154 orbital refueling depot, 205 Orbital Sciences, 152, 158 orbiting stations, 63–64, 71–72 ore, from asteroids, 64 organizations, space-related, 266–271 Orion, 291 Altair and, 8 capsule, 78 for deep-space exploration, 53 as government spaceflight, 246 rendezvous with asteroid, 56–57 Soyuz and, 186 and Space Launch System, 9, 10, 52, 55, 246, 249 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 165, 165, 218, 219 outposts, 237–238 overview effect, 32, 32 Oxford University, 235 ozone layer, 228 P Pace, Scott, 171–172, 196, 198, 214, 237 Paleogene era, 223 partial-gravity environments, 22, 81 Passengers (movie), 81 passive radiation shielding, 90 payloads, 119, 126, 194, 259, 261, 291.

Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX by Eric Berger

"Peter Beck" AND "Rocket Lab", 3D printing, Apollo 11, Boeing 747, Colonization of Mars, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, fear of failure, inflight wifi, intermodal, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, Kwajalein Atoll, low earth orbit, Mercator projection, multiplanetary species, Neil Armstrong, Palm Treo, risk tolerance, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Scaled Composites, side project, Silicon Valley, SpaceShipOne, SpaceX Starlink, Steve Jobs, Strategic Defense Initiative, subprime mortgage crisis, Tesla Model S, Virgin Galactic

The Malaysians had stuck with the company through six years and three failures. And now, the four-hundred-pound Earth-observing spacecraft would get its ride to space. The launch on the afternoon of July 14 proceeded without incident. SpaceX hired Roger Carlson, a physicist from Northrop Grumman who had worked on the James Webb Space Telescope, to direct launch operations from Kwajalein. Following the flight, Tim Buzza stood with Carlson on one end of Omelek, talking about the future of the company. Four years had passed since Buzza and about two dozen engineers and technicians had come there to build a launch site from nothing.

…

(Clark), 11 Illeginni Island, 169 Illinois Institute of Technology, 100 Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 10, 65, 169 International Astronautical Congress (2008), 202 International Date Line, 194–95 International Science and Engineering Fair (1978), 30 International Space and Development Conference (1989), 63 International Space Station, 203, 217 Kistler contract, 109, 110, 114 SpaceX and Dragon, 217, 219–20, 221, 230 Iowa State University, 40 Iraq war, 145, 185 Iterative design, 24, 104 Jabwi (Marshallese native), 133 James Webb Space Telescope, 222 JLG lift, 73–74, 82, 225 Jobs, Steve, 106 Johnson, Steve, 18 Johnson Controls, 31 Johnson Space Center, 102 Jung, Josh, 49, 262 Kassouf, Phil, 262 background of, 20 Bjelde’s interview and, 5–6, 7, 9 departure of, 172 Flight One, 86 Flight Two, 132–33 Flight Three, 209 Flight Four, 209 hiring of, 20–21, 23 Omelek site, 72 Kennedy, Don, 162–63 Kennedy Space Center, 24, 54, 70–71 Kestrel engine, 155–56, 190, 263 Flight Two, 137, 142 Flight Three, 162–63, 177 Flight Four, 205, 206–7, 212 naming of, 38 skirt extension, 161–63 Kingman Reef, 137 Kistler Aerospace, 107, 108–10, 143 Kistler K-1, 108, 109 Koenigsmann, Hans, 254–55, 262 Air Force and, 61–62 background of, 70–71 Costco snack runs, 23 Falcon 1’s Washington, D.C. debut, 106 Flight One, 90, 92, 122 Flight Two, 127, 131–32 Flight Three failure, 181–82, 183 Flight Four, 199–200 launch, 201–2, 204–5 success, 212–13 hiring of, 15, 16, 80–81 Kassouf’s hiring, 20, 23 Maser’s hiring as CEO, 125 at Microcosm, 15, 50, 71, 79–80, 95 Omelek site fact-finding visit, 54–55, 56–57, 71 first launch attempt, 79 move and infrastructure build-out, 71–72, 74–75 reusable launch systems, 234 scuba diving at Kwajalein, 69–70 Koopman, George, 62–64 Korolev, Sergei, 91 Kwajalein Atoll.

Amazing Stories of the Space Age by Rod Pyle

Apollo 11, Apollo 13, built by the lowest bidder, centre right, desegregation, Elon Musk, Gene Kranz, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Neil Armstrong, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, Ronald Reagan, space junk, SpaceShipOne, Strategic Defense Initiative, Virgin Galactic

Since the Apollo program, which was a vastly less complex and smaller undertaking, cost over $20 billion by the time it was complete,15 it's clear that the scope of development costs for Horizon were vastly underestimated. But that's how space works—everything is harder than it looks, a reality that continues to rear its ugly head even today—witness the vast cost overruns of projects such as the space shuttle, the International Space Station, the Mars Science Laboratory, and the James Webb Space Telescope—all of which cost much more than originally planned. But all this overlooks one point—the almost primal drive to militarize the moon. While I've mentioned the “high ground” argument, let's look a bit deeper at its implementation. A quote from one of Horizon's leading advocates, Army General John Bruce Mendaris, is instructive: “The moon has no water, it has no air, but it has land.

