WPenner's Blog

In a 2020 report, the Canadian government reported that "In 2019, the space sector supported a total of 22,879 jobs in Canada" That breaks down to

• 10,541 space sector jobs,
• 6,482 supply industry jobs, and
• 5,856 jobs from consumer spending by associated employees.

I've seen several takes on SpaceX's new Starshield service. From a Canadian space perspective Daniel Sax (founder of Canadian Space Mining Corporation) writes

⁦@SpaceX⁩ decides it also wants to own the Earth Observation market and announces Starshield. Things are getting a whole lot more inter...

image: U-Battery

I have a non-professional interest in nuclear power as one of the highest density power sources we have yet discovered. Its carbon emissions rating is lower than hydro and despite dramatic accidents and contrary to the histrionic reporting, kills fewer people per year than any...

Mission to Psyche

🚀 LAUNCH UPDATE: NASA will move forward with the #MissiontoPsyche!

A planetary window is set to open October 10, 2023 for the Psyche spacecraft to head to a metal-rich asteroid of the same name.

Psyche will arrive at the asteroid in August 2029. 🛰https://t.co/E1MBrsyLDH

— NAS...

SpaceQ recently teased readers with an article titled Earth Observation Satellite Market About to Boom. Though behind a paywall, the gist of the article, to everyone paying attention to the satellite sector, is clear: Earth observation is hot and getting hotter. In a previous article, I examined t...

Hyperspectral Imaging

Satellites are the most profitable sector of Canadian space, and earth imaging is the most profitable portion of the sector. To understand satellite imaging, I am exploring several earth observation (EO) technologies. This area is fascinating and changing rapidly, so it's wor...

I was first exposed to the idea of space-based power in George Friedman's 2010 book The Next 100 Years.¹ The idea is fairly simple, locate solar panels above weather and Earth-based obstructions and at a point where the sun shines continuously. Geo-synchronous (GEO) orbits achieve the correct po...

Space 4.0 is the application of space to global challenges such as climate change, demographic development, migration, shortage of resources, conflicts and catastrophes, energy, digital divide, health and curiosity. It is a driver for technological improvement in automation, miniaturization, manuf...

Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash

THREAD: The US government's new export controls are wreaking havoc on China's chip industry.

New rules around "US persons" are driving an "industry-wide decapitation."

— Jordan Schneider (@jordanschnyc) October 14, 2022

I heard about this first from Peter Z...

Most important, in a practical sense, would be the construction of factories that could make use of the special properties of space — high and low temperatures, hard radiation. Unlimited vacuum, zero gravity — to manufacture objects that could be difficult or impossible to manufacture on Earth, so...