Oceans of Opportunity

Tag: NASA

Creating ‘Space’ for Space

Having ‘space’ within space seems to be a critical bottleneck in manned space exploration, second of course to cost-effective round trip travel. Regarding the latter, the various recent private initiatives are certainly making progress, though like anything groundbreaking, there remains a long road ahead. Once we get there, what are we going to do? Answering…

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Inflatable Habitats from Sea to Space

Recent space news is nothing short of exciting: http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/20550/20160409/nasa-and-affiliates-send-inflatable-habitat-named-beam-into-space.htm. An inflatable habitat is headed to space. This of course makes great sense to be light and efficient when considering that weight is probably the single most cost-prohibitive factor when looking at space ventures. In the future, this level of modularity and portability will be what let’s us…

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NASA’s Ocean Worlds Exploration Program

News of a recent NASA proposed budget to the House Appropriations Committee crossed my desk just this week, and while the vision is exciting, I’m somewhat disturbed. The punchline of the proposed Ocean Worlds Exploration Program includes ambitious life-seeking missions to the watery worlds of Europa, Enceladus, and Titan, with program development tipping well over the…

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the best of both worlds

Gotta love it – the plan to dive the methane seas of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon – in 2040 nonetheless. That’s right around the corner in space exploration years! Despite being in a bit of a science funding slump in recent years, it seems sights are being set on some very bold horizons; manned missions…

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Malaysia 370 | an ocean education rollercoaster

I too have been among the masses tuning in almost nightly to find updates on missing Malaysia flight 370. It’s been an inescapable event, with it taking front and center for more than a month since its disappearance. While the whole story has proven disturbing from several perspectives – particularly the huge gaps in information…

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where will we humans play next – Mars?

A recent CNN piece discussed the future of NASA, with a particular focus on the ‘spark’ that has been long since lost in the program. As it is argued, the early excitement in NASA came from human venturing to a new frontier for the first time – we were leaving this planet and looking to…

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one small step for man – 8 years earlier

I wouldn’t have thought twice about today being any more significant than yesterday, though thanks to Google I was reminded otherwise. Today is an incredibly significant day in fact – marking the 50th anniversary of mankind’s first steps beyond Planet Earth. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin left our atmosphere on April 12, 1961. The event has likely…

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STS-51L Challenger Tragedy | 25 Years Today

Twenty-five years ago this very morning (at age 6) I was sitting on a tile floor in the hallway of Martin Elementary School in Seekonk, Massachusetts watching history unfold in real-time. This school assembly followed a series of classroom lessons about space – our solar system, the moon, and exploration. As the world turns, it often takes…

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an Earth-like Evolution

Are we alone? The question of all questions, of all civilizations, and of all time. The fact that we have such high biological and chemical diversity here on Earth, would lead one to believe that there are no exacting replicates of us, or even of our biosphere out there on another planet or inhabitable moon,…

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