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See intercontinental ballistic missiles Illustrated Man, The (Bradbury), 218 Inconel-X alloy, 171, 180 India and unmanned spacecraft orbiting Mars, 293 inflatable space station, 81–89 NASA study of variations on, 82, 88 in-orbit restart of the engine, first, 119 insulation, 18, 48, 162, 216 in Columbia, 255, 256, 257, 258, 260 magnetic field suggested for atomic rockets, 59 See also heatshield intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 24, 27–28, 71, 112, 177, 191, 306n11 tracking enemy, 275–76 See also Atlas rockets; Proton rocket; R-7 ICBM repurposed for Sputnik; Titan rocket International Space Station, 31, 57, 78–79, 81, 144, 211, 235, 236, 256 BEAM flown to, 88–89 building of, 261, 286 and debris, 258, 260, 276 Soyuz used as ferry to, 94, 200 testing of the SuitSat, 218 weapons forbidden except in a survival kit, 263–64 interplanetary radiation, 50, 306n9 ISP. See specific impulse ISS. See International Space Station James Webb Space Telescope, 31 Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 219, 220, 221, 223, 227–28, 229, 292, 296 Jodrell Bank Observatory, 207 Johnson, Lyndon, 102, 106, 131, 133, 136, 143, 313n4 Johnson Space Center (JSC), 102, 105, 240, 319n5 Johnston Atoll, 45–46, 309n13 JPL. See Jet Propulsion Laboratory Juno rockets, 25, 27 Jupiter rockets, 25 “Kaleidoscope” (Bradbury), 218 Karman Line (boundary of space), 160, 316n3 Kelly, Tom, 149 Kennan (KH-11) satellite, 144 Kennedy, John F., 34, 94, 140, 164, 186, 189, 201, 203 Kennedy, Robert, 142 Kennedy Space Center, 33, 251 Kerwin, Joe, 239, 241–42, 243, 244–46 KH-11 satellite, 144 Khrushchev, Nikita, 191, 203, 285 Kimball, Ward, 87 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 142 KIWI rocket, 310n5 Komarov, Vladimir, 185, 189–90, 192, 193, 194–98, 199 open letter from fellow cosmonauts on, 199–200 Korolev, Sergei, 186–87, 191–92, 202, 204, 205, 285, 286 death of, 194 Kosmos (Russian Earth-orbiting flights), 192–93, 205, 206 Kranz, Gene, 149–50, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156 Kubrick, Stanley, 87 Langley Research Labs, 114, 221 lasers, 263, 275, 276–77 launches, choosing logistical location for, 45–46, 304n12.

The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility by Robert Zubrin

Ada Lovelace, Albert Einstein, anthropic principle, Apollo 11, battle of ideas, Boeing 747, Charles Babbage, Charles Lindbergh, Colonization of Mars, complexity theory, cosmic microwave background, cosmological principle, Dennis Tito, discovery of DNA, double helix, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, flex fuel, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, gravity well, if you build it, they will come, Internet Archive, invisible hand, ITER tokamak, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, John von Neumann, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kuiper Belt, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mars Society, Menlo Park, more computing power than Apollo, Naomi Klein, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, off grid, out of africa, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Peter Thiel, place-making, Pluto: dwarf planet, private spaceflight, Recombinant DNA, rising living standards, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, SoftBank, SpaceX Starlink, Strategic Defense Initiative, Stuart Kauffman, telerobotics, Thomas Malthus, three-masted sailing ship, time dilation, transcontinental railway, uranium enrichment, Virgin Galactic, Wayback Machine

John Wenz, “TESS Space Telescope Will Find Thousands of Planets, but Astronomers Seek a Select Few,” Smithsonian, September 26, 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/tess-space-telescope-will-find-thousands-planets-astronomers-seek-select-few-180970411/ (accessed October 22, 2018); Elizabeth Howell, “NASA's James Webb Space Telescope: Hubble's Cosmic Successor,” Space, July 17, 2018, https://www.space.com/21925-james-webb-space-telescope-jwst.html (accessed October 22, 2018). 3. Alison Klesman, “Where Does WFIRST Stand Now?” Astronomy, May 31, 2018, http://www.astronomy.com/news/2018/05/where-does-wfirst-stand-now (accessed October 22, 2018). For a more technical presentation, see N.

The Search for Life on Mars by Elizabeth Howell

affirmative action, Alfred Russel Wallace, Apollo 11, British Empire, dark matter, double helix, fake news, financial independence, follow your passion, Ford Model T, glass ceiling, Google Earth, independent contractor, invention of the telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, John von Neumann, Louis Pasteur, Mars Rover, Menlo Park, Neil Armstrong, New Journalism, Pluto: dwarf planet, Ronald Reagan, Skype

There also was an instrument named Gulliver that would detect life by feeding Martian microbes with a “broth” of nutrients and observing their metabolic reactions. By 1967, the projected cost of this complicated mission had swelled from $700 million to $2.2 billion ($13.5 billion in 2018 dollars—even worse than today’s ballooning budget of NASA’s much-delayed James Webb Space Telescope in comparable dollars). Though everybody within the space agency wanted a piece of the pie, something had to give. Voyager’s prospects faded as NASA’s Vietnam-era budget was severely pruned by Congress. The original Voyager was canceled. In any case, it was already clear from Mariner 4 that many of the experiments considered originally would not have worked on Mars.

