Since childhood, I've been drawn to everything and anything connected to space and astronomy. Other boys memorized baseball statistics and idolized NFL quarterbacks; I knew the minute details of spacecraft construction and operation and looked up to the astronauts who were headed to the moon as the ultimate heroes.

I'm just begining the process of rebuilding my space and astronomy page here now. I've transferred all the old links, so many of them are dead or out of date. -- GB 2002-09-13

From the Earth to the Moon, 2050

3d modelling and rendering I've done to illustrate my life-long dream.

GENERAL SPACE AND ASTRONOMY LINKS

  • Spaceflight Now: A very good space news and background portal
  • Space Daily. Lots of good news and links. An excellent source of current events, developments and links.
  • Space.com: Slick space news site. Good up-to-date news (but not a lot of depth and few outward-bound links).
  • SpaceRef.com: Good news and background site.
  • "NASA Today" is a good place to check current events in space exploration and observational astronomy. The site has links to other basic NASA web sites and is well worth regular visits.
  • The Universe Today: General space and Astronomy news.
  • SkyViews: Jay Respler's excellent monthly observer's guide.

ORGANIZATIONS

  • National Space Science Data Center. Superb repository of a lot of information about space, some raw, some processed.
  • The Planetary Society. I've been a member of the Planetary Society for years and find its balance of science and space advocacy to be just right. I encourage any space enthusiast to join and support the Planetary Society.
  • National Space Society: The largest U.S. space advocacy group.
  • SEDS: Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
  • The Archimdes Institute: "a policy research organization devoted to the efficient and equitable development of the solar system" through efforts such as "the implementation of private policy initiatives such as the registry for private claims to solar system resources."
  • The First Millennial Foundation: "Colonizing the Galaxy in 8 Easy Steps."
    • Distant Star: The Millennial Foundation's electronic magazine
  • Space Policy Digest: High-level discussion of space policy issues
  • FAS Space Policy Project: "promotes American national security and international stability by providing the public and decision-makers with information and analysis on civil and military space issues, policies and programs."
  • ProSpace: "a grassroots organization of American citizens dedicated to opening the Space Frontier to ALL people as rapidly as possible."
  • The Space Frontier Foundation: "dedicated to opening the Space Frontier to human settlement as rapidly as possible."
  • Dephi Commercial Space Place forum: Web-based discussion forum for commercial space.
  • The Space Studies Institute: What's left of pioneer Gerard K. O'Neil's grand vision for colonization of the solar system

SPACEFLIGHT

(mainly manned)

IMAGES AND SIMULATIONS

  • Nasa Image Exchange. NASA's growing searchable archive of space-related images, organizing images from multiple NASA web servers.
  • NSSDC Image Database: National Space Science Data Center's collectioon of images of astronomical objects
  • Hubble. Although earth-surface-based telescopes are getting better and better all the time, for right now the best (in most ways) and surely the coolest telescope is Hubble. To take a look at the product of this wonderful instrument, go to The Space Telescope Institute. Check this out! Lots of great images (although proceed with caution if you are bandwidth-challenged).
  • J-Track 3D: Incredible Java applet that displays the current positions and orbital tracks for a huge catalogue of spacecraft in Earch orbit. Well worth the download time
  • TERRA: NASA's EOS-AM1 satellite, with continuously updated images of our home planet
  • Dance of the Planets is a great solar system simulator that I have spent many hours exploring. Until I get that big scope, Dance satisfies much of my desire to explore the heavens.
  • Earth and Moon Viewer: A cool online program that allows you to image the Earth and Moon from any angle or altitude.
  • Journey into the Heavens: A graphics-intensive site devoted to introductory material concerning space exploration

Directories, Links Pages and Miscellaneous Stuff

PLANETARY SCIENCE

  • NSSDC Chronology of Lunar and Planetary Exploration: Exhaustive catalog of every known (or suspected) planetary probe.
  • Galileo. A faitfhful robot servant that, despite handicaps, exceeded all expectations as our first "giant-planet" orbiter.
  • Cassini. Probably the last of the massive "mega-probes", Cassini's 7-year transit to Saturn began without incident in October of 1997 and is now in its complex slingshot phase,picking up speed by swinging past Venus and Earth before its 2004 rendezvous with Saturn.  Once there it will release a lander on Saturn's mist-shrouded moon Titan and then engage in a multi-year orbital survey of the Saturnian system. Before the launch, the "anti-nuclear movement" and other, more overtly Luddite groups and individuals took opposition to Cassini as a cause. It has been said that one's attitide toward lightning rods was a test of rationality in the 18th Century. One's attitude toward the Cassini "nuclear threat" may well be a test of rationality in the last decade of the 20th Century.
  • Mars. The planetary science community, with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (which has nothing to do with jets any more) in the lead, is in the process of investigating our nearest planetary neighbor with an unprecedented array of probes. This site contains links to the JPL probes in this series.
  • Extrasolar Planets: A catalog of all known or suspected planets circling other stars. Consider this a real estate listing..
  • Terraforming: An excellent collection of information about transforming planetary environments into more hospitable places.

EXOBIOLOGY

  • Astrobiology: A very well put together electronic magazine.
  • SETI. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a worthwhile enterprise, no matter how small the chances of success in any given year. The day we make Contact, this will be a great link to have. It's still worth having in the meantime, come to think of it.
  • http://www.bigscience.com/setiathome.html: An interesting and ambitious project to distribute the computing requirements of a deep SETI program to PCs over the Web.
  • SETI: Sky and Telescope's collection of articles about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
  • Life on Mars? In August of 1996, NASA researchers announced what they called "compelling evidence" of fossil microbiology in a meteorite of definite Martian origin. This Federation of American Scientists site tracks developments in this story. If confirmed, this is one of the most important scientific discoveries in history, so stay tuned.

The Fermi Paradox. Where are they? Don't answer too quickly, as some of the most intelligent people in the world are stumped by this one:

 

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