WPenner's Blog

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...

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...

In fact, projects might even be on the planning boards in 2019 to shift industries into orbit in a wholesale manner.
--- Isaac Asimov (The Stare)

In 1983, Isaac Asimov predicted a shift to space-based manufacturing that would revolutionize the process of creating products and the environmenta...

Energy in space is more crucial than on earth. On earth, our atmosphere circulates the energy from solar radiation, for example, and heats extensive areas to liveable (or mostly liveable) temperatures. Outside of the atmosphere, there is only the vacuum of space, which technically doesn't have a tem...

One of the most valuable sectors of the Canadian Space Economy is satellites. Used for communications (cell, TV, radio, internet), military and defence, agriculture, insurance, location services, Canadians benefit massively from these services, especially considering the size of the country and the...

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed views we had never seen before and novel aspects of views we had seen many times before. There is a lot of excitement and curious people of all stripes will pour over these images and associated data for years to come. Beyond the scientific, there a...

Enter the Worm

"How long could a worm live in space?" I pondered this odd question last week after coming across a bit of space gardening research from Iowa State University. Fans of The Martian know just how compelling space gardening can be!

A group of researchers looked at the ways to overc...