by Michael Belfiore | Feb 8, 2013 | Articles, Blog
On Friday, February 15, 2013, an asteroid the size of half a football field—50 meters or so in diameter—will come within a hair of hitting Earth. At closest approach, it will pass a mere 17,000 miles away, well within the orbit of our geosynchronous communications...
by Michael Belfiore | Feb 1, 2013 | Articles, Blog
Like a lot of revolutionary ideas, it seems crazy at first glance: a space habitat that rides to orbit in a compressed state, and then inflates to full size when it gets there. But NASA worked seriously on the idea, pegging it for a future Mars mission...
by Michael Belfiore | Jan 24, 2013 | Blog
When I heard that David Gump had left top Google Lunar X PRIZE contender Astrobotic, I was pretty sure he would pop up somewhere equally interesting. I wasn’t disappointed to learn that he had become the CEO of Deep Space Industries, or DSI. DSI is the second...
by Michael Belfiore | Jan 14, 2013 | Blog
Sure, it’s a marketing gimmick, but it’s also an exciting new endorsement for XCOR Aerospace and its Lynx suborbital spaceplane. Multinational personal care products company Unilever has bought 22 tickets (retail value about $2.1 million) for a contest...
by Michael Belfiore | Jan 9, 2013 | Blog
The Lynx, a two seat rocket-powered airplane under development by XCOR Aerospace, is on track to start flight testing this summer, company executives tell me. If all goes as planned, that will make two rocket planes blasting out of the Mojave Air and Space Port this...
by Michael Belfiore | Dec 31, 2012 | Blog
Pioneers are those brave enough to go where no one, or few, have gone before. Usually that involves taking a risk; if it were completely safe, the way would already be well-traveled. Reda Anderson was such a one. I had the pleasure of meeting her back in 2006, when...
