Tag Archives: spacetravel

Blog 7: Interstellar Travel

Posted on April 24, 2024 by Charles Knoll

In movies, spaceships often travel at the speed of light, but in reality, we are far from achieving this. Our fastest spacecraft only reach 1/10,000 of the speed of light taking them about 100,000 years to get to the nearest star system. Moreover, the spacecraft we’ve sent so far aren’t even headed towards Alpha Centauri due to […] Continue reading →

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What’s Next?

Posted on April 29, 2023 by alicebyrnes

While I’ve always been vaguely interested in astronomy, before taking this class some part of my brain assumed we had somewhat stagnated on space exploration. This is largely because I knew other stars and galaxies were so far away, and we just don’t have the technology to travel to them. Ultimately, this class helped me […] Continue reading →

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JUICE Explorer

Posted on April 29, 2023 by alicebyrnes

As discussed briefly in class, the European Space Agency (ESA) just successfully launched the Juice (formerly JUICE: JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) mission on April 14th! I had no idea this mission even existed before it was mentioned, so I decided to explore it further. The goal of this mission is focused on Jupiter’s moons. While […] Continue reading →

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Political Economics of Space Exploration

Posted on April 25, 2023 by georgeboardman20

Image from NASA Press Release I remember when I was young thinking, why haven’t we put humans on Mars yet? We have the feasibility to do so, but why? The answer comes down to the intersection between power politics and economics that often hamper, restrict and sometimes fuel the drive for space exploration. Before this […] Continue reading →

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Achieving Light Speed: Curvature Propulsion

Posted on January 21, 2023 by alicebyrnes

Space curvature propulsion is a theoretical idea that has been explored through science fiction (including Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy) as method of allowing ships to travel through space at or beyond the speed of light. While this idea currently resides firmly in the realm of science fiction, the theoretical basis is rooted […] Continue reading →

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The Future of Space: Defense and Exploration

Posted on May 3, 2022 by Brian

Our recent studies of impacts and life in the universe have made me consider the future of astronomy and space travel. The incessant threat of a catastrophic impact means that there will always be a focus on impactor defense here on Earth, and humanity’s natural urge for expansion and exploration will surely result in futureContinue reading “The Future of Space: Defense and Exploration” Continue reading →

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The Future of Space Travel – The Skyhook

Posted on May 2, 2022 by Johann West

Infrastructure is everywhere. Most every way of transport that we consider using regularly has immense infrastructure. Cars have roads, trains have rails and stations, and airplanes have airports and runways. But with space travel, we take the brute force method, spending immense amounts of money and forcing a rocket to defy gravity and get itself …

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What if life existed in every solar system?

Posted on April 27, 2022 by Quint Gfroerer

The Drake equation investigates the likelihood of intelligent, communicating life existing on other worlds in our galaxy. But what if life could easily exist on other worlds, and there was life in every solar system around us? What could this potentially mean for us? First, we must consider the fact that the closest star to […] Continue reading →

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Life Among the Rings

Posted on April 7, 2022 by isaiandrade01

Perhaps one of the best chances of finding life on another world in our solar system, one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus, is a world of great interest. Although considerably smaller than our own Moon, Enceladus is a small world composed of a top layer of ice, which is on average 20 km thick across the […] Continue reading →

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The Future of Humanity

Posted on January 25, 2022 by isaiandrade01

I think this picture represents me well because I have a big passion for space, specifically interplanetary travel. Images like this inspire me because I believe the future of humanity resides on multiple planets, and I want to be a part of the engineering behind it. Continue reading →

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