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See Mars Insight Interplanetary Easter Egg Hunt, 252 interstellar grains, 304 ionization 48 ionosphere, 48, 322n iron, 8, 44, 51, 64, 65, 109, 133, 135, 232, 234, 237, 238, 291, 294 Isaak, Chris, 63, 323n Isidis Planitia, 254, 289 isotope, 73, 82, 111, 127, 183, 188, 230, 231, 232, 260, 281, 330n, 333n, 336n isotopic fractionation, 261, 285 Jakosky, Bruce, 47, 48, 51, 52, 53, 183, 189, 191, 322n, 330n, 346n, 354n Jagger, Mick, 43 James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), 94 Japan, 199, 200, 355n jarosite, 68 Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 12, 29, 35, 40, 43, 44, 46, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 68, 69, 71, 84, 85, 94, 95, 96, 105, 107, 108, 117, 118, 130, 134, 137, 138, 146, 147–154, 156, 158, 161, 164–167, 173, 178, 196, 207, 208–213, 246, 247–248, 249–251, 254, 256, 261, 263, 272, 282, 283, 292, 296, 300, 327n, 331n Caltech origins, 86, 87 energy business, 150 history, 86–90, 91–93, 95–96, 99 mavericks, 87, 150 machinists, 251 Mars Yard, 66–67 Miss Guided Missile, 148 missiles, 87 mission design section, 150 misogyny and sexual misconduct, 145, 167, 352n relations with NASA, 70, 252 Section 23 “human computers,” 147, 148 Visitor Center, 86 women at JPL, 144, 147, 148, 167 Jezero Crater, 84, 254–258, 261, 263, 265, 266, 276, 279, 282, 287, 288, 289, 292, 360n Johnson, Catherine, 50 Johnson, Lyndon Baines, 117 JPL.

Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence by James Bridle

Ada Lovelace, Airbnb, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Anthropocene, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, autonomous vehicles, behavioural economics, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, Californian Ideology, Cambridge Analytica, carbon tax, Charles Babbage, cloud computing, coastline paradox / Richardson effect, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, corporate personhood, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, DeepMind, Donald Trump, Douglas Hofstadter, Elon Musk, experimental subject, factory automation, fake news, friendly AI, gig economy, global pandemic, Gödel, Escher, Bach, impulse control, James Bridle, James Webb Space Telescope, John von Neumann, Kickstarter, Kim Stanley Robinson, language acquisition, life extension, mandelbrot fractal, Marshall McLuhan, microbiome, music of the spheres, negative emissions, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, planetary scale, RAND corporation, random walk, recommendation engine, self-driving car, SETI@home, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, speech recognition, statistical model, surveillance capitalism, techno-determinism, technological determinism, technoutopianism, the long tail, the scientific method, The Soul of a New Machine, theory of mind, traveling salesman, trolley problem, Turing complete, Turing machine, Turing test, UNCLOS, undersea cable, urban planning, Von Neumann architecture, wikimedia commons, zero-sum game

Not only were both satellites polished and ready for launch, they were significantly more advanced than the closest civilian equivalent, NASA’s own Hubble Space Telescope – but, until the NRO’s phone call, they had been entirely secret. When Hubble was launched back in 1990, it was believed to be the most powerful telescope ever put into space. This probably wasn’t true then, and it certainly isn’t today: even after five costly repair missions by astronauts, Hubble is ageing fast, while its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, only launched in December 2021. The sudden appearance of two brand new, cutting-edge instruments was a cause for celebration – ‘a total game-changer’, in the words of another astronomer. Moore called the optics on the new telescopes ‘astounding’, but NASA wasn’t forthcoming about the specifics.

