Howdy everyone! Outstanding. That’s the only way to describe this year’s Moon Day at Frontiers of Flight. From not even knowing if there was going to be one this year only three months ago, to what actually transpired, was quite a ride. It’s hard to get an accurate attendance count, … Continue reading
Category Archives: Lunar
Be Afraid
Be very afraid. The first part of my Moon and Back interview at the ISDC conference is now up. I haven’t watched it yet, as I’m a little worried that I said something phenomenally stupid. Enjoy! Interview With Ken Murphy, part 1 – Outreach For Space Awareness Originally posted on … Continue reading
2010 Metroplex Moon Day Machinations
Howdy everyone! I’m just taking a break here from my current project, the cobbling together of some kind of coherent program for this year’s Moon Day celebration on July 18th from 1-5 pm at the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field in Dallas. That’s right, folks from elsewhere can … Continue reading
Carnival of the Egg Moon
Howdy everyone! Thing’s are certainly perking up for Spring, even with regards to our Moon, so I decided to throw together another Carnival of the Moon. Recently, The Moon Society sent out a request to its members eliciting support for a book donation project to create a Lunar Resource Library … Continue reading
EVA Interviews Hoyt Davidson, Managing Partner of Near Earth LLC
Welcome back to EVA Interviews: The Business of the new Space Ageâ„¢ as we leave the Lunar Editions and return to Earth orbit. Our next guest is Hoyt Davidson, Founder and Managing Partner of Near Earth LLC. Near Earth specializes in providing Investment Banking and Advisory Services to companies and investors in the … Continue reading
The Dawn of a New American Enterprise
The space program announcement on Monday was, in my view, status quo shattering. It engages a lot of risk, but if you look carefully at what it says (as opposed to what the mass media says it says), you will see that it unlocks an enormous realm of opportunity. In … Continue reading
EVA Interviews Team “Selenokhod” in the Google Lunar X Prize Competition
From Russia, we welcome Team Selenokhod to EVA Interviews: The Business of the new Space Ageâ„¢ in the fourth of this series of Lunar Editions. As one of the most recent entrants in the Google Lunar X Prize competition, Team Selenokhod looks to build on Russia’s early lunar robotic successes of … Continue reading
EVA Interviews Team “Next Giant Leap” in the Google Lunar X Prize Competition
Welcome to the third in this series of Lunar Editions of EVA Interviews: The Business of the new Space Ageâ„¢. To start this series, EVA went directly to the source and interviewed the Moon about its expectations for future lunar commercial activities. Coming back down to Earth, the second interview focused on the organization whose … Continue reading
Scholarships for Space Studies
Ah, your Lunar Librarian can well recall his student years, hitting the books and starving more often than not in the pursuit of knowledge. Ramen noodles, rice & beans, ravioli. I seemed to have a very R-rich diet. So that you won’t have to suffer as I did in my … Continue reading
Armadillo Competes for NG Lunar Lander Challenge
Howdy everyone! Here in North Texas we had a treat this weekend as Armadillo Aerospace made its bid for the $1,000,000 purse of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge at the Caddo Mills Municipal Airport just east of Dallas. Festivities kicked off in the hangar shortly after 9am on Saturday … Continue reading
EVA Interviews Will Pomerantz about the Google Lunar X PRIZE
Welcome to the second in a series of Lunar Editions of EVA Interviews: The Business of the new Space Ageâ„¢. In the first of this series, EVA went directly to the source and interviewed the Moon about its expectations for future lunar commercial activities. Coming back down to Earth, this next interview focuses on … Continue reading
EVA Interviews The Moon
Welcome to this next, unique edition of EVA Interviews: The Business of the New Space Ageâ„¢. This conversation started on a cold winter day in January over 2 years ago. A friend of mine at NASA asked me to look over a matrix he was creating on commercial lunar opportunities. … Continue reading
Space Business is heating up!
There are an increasing number of entrepreneurial space-related events and conferences happening, and here are a few that I’ve gotten notice of recently: On short notice is the half-day symposium on THE SPACE ECONOMY, occurring next Friday morning, March 13th in D.C. The agenda can be found here. There are … Continue reading
Review: “Who Owns the Moon”?
“Who Owns the Moon” by Virgiliu Pop. Published in 2009 by Springer as Vol. 4 in their Space Regulations Library, it weighs in at 175 pages all in. A handful of editing errors, mainly in the last half. While this could be considered a follow-up to Virg’s earlier work “Unreal … Continue reading
25 Good Reasons to Go to the Moon
Librarian’s Note: This is a reprint of a blog post that I wrote for Selenian Boondocks, where I guest blog. I haven’t really needed to change the text, but I have updated it with some pictures and weblinks. 25 Good Reasons to Go to the Moon
Carnival of Space #57 – This One’s for the Ladies!
Howdy everyone! Welcome to this week’s spectacular Carnival of Space! I’m your host Ken, the Lunar Librarian here at Out of the Cradle. We don’t have to go far this week to find space. This last weekend in Washington, D.C., the National Space Society held their 27th annual International Space … Continue reading
Rollerblading on the Moon
Spring is in full bloom here in the metroplex, so I had to dig the rollerblades out of the closet. This will be my fifteenth year rollerblading, and I think the main reason that I continue to do so is that it is absolute joy. There’s a small park here … Continue reading
Of a Garden on the Moon, part III
or: The quest for answers continues In our quest to answer the question of whether plants can grow in Lunar regolith, the main obstacle to a definitive answer seems to be that we are limited in our research by the availability of actual Moon dirt to work with. This time … Continue reading
Of a Garden on the Moon, part II
or: Let’s consult the most comprehensive text to date. Henninger et al’s “Lunar Base Agriculture: Soils for Lunar Plant Growth”, published in 1989 by the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America, weighing in at 255 pages. I’m not qualified … Continue reading
Of a Garden on the Moon, part I
or: How are we going to grow plants in sterile rock dust? One of the key questions for early Lunar selenologists was whether or not the regolith of the Moon could support life. The results were pretty conclusively no, as most of the elements that we consider important for life … Continue reading
Best of the Moon 2007
Howdy everyone, and welcome to the Best of the Moon 2007! Each year we stop and take a look at the best additions to the Lunar Library over the course of the year. 2007 has been an unusual one for the Lunar Library, not least because your friendly Librarian was … Continue reading
Carnival of Space #31
Howdy Everyone! Welcome back to The Carnival of Space, which stops again here at Out of the Cradle with an all new show, its 31st ever! [Update: Thanks to Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log for the heads-up on the broken links. They should all work now] I’m Ken Murphy, the … Continue reading
The Lunar Library Lacks a Logo!
Image by Clifford Geary from ‘The REAL BOOK about Space Travel’ Attention all readers! Now that the Lunar Library is one year old, I’ve decided that it needs a logo for its first birthday present. Since your friendly Lunar Librarian is sorely lacking in the Art arts (but appreciates them … Continue reading
Carnival of Space #18
Image by R.A. Smith from “The Exploration of the Moon” Hear ye! Hear ye! Step right up ladies and gentlemen and prepare to be shocked and amazed at the wonders of the universe that await you here at the Carnival of Space. I’m Ken Murphy, custodian of the Lunar Library … Continue reading
It Is The Very Model of a Modern Moon Menagerie…
“The Modern Moon: A Personal View†by Charles A. Wood Published in 2003 by Sky Publishing Corp, it weighs in at 209 pages all in. No errors noted. This was a recent acquisition to the Lunar Library, the result of a chance encounter at Half-Price Books. Flipping through it, I … Continue reading