WPenner's Blog

Last night I was reading Talmud, asking questions, and I realized that the 1st six Tarot cards are an excellent way of thinking about social implications. Those six cards, shown below, are the Fool, the Magician, the (High) Priestess, the Empress, the Emperor, and the Hierophant. Each of the persona...

The other day someone asked me about creating an Org Chart in HTML instead of using Visio. Since visualizing a fast changing organizational structure for investors, potential customers, and curious journalists is a common problem for people in the startup space, what I found seems to have broad ap...

As the US heads back to the Moon, the world differs greatly from what it was in the late 60s and early 70s. People in the US are far more cynical and skeptical than ever before. According to Gallup International, 8% of respondents agree that “The planet Earth is flat and what is everywhere written...

To sustain life on the Moon over more than a few days, building a sustainable life support system is crucial. Challenges include lifting or producing enough resources to get the system up and running and sustaining the system cost effectively once running. Any life support system must be adequate to...

Michael Lind explains pre-modern citizenship as being reserved for adult males who, having
fought to defend their territory,
received citizenship and exclusive rights
by dint of putting their lives on the line.
As a result, we could describe citizenship as a kind local, limited, self-help club f...

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.

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...