I don’t normally blog about NSS of North Texas chapter meetings, but I was under the gun to come up with some program content for the next chapter meeting, and so I pulled something out of my…hat that may be interesting to a broader audience. “Comics in Space: Graphic Tales … Continue reading
Category Archives: Space Blogs
Boy Scout Space Exploration Merit Badge Bleg
Howdy everyone! I’ve got a new project I’m working on, and here’s the back story. Back in late 2002, the Boy Scout headquarters, located here in the D/FW metroplex, contacted the local chapter of National Space Society to get their help in updating the Space Exploration Merit Badge pamphlet. This … Continue reading
Moon Day – The Sophomore Edition
Howdy everyone! Things are finally starting to gel for Moon Day, and we finally have the splash and the event details up at the Frontiers of Flight Museum website. As with any sophomore effort, it has been rough, and there have been some big fails along the way, but it … Continue reading
Carnival of Space #157: The 2010 ISDC Round-Up Edition
Welcome everyone to this, the spectacular 157th Carnival of Space. I’m Ken, the Lunar Librarian here at Out of the Cradle, and I’ll be your host as we enter into the fourth year’s worth of weekly space commentary on a galaxy of topics. The tradition here at OotC is to … Continue reading
Space Investment Summit 8/ISDC 2010 Debrief
Howdy everyone! I’m fresh back in Dallas after a road-trip to Chicago for the SIS8/ISDC2010 combo, hosted by the friendly folks at the National Space Society and organized by the Chicago chapter. ISDCs are unique creatures. While ostensibly the NSS is a national organization, the engine is the local chapters, … Continue reading
She’s Away!
Out of the Cradle extends sincere congratulations to SpaceX on the launch of their Falcon 9 rocket and the delivery of payload to orbit. These are the kinds of successes that the private space industry needs to continue to accrue to help show the promise of this growing American industry. … 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
Space Economy Leadership Summit Debrief
Howdy everyone! I took a couple of vacation days this week, so that of course means Space Conference! This time around it was the Space Economy Leadership Summit just down the road in Austin at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel on Congress Avenue. Put together by Phillips & Co., it … Continue reading
So finally we’re turning our gaze back towards the future
While I didn’t get to see the President’s address regarding his space program (as I’m not paid to watch videos at work, and its message had zero relevance to my portfolio of loan syndications and participations), I have taken the time to read the transcript of the President’s speech and … Continue reading
No Industry for Young Men?
So I got an interesting e-mail today. One of the organizers of this year’s ISDC sent out a message to the NSS leadership noting that: I notice that our ISDC is NOT doing a very good job of attracting young speakers in the space (not entrepreneur) community, i.e., the upcoming … 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
My New Space Hero
Howdy all! I just wanted to post a little something about this year’s winner of the Intel Science Talent Search, who has become my new space hero. Erika DeBenedictis, a senior at the Albuquerque Academy is doing research on what are variously known as low-energy trajectories, weak stability-boundary trajectories, InterPlanetary … Continue reading
ISU 14th Symposium Debrief: Reaching out or reaching in?
Here I am again on vacation, which means that I’m at a space conference. This time around it’s the International Space University annual symposium, this year on the theme of public outreach and education. Speakers have traveled from around the world to share ideas and experiences in space outreach and … 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
La Lune (gouvernmentale) est morte! Vive la Lune (commerciale)!
There’s certainly a lot of foofaraw surrounding what may be a significant realignment in how the U.S. government approaches space. While I hesitate to comment before the facts are in, I am allowing myself a bit of cautious optimism that we may finally be on a course where space moves … Continue reading
Subversive Space Outreach
Howdy everyone! I know I’ve been a bit quiet of late, but this has been a season of many changes, and I’ve been occupied with lots of things. I’m most proud of NSS-NT’s Santa Space Toy Drive, which dropped off three large (18″x18″x18″) boxes of toys at the WFAA Santa’s … Continue reading
LEAG 2009 Debrief
Wow! That was a mind-bending conference. Clearly LRO is coming into full flower, its instruments providing solid and fascinating results. Overall the trip down to Houston was a bonanza for the Lunar Library, with lots of new additions of all kinds, especially from the Half-Price Books down on NASA Road … Continue reading
Vacation on the Moon
From “Where the Winds Sleep” by Neil Ruzic Yippee! I’m on vacation. I’m finally using up the last of my rollover days from last year, so I’m going down to Houston for this year’s Lunar Exploration & Analysis Group (LEAG) meeting over the first part of next week. Given the … Continue reading
Woo-Hoooo!
I’m going to Strasbourg! I recently got the e-mail from the Selection Committee for the next ISU Symposium coming up in February, and they’ve accepted me as a speaker for the morning session of the first day, “Public Outreach, Promotion and Awareness”. This is actually a bit of a surprise. … 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
Carnival of Space #126 (& Carnival of the Moon)
Howdy Everyone! This week the 126th Carnival of Space alights at The Gish Bar Times, where Jason orders the show by least to most active bodies of our Solar system, leading to a kind of drunken stumble around the planets and moons we may one day call home. On the … Continue reading
Miscellaneous Stuff
Howdy Everyone! Lots of stuff going on in space these days, including the ongoing saga of the Carnival of Space as it traverses the interwebs to bring space to the people who may one day go there. If we can get our act together. Maybe. The current quasquicentennial edition of … Continue reading
Carnivals of Space a Go Go
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I haven’t been good of late about keeping up with the Carnival of Space. You try managing a mid-nine-figures portfolio of syndicated loans at your day job and see how much space work you can get done… Looking back I can see that the last CoS I … Continue reading
Yeah, I’ve got your “compelling reason” right here…
So I managed to touch off a bit of a debate over at Space Politics when I took issue with Jeff’s use of the phrase “if advocates can put together a compelling case.” It’s a phrase I grew rather tired of while listening to Dr. Livingston rant about it on … Continue reading
Metroplex Moon Madness
Talk about timing…just as news arrives that there is a lot more water on the Moon than previously expected, it also turns out that Andrew Chaikin is going to be speaking on the topic of “Back to the Moon” next Wednesday the 30th at the Frontiers of Flight Museum at … Continue reading