by Michael Belfiore | Dec 18, 2012 | Articles, Blog
It’s a good thing I took a wrong turn on the way to Albany International Airport a few weeks back. Turning off the highway prematurely, I came face to face with the NanoTech Complex at the State University of New York. I was amazed at how big this facility is:...
by Michael Belfiore | Oct 30, 2012 | Articles, Blog
The phrase “keeping a match lit in a hurricane” acquired new meaning to me over the last 24 hours as Hurricane Sandy whipped through Woodstock, where I live and work. The phrase is also a metaphor for the extreme challenge presented by hypersonic...
by Michael Belfiore | Oct 27, 2012 | Articles, Blog
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has opened a competition to build humanoid robots to aid in disaster recovery efforts. My Popular Mechanics story on the DARPA Robotics Challenge, posted on Thursday, gives the particulars of the two year race,...
by Michael Belfiore | Aug 16, 2012 | Articles, Blog
When I got the call from a new company called Planetary Resources about their mad scheme to mine asteroids, I pitched it immediately to my editors at Popular Mechanics. The rapid-fire response: “Hell yes!” I banged out a and a short Tech Watch piece that...
by Michael Belfiore | Apr 12, 2012 | Articles, Blog
The April 2012 issue of Scientific American has my article on the Google Lunar X PRIZE, the $30 million contest to land the first private robot on the moon. I got to spend time with leading team Astrobotic to craft the story and was very impressed by their potential...
by Michael Belfiore | Apr 2, 2012 | Articles, Blog
In case you missed it on the magazine racks, you can read the complete text of my March cover story for Air & Space magazine at airspacemag.com. Eric Anderson pioneered the commercial space flight industry, before anyone knew it could be a real business. His...