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., Jr 36, 39 Ganges River 266 gannets 132 Gates, Bill 8, 275 Gaup, Ingor Ántte Áilu 150 Gebru, Timnit 277 geese 164, 170 General Morphology of Organisms 11 ghost populations 88, 98 gibbons 32–4, 33, 38–9, 42, 52, 64, 312 goats 1, 140, 143, 148, 293, 302 Göbekli Tepe 93–4, 93 Godfrey-Smith, Peter 50 Gombe Stream National Park 55 gomphotheres 108 Goodall, Jane 55–6, 263 Google 8, 111, 154, 211, 241, 269, 275 ethics 156, 277 oil and gas applications 5–6 language applications 163, 167, 169 gorillas 44–7, 44, 98 Grant, Peter 236 Grant, Rosemary 236 graph theory 81 Great Chain of Being 123 Greece 1–5, 114, 216 Greenpeace 5 Griffith, Frederick 105 grouse 150 Grumpy (elephant) 40 Guantánamo Bay 296 Gudynas, Eduardo 268 gulls 133, 256 habeas corpus 41, 264–6, 270, 296 Hadza (people) 146 Haeckel, Ernst 11–12, 105, 239–40, 240 Hagenback, Karl 254 Half-Earth Project 305–6 Happy (elephant) 39–41, 41, 263–5, 273, 296 Haudenosaunee see Iroquois Confederacy Hawira, Turama 267 hawks 256 hawthorn 118 Heritage Foundation 277 Herodotus 3 Hertz, Garnet 212–13 Hilbert, David 178 Hiller, Lejaren 230–31, 233 Hofstadter, Douglas 262 Holmes, Rob 203 homeostat, 181–3, 182, 187, 206, 215 honey 143–6 honeyguides 143–6, 164 horizontal gene transfer 105–7 hornbeam 118 Hotbits 222 HPSCHD (composition) 230–32 Hribal, Jason 253–5 Hubble Space Telescope 135 HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee 154 Humboldt, Alexander von 239 Huxley, Aldous 113, 208 hyenas 257 hyperaccumulators 308–10 I Ching 228–231, 228, 234, 242 IBM 4–5 ICARUS (animal tracking) 284, 300, 302–3 ICHING (computer programme) 230–31 iguanas 296 ILLIAC (computer) 230 IM see instant messaging Inky (octopus) 48 instant messaging 152–3, 172–3 Institute of Contemporary Art 231 International Meridian Conference 116 International Space Station (ISS) 284 internet 80–82 Iroquois Confederacy 248 Island (novel) 113 Israeli Defense Forces 295 jackdaws 163 jaguars 294 jaguarundi cats 294 James Webb Space Telescope 135 jellyfish 180 Jenny (orang-utan) 34–6, 35 joik 149–50, 312 Keyhole (satellite) 136 Khan-Dossos, Navine 140 khoomei 149 Kidder, Tracy 117 King, William 89 King Solomon’s Ring 163 klepsydra 216–17, 217 klerotereion 218–19, 243 Koko (gorilla) 44, 45, 47 Konstantinou, Maria 309 Kowalsczewski, Bruno 91 Kropotkin, Peter 256–7, 279 Kunstforum der Natur 239, 240 Lack, David 132–3, 285 Land Art 203 Landsat 137, 137–9, 139 lapwing 256 laurel 174 Lavarand 222 Le Guin, Ursula 13, 169–71 Leakey, Louis 56 Lederberg, Esther 105 Lederberg, Joshua 105 Legg, Shane 8, 275 lemurs 163 Leptoplax emarginata 309 Levi, Carlo 141 lichens 107, 171 Liebniz, Gottfried 234 Lindauer, Martin 259–60, 284 lions 77, 257 Lord, Rexford 285, 297 Lorenz, Konrad 163–4 Lovelace, Ada 30 Lovelock, James 190 LUCA (last universal common ancestor) 103 Lucy (Australopithecus) see Dinkinesh Lukyanov, Valdimir 199–200, 199 lynx 290 macaques 42–4, 64, 254 machine learning 30, 63 Mandelbrot, Benoit 102 mangroves 138 Mansfield, Lord (William Murray) 264 Margulis, Lyn 108, 110, 112 Marino, Lori 38 Marsham, Robert 118 Marsham record 118–21 Matera 140 Maxine (elephant) 39 Maxwell, Sarah 301 McLuhan, Marshall 18 memristors 124–5 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 150 Metropolis, Nick 225 mice 187 Michael (gorilla) 45, 47 Microsoft 5, 8, 154 Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates, A 226, 226 mimosa 71–4, 127–8, 192, 195, 303 Mimosa pudica see mimosa Ministry for the Future, The 282 mirror test 36–46, 181 Mississippi Basin Model 201–2, 204 Mondrian, Piet 161 MONIAC 205, 205–7 Monte Carlo 225–7, 242 Moore, Michael 135 Morgan-Mar, David 161 moths 180 mouse-eared cress see rock cress Muir, John 11 Müller, Max 146–8 Müller, Urban 161 Museum of the Ancient Agora 216–18 Musk, Elon 8, 158, 275 Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution 256 mycorrhiza 60–62, 77–9, 81–2, 194 mynah birds 113 NASA see National Aeronautics and Space Administration Nasser, Ramsey 160–61 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 135, 137–9, 284, 286 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 137–8, 286 National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) 135 neanderthals 89–92, 94–8, 100 network theory 81 neural networks 24–5, 25, 82, 166, 275, 312 NEXRAD (Next-generation radar) 133, 134 Niassa National Reserve 143 nightingales 118 nightjars 118 non-binary activism 208 computing 208–9, 213, 312 identity 112 Nonhuman Rights Project 41, 263–5, 296 nutation 128, 197 oak 118–19, 124 ocelots 294 octopuses 111, 47–51, 73, 197, 209 oil industry 4–6 oleander 174 On the Origin of Species 11, 36, 89 Ook!

The Golden Ticket: P, NP, and the Search for the Impossible by Lance Fortnow

Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Albert Einstein, Andrew Wiles, Claude Shannon: information theory, cloud computing, complexity theory, Donald Knuth, Erdős number, four colour theorem, Gerolamo Cardano, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Johannes Kepler, John von Neumann, Large Hadron Collider, linear programming, new economy, NP-complete, Occam's razor, P = NP, Paul Erdős, quantum cryptography, quantum entanglement, Richard Feynman, Rubik’s Cube, seminal paper, smart grid, Stephen Hawking, traveling salesman, Turing machine, Turing test, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, William of Occam

Dealing with Big Data In one second we create thirty-five minutes of YouTube videos, 1,600 Tweets, 11,000 Facebook posts, 50,000 Google searches, and three million emails (though 90 percent of them are spam). The Hubble telescope scans the cosmos from its orbit, sending down 200,000 bytes of data every second. A byte of data is about one alphabet symbol. The Hubble’s planned successor, the James Webb space telescope, basically a large parabolic mirror, will transmit to Earth up to 3.5 million bytes per second. The Large Hadron Collider lies along the French-Swiss border and is the world’s largest particle accelerator. On average it generates half a billion bytes of data every second. That’s every second of every year, and there are 31 million seconds every year.

