When I wrote about ‘Government on Mars’ about a month ago, I wondered about the Moon Agreement. Unlike its parent treaty the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and its three sibling treaties concerning the rescue of astronauts, liability for damage caused by space objects, and the registration of objects launched into outer space, the Moon... Continue Reading →
Government on Mars
A Friday in August 2020 a colleague from the Department of History sends me an email. Elon Musk has tweeted about bureaucracy which is our shared research topic (mine: contemporary; his: the middle ages). The gold nugget Musk offers us is this: "Bureaucracy is inherently Kafkaesque" (Musk on Twitter 20 August 2020). Someone replies: How... Continue Reading →
The industrialization of space
On August 27 2020 I am scheduled to attend the annual European Astrobiology Network Association Conference. Yet on the same day, NASA is hosting the annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference. Because it is still ‘during the corona’ in the United States and in Europe both conferences have been moved online so I... Continue Reading →
Regarding laziness
Excerpt from piece: "If left to my own devises, I will oscillate between short spurts of intense action followed by longer periods inclined to do nothing at all. Of course, between kids and work, that is not really an option, but what I’m saying is, I’d do it if I could. But what does it... Continue Reading →
Utopiorites
Granted, I’ve been listening to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab’s latest podcast series on asteroids. This is what I learned: Asteroids are called thus because they looks ‘like Asters’ – stars – when you first see them in a telescope. But they are tiny and they move so may be identified by their movement and way... Continue Reading →
SuperShe II: feminist empowerment through shopping
I signed up to join the ‘SuperShe community’ in August 2019. The idea of the island both attracted and repelled me. I was not sure if I wanted to go so bad that I wanted to blow all my travel funding. The price for a week on SuperShe at that point was reported by Lonely... Continue Reading →
Taking other people’s money is a slippery slope
On the second day of the International Space Station Research & Development Conference 2020 I sit in on a panel related to the new space economy. It is called Investing in Space: Trends, Opportunities, and Risks. After it finishes I'm convinced I need to start buying stocks. But apart from learning a lot about investment... Continue Reading →
Seasteading: a ’policy-high’
The Grandson of Milton Friedman, Patri Friedman, has written a book called Seasteading in collaboration with a guy called Joe Quirk. My point is the subtitle: “How floating nations will restore the environment, enrich the poor, cure the sick, and liberate humanity from politicians.” This is a serious case of what I (during a meeting... Continue Reading →
Get Out of My Room!
As 2020 wears on, Mars is all over the news. There’s corona, there Black Lives Matter, there’s Beirut, there’s starvation, there’s Hong Kong, there's Trump & Biden, and now there’s Mars. SpaceX has successfully launched astronauts going to the International Space Station from the US for the first time since 2011. I had no idea... Continue Reading →
The night sky as we knew it
The great thing about industrious people is that things happen. I’m beginning to wonder if the bad thing about industrious people is the same. The night sky as we now know it is in the process of changing for good. I am talking about Starlink; Elon Musk’s fleet of satellites intended to revolutionize internet speed... Continue Reading →
