Category Archives: Space Travel

A Life in Orbit

Posted on March 13, 2019 by jacksonhubble2904

Existing near the vacuum of space poses unique instrumentation and life cycle challenges for the Hubble telescope. The sun’s radiation has the potential to corrupt electronic signals or damage components, so many parts must be shielded and redundant systems are required. Without atmospheric regulation, the temperature of an object in orbit such as the HST … Continue reading A Life in Orbit → Continue reading →

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Interplanetary Rocket Travel and the Rocket Equation

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Andrew Talley

In rocket travel, one of the most essential elements is ∆v – the change in a ship’s velocity. The spaceship needs to accelerate to get out of the atmosphere, and then speed up to achieve orbit. If it’s going to another planet, it needs to achieve escape velocity from Earth, then speed up/slow down its … Continue reading Interplanetary Rocket Travel and the Rocket Equation → Continue reading →

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Blog 4: Humans back on the Moon and on to Mars

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Katie

NASA’s plans for sending people to Mars are intertwined with their plans to send humans to the Moon more consistently, and hopefully to be able to establish a human presence their within the decade. They plan to launch the Gateway, a spaceship that will orbit the moon to support future trips there. They plan to launch … Continue reading Blog 4: Humans back on the Moon and on to Mars → Continue reading →

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Updates on the Voyager Missions

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Harrison Chen

When I was younger, I was always fascinated by the amazing strides of space exploration technology. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were the pinnacle of human achievement in my opinion. It has been a long time since I reviewed their journey. I watched a YouTube video summarizing the achievements of these two amazing space probes. … Continue reading Updates on the Voyager Missions → Continue reading →

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Economics of Intra-Stellar Spacecraft

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Andrew Talley

After seeing the discussion of spacecraft within our solar system in the textbook, and the impact the mission type has on the cost, I was curious to see how these discussions were reflected in actual data on these missions. So, I copied each mission from the book into Excel, and then researched each. Thanks mostly … Continue reading Economics of Intra-Stellar Spacecraft → Continue reading →

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Gravity Waves

Posted on March 11, 2019 by Jonathan Roberts

Venus is the unfortunate victim of a runaway greenhouse effect. Not only does this make the planet uninhabitable, it also causes a tremendous degree of difficulty in observing the planet’s surface. However, there are many interesting things to gain from Venus by just looking at the atmosphere, including a massive gravity wave. Gravity waves in … Continue reading Gravity Waves → Continue reading →

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Retrieving Voyager 1 – A Rescue Mission

Posted on March 11, 2019 by Jonathan Roberts

In 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 to study the far reaches of our solar system. The program was a tremendous success: not only did the probe gather useful information about Jupiter and Saturn, it also captured the first detailed images of their moons (including a flyby of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon). Even now, after Voyager … Continue reading Retrieving Voyager 1 – A Rescue Mission → Continue reading →

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Gravity-Assists in Reverse

Posted on February 10, 2019 by Andrew Talley

Gravity assist maneuvers are incredibly useful for sending spacecraft far into space. The maneuver is like a skiing parent using a pole to give their kid a boost. The parent loses a bit of momentum, but leverage their larger size to quickly speed their kid up. The same is true for a gravity assist. There, … Continue reading Gravity-Assists in Reverse → Continue reading →

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Life on the Moon!!…Kinda

Posted on January 21, 2019 by dayvon

Does extraterrestrial life exist? Can living things even survive on another world? These are questions that have been asked for a long time and continue to be asked today. China tried to address the latter recently by experimenting with cotton seeds along with 6 other organisms, including potato seeds and fruit fly eggs, on their … Continue reading Life on the Moon!!…Kinda → Continue reading →

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Can we travel at the speed of light?

Posted on January 20, 2019 by alfredprah

How fast is light? Nothing on earth is known to move faster, and in my opinion, we are actually very fortunate to be able to measure it. Aside the fact that light enables us to see, I am appreciative of it even more because if it were to get any faster by any stretch, astronomers … Continue reading Can we travel at the speed of light? → Continue reading →

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