When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach by Ashlee Vance

"Peter Beck" AND "Rocket Lab", 3D printing, Airbnb, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, Biosphere 2, bitcoin, Burning Man, Charles Lindbergh, cloud computing, Colonization of Mars, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, deepfake, disinformation, Elon Musk, Ernest Rutherford, fake it until you make it, Google Earth, hacker house, Hyperloop, intentional community, Iridium satellite, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, Kwajalein Atoll, lockdown, low earth orbit, Maui Hawaii, McMansion, Menlo Park, Mikhail Gorbachev, new economy, off-the-grid, overview effect, Peter Thiel, Planet Labs, private spaceflight, Rainbow Mansion, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, skunkworks, SoftBank, South China Sea, South of Market, San Francisco, SpaceX Starlink, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Jurvetson, Steve Wozniak, Strategic Defense Initiative, synthetic biology, tech billionaire, TikTok, Virgin Galactic

They would begin the day hopeful that things would somehow click into place and perform their duties as if the rocket were a quick fix from blasting off. But as the engine tests, plumbing tests, and communications tests continued, something new would go wrong, and a fresh cycle of troubleshooting would begin. Carlson, a tall, bald man with a surfer’s calm affect, had worked on massive space projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope and SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. He took on the role of the experienced, trusted hand guiding the day-to-day operations, and all of the problems filtered up to him and were managed by him. To his credit, he never lost his cool. He’d nod while people explained whatever new disaster the day had brought, digest the information, and then take a deep breath in and relax his shoulders.

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See Schingler, Jessy Kate (née Cowan-Sharp) Crawford, James, 122 Cube of Learning (Beck; sculpture), 149 CubeSat, 92, 93–94 Cupid, 438 Cyclone-4 rocket, 445 Dangerous Sports Club, 54 DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), 37–39, 116, 195–196, 199, 202, 285, 369–370, 374–375 deep-space exploration, 490 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), 37–39, 116, 195–196, 199, 202, 285, 369–370, 374–375 Dell, Michael, 410n Delphin engine, 370 Delta Clipper, 47 differential drag, 32, 109 DirectTV, 443n DISCOVERER, 116 diversity, lack of, 287, 288 D’Mello, Shaun, 215, 219, 231 Dnipropetrovsk (Dnipro), 438–443, 444, 447–448, 450 Dotcom, Kim, 138 Doves (satellites), 27, 31–32, 96, 103–106, 109–110, 227, 396 Dragon capsule, 327 EchoStar, 443n Edwards Air Force Base, 173, 412 Electron rocket concept for, 139, 209 construction of, 140–141 first launch and, 226–227 flight frequency of, 16 kick stage for, 230–231 launch challenges and, 214–218, 220–221 Markusic and, 424 Planet Labs and, 107 reusability and, 490 schedule and, 224 second launch and, 227–228 size comparison of, 395 success of, 337–338, 365, 369 third launch of, 238–241 work on, 209–213 Elizabeth II, Queen, 84 Energia rocket, 437 English, Christa, 410, 411, 417, 419, 424, 465 EOS Data Analytics, 433 Escapia, 59, 273 European Space Agency, 83 Eveleth, Decker, 112–115, 119 expected casualty analysis, 345 Expedia, 273 FAA, 330–331, 332, 336, 343, 345 Falcon 1, 2–13, 16, 20, 38, 40, 56, 188, 208, 397, 415, 419, 426 Falcon 9, 12, 141, 395, 428, 490 Farrant, Ben, 289–290, 370, 391 Fay, Michael, 190–192, 193, 203, 216–217 Federal Communications Commission, 131 Ferraro, Matthew, 101 Firefly Aerospace Astra and, 493 delays and, 466–467 first launch and, 479 founding of, 404–405 funding and, 455, 464–465, 470–471, 475 goals of, 402, 403–404 increase rocket size and, 455 launch license denial and, 472, 485 Polyakov and, 434–436, 457–458 Polyakov’s ouster and, 484–486 setbacks for, 458–459 SpaceX and, 403 success of, 486 in Ukraine, 448–450 value of, 476 Firefly Farm, 466 Firefly Space Systems advantages for, 208 bankruptcy of, 429, 433–434 founding of, 423–427 funding and, 428–430 goals of, 207, 427 launch vehicles of, 395 Martin and, 356 Polyakov and, 433–434 Rocket Lab and, 214, 230 US government agreement and, 456 Vandenberg Air Force Base and, 460–464 Fisher & Paykel, 154–157, 159, 161, 163, 165 Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group, 222 Flanagan, Matthew, 339, 356–362, 391 Fleet Space Technologies, 238–239 Fleming, Shane, 218 flight termination systems, 225, 227, 286, 344–345 Flirt, 438 4D, 274–275, 489 FuckedCompany.com, 274 Gamma, 426 Garcia, Ian, 290, 329 Garver, Lori, 67 Gates, Bill, 387, 388 Gemini mission, 42 Gentile, Bryson, 311–314, 317, 379 geolocation data, 125–126 Gies, Bill, 287–288, 338–340, 391 Gillies, Daniel, 234n Gillmore, Chester, 108 Goddard, Robert, 145 Google Ames Research Center and, 58, 61, 64–65 Google Earth, 120 Google Maps, 120 Google Mars, 64, 276 Google Moon, 64–65, 276 PhoneSat project and, 93 Skybox Imaging and, 111n Gorbachev, Mikhail, 47n GPS chips, 303 Grassley, Chuck, 68 Great Mercury Island, 190–191, 202–203 Griffin, Michael, 43, 54, 59 Guiana Space Center, 397 hacker houses, 73 Halley’s Comet, 153–154 Hawking, Stephen, 86 HitDynamics, 438 Hofmann, Chris, 338–339, 346, 350, 379, 382, 391 Holicity, 387 HomeAway, 273 Hopkins, Anthony, 148 Houghton, Samuel, 199–201 Howard, Ben, 101, 103, 106, 488 Hubble Space Telescope, 43 Humanity Star, 227–228 Hundley, Lucas, 281–282 Hydra, 447 hydrogen peroxide, 159–161 Hyperloop, 356 ICBM factory in Dnipro, 440, 444 image analysts, 118–119 imaging satellites, 98–99 India Pakistan and, 123–124 space program in, 27–28 Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), 27, 29–30 Industrial Research Limited (IRL), 169–171, 179, 181, 184 Industrial Revolution, 145 Ingels, Bjarke, 312 Instant Eyes project, 195–196, 199–201 International Astronautical Congress, 49, 86 International Space Station (ISS), 13, 105, 107, 436 International Space University, 66, 86–87 International Talk like a Pirate Day, 79 International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), 66, 233–234 internet service, satellites and, 14, 18, 128–130, 487–488 Intimidator 5, 91 ion thrusters, 450 Iridium, 129, 388 Israel Defense Forces, 119 ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations), 66 jade, 149 James, Deborah Lee, 475 James Webb Space Telescope, 327 Jazayeri, Mike, 365n Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 43, 85, 174–175 Jobs, Steve, 63 Jornales, Rose, 286–287, 391 Joyce, Steven, 221, 223 Judson, Mike, 290–291, 307, 317, 318, 324 Jurvetson, Steve, 91, 102, 104n, 105, 488 Keeter, Milton, 330–331, 332, 338–340, 343–346, 391 Kelly, Isaac, 326, 338–342, 391 Kemp, Chris Ames Research Center and, 59–61, 276 Astra going public and, 385, 387–388, 390–391 Beck and, 365–366 Brockert and, 292 budget issues and, 326 Burning Man and, 253–254 company name and, 294–295 “Dawn of Space” party and, 295–296 engine tests and, 282–283, 307 financial issues and, 370–372, 374, 378, 381–382 funding and, 296–297, 365, 366, 383 goals of, 309–310, 384 Google and, 64–65 on himself, 267–277 Jessy Kate and, 324–325 Judson and, 291n launch attempts and, 316, 361, 376, 380, 382–383, 393 launch delays and, 334 launch failures and, 336, 337, 347, 349, 350–354, 364 launch locations and, 280, 304 launch preparations and, 331–333 life advice from, 308 living arrangements of, 102n loss of driver’s license and, 297–299 Lyon and, 390 Marshall and, 85 Martin and, 356, 357–358 media attention and, 317 moving rocket and, 305, 306 Open Lunar Foundation and, 488 OpenStack and, 250–253 Polyakov and, 468–469 Rainbow Mansion and, 72–73 recent work of, 489, 492–493 Rocket Lab and, 338 security and, 301 simplicity of design and, 279 Skyhawk space and, 310–314, 367–369 status meetings and, 281 Stealth Space Company and, 260–263, 265 Thompson and, 348–349 transparency of, 394 Ventions LLC and, 250, 257–258 Whitesides and, 423 Kennedy, Fred, 13, 37–38 Kennedy Space Center, 174 Kessler syndrome, 131 Key, John, 220, 221, 222, 223 Khosla Ventures, 206–207, 209, 214 Khrushchev, Nikita, 440 King, P.

Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account From Curiosity's Chief Engineer by Rob Manning, William L. Simon

Elon Musk, fault tolerance, fear of failure, James Webb Space Telescope, Kickstarter, Kuiper Belt, Mars Rover, Neil Armstrong

First-of-a-kind projects are nail-biters all the way, for reasons that you’ll find many examples of in these pages. Many have gone way over budget, others stayed within budget but failed. At the same time, it wasn’t hard to understand the dilemma NASA would be faced with. Among other projects in the queue for major funding was the huge James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Intended to replace the Hubble Space Telescope, JWST has been described by NASA as providing a way of studying “every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.”

Outnumbered: From Facebook and Google to Fake News and Filter-Bubbles – the Algorithms That Control Our Lives by David Sumpter

affirmative action, algorithmic bias, AlphaGo, Bernie Sanders, Brexit referendum, Cambridge Analytica, classic study, cognitive load, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, correlation does not imply causation, crowdsourcing, data science, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, disinformation, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, fake news, Filter Bubble, Geoffrey Hinton, Google Glasses, illegal immigration, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Kenneth Arrow, Loebner Prize, Mark Zuckerberg, meta-analysis, Minecraft, Nate Silver, natural language processing, Nelson Mandela, Nick Bostrom, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, p-value, post-truth, power law, prediction markets, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, Robert Mercer, selection bias, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, social contagion, speech recognition, statistical model, Stephen Hawking, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, TED Talk, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, traveling salesman, Turing test

This goo could be created by scientists on a very small scale, developing the ability to reproduce and ‘eating’ everything on our planet. If we are going to go as science fictiony as general AI, then we also need to consider how we might prepare for the discovery of alien intelligence when the James Webb Space Telescope starts taking more detailed pictures of our universe. What do we do if we find that the stars are moving in a way that contradicts the rules of physics and can only be explained by extraterrestrial intelligence? And what about the theory in The Matrix that we are all living in a computer simulation?

SAM: One Robot, a Dozen Engineers, and the Race to Revolutionize the Way We Build by Jonathan Waldman

Burning Man, computer vision, Ford paid five dollars a day, glass ceiling, helicopter parent, Hyperloop, industrial robot, information security, James Webb Space Telescope, job automation, Lean Startup, minimum viable product, off grid, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, stealth mode startup, Steve Jobs, Strategic Defense Initiative, strikebreaker, union organizing, Yogi Berra

Nate had long before figured out that when visiting construction sites, it was wisest to park far from the action, to avoid a nail in the tire of his car. VI. Years later, PMD would make the robotic machine that placed, within a thousandth of an inch, a dozen and a half ninety-pound gold mirrors on the James Webb space telescope, the successor to Hubble. VII. He was also a creature of habit. He bought four Buick LeSabres in a row—long after Buick stopped making the model. 3. Dream Machines Bricklaying robots have entered the imaginations of many men, but few have tried to build them. Many dreamers, in a sadly parasitic manner, have taken out patents on ideas—and then sat there, like Venus flytraps, waiting for tinkerers like Scott to come along and do the work for them.

Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Mike Massimino

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, carbon-based life, Charles Lindbergh, company town, Gene Kranz, imposter syndrome, James Webb Space Telescope, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mason jar, Neil Armstrong, Silicon Valley, systems thinking, telerobotics, Virgin Galactic, Yom Kippur War

That number should be going in the opposite direction. Our space program is in a period of transition. Some doors are closing and others we’re still trying to open. But the difficulty of our present moment should inspire us, not discourage us. There’s so much for us to achieve if we decide, as a nation, to commit ourselves to it. The James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble’s successor, is set to launch in 2018. Private companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are putting rockets into space, creating a whole new range of exciting opportunities. The international cooperation behind the space station has put a wealth of resources at our disposal that the Mercury and Apollo teams never had.

Human Frontiers: The Future of Big Ideas in an Age of Small Thinking by Michael Bhaskar

"Margaret Hamilton" Apollo, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, AI winter, Albert Einstein, algorithmic trading, AlphaGo, Anthropocene, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, backpropagation, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Boeing 747, brain emulation, Brexit referendum, call centre, carbon tax, charter city, citizen journalism, Claude Shannon: information theory, Clayton Christensen, clean tech, clean water, cognitive load, Columbian Exchange, coronavirus, cosmic microwave background, COVID-19, creative destruction, CRISPR, crony capitalism, cyber-physical system, dark matter, David Graeber, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Demis Hassabis, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, deplatforming, discovery of penicillin, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Easter island, Edward Jenner, Edward Lorenz: Chaos theory, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, endogenous growth, energy security, energy transition, epigenetics, Eratosthenes, Ernest Rutherford, Eroom's law, fail fast, false flag, Fellow of the Royal Society, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, general purpose technology, germ theory of disease, glass ceiling, global pandemic, Goodhart's law, Google Glasses, Google X / Alphabet X, GPT-3, Haber-Bosch Process, hedonic treadmill, Herman Kahn, Higgs boson, hive mind, hype cycle, Hyperloop, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, Innovator's Dilemma, intangible asset, interchangeable parts, Internet of things, invention of agriculture, invention of the printing press, invention of the steam engine, invention of the telegraph, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, ITER tokamak, James Watt: steam engine, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, job automation, Johannes Kepler, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Large Hadron Collider, liberation theology, lockdown, lone genius, loss aversion, Louis Pasteur, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, megacity, megastructure, Menlo Park, Minecraft, minimum viable product, mittelstand, Modern Monetary Theory, Mont Pelerin Society, Murray Gell-Mann, Mustafa Suleyman, natural language processing, Neal Stephenson, nuclear winter, nudge unit, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, OpenAI, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, PageRank, patent troll, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, post scarcity, post-truth, precautionary principle, public intellectual, publish or perish, purchasing power parity, quantum entanglement, Ray Kurzweil, remote working, rent-seeking, Republic of Letters, Richard Feynman, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Simon Kuznets, skunkworks, Slavoj Žižek, sovereign wealth fund, spinning jenny, statistical model, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Stuart Kauffman, synthetic biology, techlash, TED Talk, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Bayes, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, TikTok, total factor productivity, transcontinental railway, Two Sigma, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, When a measure becomes a target, X Prize, Y Combinator

As in the seventeenth century, a constellation of tools will alter our perception of the universe. Despite the challenges, and beyond AI, the outlines of a toolkit for the new millennium are coming into view. We too have our telescopes. Just look at those now coming into operation: the Square Kilometer Array in South Africa, capable of generating exabytes of data; the $9.7 billion James Webb Space Telescope, with six times times the light-gathering capacity of the Hubble Space Telescope; the Extremely Large Telescope in Chile, with a 39m primary mirror gathering a hundred million times the light available to the human eye and providing images sixteen times sharper than the Hubble; Breakthrough Listen's global push for extraterrestrial intelligence; and the new generation of gravitational wave instruments among them.

What to Think About Machines That Think: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Age of Machine Intelligence by John Brockman

Adam Curtis, agricultural Revolution, AI winter, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, algorithmic trading, Anthropocene, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, autism spectrum disorder, autonomous vehicles, backpropagation, basic income, behavioural economics, bitcoin, blockchain, bread and circuses, Charles Babbage, clean water, cognitive dissonance, Colonization of Mars, complexity theory, computer age, computer vision, constrained optimization, corporate personhood, cosmological principle, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, Danny Hillis, dark matter, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, digital capitalism, digital divide, digital rights, discrete time, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, Elon Musk, Emanuel Derman, endowment effect, epigenetics, Ernest Rutherford, experimental economics, financial engineering, Flash crash, friendly AI, functional fixedness, global pandemic, Google Glasses, Great Leap Forward, Hans Moravec, hive mind, Ian Bogost, income inequality, information trail, Internet of things, invention of writing, iterative process, James Webb Space Telescope, Jaron Lanier, job automation, Johannes Kepler, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Kevin Kelly, knowledge worker, Large Hadron Collider, lolcat, loose coupling, machine translation, microbiome, mirror neurons, Moneyball by Michael Lewis explains big data, Mustafa Suleyman, natural language processing, Network effects, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, Peter Singer: altruism, phenotype, planetary scale, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, recommendation engine, Republic of Letters, RFID, Richard Thaler, Rory Sutherland, Satyajit Das, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart contracts, social intelligence, speech recognition, statistical model, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, strong AI, Stuxnet, superintelligent machines, supervolcano, synthetic biology, systems thinking, tacit knowledge, TED Talk, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, theory of mind, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Turing machine, Turing test, Von Neumann architecture, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We are as Gods, Y2K

Consequently, if life on exoplanets is not extremely uncommon, we could discover some form of extrasolar life within about thirty years. In fact, if life is ubiquitous, we could get lucky and discover life even within the next ten years, through a combination of observations by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS, to be launched in 2017) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST, to be launched in 2018). One may argue that primitive life-forms are not machines that think. On Earth it took about 3.5 billion years from the emergence of unicellular life to the appearance of Homo sapiens. Are the extrasolar planets old enough to have developed intelligent life?

Principles of Corporate Finance by Richard A. Brealey, Stewart C. Myers, Franklin Allen

3Com Palm IPO, accelerated depreciation, accounting loophole / creative accounting, Airbus A320, Alan Greenspan, AOL-Time Warner, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, asset-backed security, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, big-box store, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black-Scholes formula, Boeing 747, book value, break the buck, Brownian motion, business cycle, buy and hold, buy low sell high, California energy crisis, capital asset pricing model, capital controls, Carl Icahn, Carmen Reinhart, carried interest, collateralized debt obligation, compound rate of return, computerized trading, conceptual framework, corporate governance, correlation coefficient, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, cross-border payments, cross-subsidies, currency risk, discounted cash flows, disintermediation, diversified portfolio, Dutch auction, equity premium, equity risk premium, eurozone crisis, fear index, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, fixed income, frictionless, fudge factor, German hyperinflation, implied volatility, index fund, information asymmetry, intangible asset, interest rate swap, inventory management, Iridium satellite, James Webb Space Telescope, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, Larry Ellison, law of one price, linear programming, Livingstone, I presume, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, Louis Bachelier, low interest rates, market bubble, market friction, money market fund, moral hazard, Myron Scholes, new economy, Nick Leeson, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, PalmPilot, Ponzi scheme, prediction markets, price discrimination, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, QR code, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, random walk, Real Time Gross Settlement, risk free rate, risk tolerance, risk/return, Robert Shiller, Scaled Composites, shareholder value, Sharpe ratio, short selling, short squeeze, Silicon Valley, Skype, SpaceShipOne, Steve Jobs, subprime mortgage crisis, sunk-cost fallacy, systematic bias, Tax Reform Act of 1986, The Nature of the Firm, the payments system, the rule of 72, time value of money, too big to fail, transaction costs, University of East Anglia, urban renewal, VA Linux, value at risk, Vanguard fund, vertical integration, yield curve, zero-coupon bond, zero-sum game, Zipcar

The opportunity cost of using the plane is equal to the cost of buying an equivalent aircraft to replace it. Forget Sunk Costs Sunk costs are like spilled milk: They are past and irreversible outflows. Because sunk costs are bygones, they cannot be affected by the decision to accept or reject the project, and so they should be ignored. Take the case of the James Webb Space Telescope. It was originally supposed to launch in 2011 and cost $1.6 billion. But the project became progressively more expensive and further behind schedule. An independent review board reported that the giant telescope could end up costing up to $6.5 billion and wouldn’t launch until 2015 at the earliest.

…

See Internal rate of return (IRR) Irrevocable letter of credit, 782 Ishii, J. L., 826n ISS, 304 Italy, nominal versus real exchange rates, 701–703 ITT, 842, 848, 849 Ivanhoe, 390n J Jackson, G., 878 Jack Wolfskin, 848 Jacquier, E., 163n Jaguar Land Rover, 807 James, C. M., 812n James Webb Space Telescope, 135 Japan bubbles in, 332, 334, 885 company financing in, 863 foreign bonds in, 616 growth and declining industries in, 874–875 just-in-time approach, 781 mergers and, 809 ownership and control in, 865–866, 869 short-termism in, 874 Japan Airlines, 855 Jarmin, R. S., 839n Jarrell, G., 96n, 405, 405n JBS, 827 J.C.

She Has Her Mother's Laugh by Carl Zimmer

23andMe, agricultural Revolution, Anthropocene, clean water, clockwatching, cloud computing, CRISPR, dark matter, data science, discovery of DNA, double helix, Drosophila, Easter island, Elon Musk, epigenetics, Fellow of the Royal Society, Flynn Effect, friendly fire, Gary Taubes, germ theory of disease, Gregor Mendel, Helicobacter pylori, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, lolcat, longitudinal study, medical bankruptcy, meta-analysis, microbiome, moral panic, mouse model, New Journalism, out of africa, phenotype, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Recombinant DNA, Scientific racism, statistical model, stem cell, twin studies, W. E. B. Du Bois

By the 1970s, the first generation of people treated for PKU since birth reached adulthood. They could finish school, hold jobs, have ordinary lives. In 2001, a graduate student named Tracy Beck became the first person with PKU to gain a PhD. She became an astronomer, helping to build the James Webb Space Telescope. For thousands of years, people who inherited the mutations in Beck’s PAH genes would have looked to the sky and not known the word for the lights they saw. Now Beck was helping to extend humanity’s gaze to the farthest edges of the universe. * * * — In 1957, the Vineland Training School decided to test all their students for PKU.