WELCOME
Thanks for coming to visit my website. I write about science, technology, foreign affairs, and other subjects.
Follow me on Twitter: @kkakaesDrones and Aerial Observation
I edited and wrote part of a short book published by New America in July 2015 and freely available online, about how drones are being used in new ways around the world. It's meant to be useful to people who want to fly drones.The Pioneer Detectives
I published a short book with The Millions.
It's the story of the Pioneer Anomaly, a long-standing mystery. The book is short and fun—the length of a novella—but also, in the words of Amazon's reviewer, "powerful and sad". If you've got any curiosity about how NASA works behind the scenes or why scientists believe what they do, I think you'll enjoy the book.
It is available on Amazon as a Kindle Single and also on Apple's iBooks.Drone Wars
I wrote a chapter on the long history of drone technology going back to the early 20th century in this edited Cambridge University Press volume.
Phobos-Grunt, grunt.
11 January 2012
The U.S. Didn’t Shoot Down Russia’s Mars Probe. But It Could Have.
Strange accusations from the head of Russia’s space programme, and why they matter.
[Slate]
String theory
5 January 2012
The art and science of making violins
I spent some time with Tom King, a violinmaker in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He uses a combination of craftsmanship and technical analysis to make great-sounding, and beautiful, instruments. He once took several million dollars worth of violins to the hospital to get CAT-scanned.
[Stanford Magazine]
The 40-year itch
5 October 2011
How to build a really awesome spaceship, maybe
Would-be space explorers, scientists, and a couple of crackpots gather at DARPA’s 100-Year Starship Symposium to try to get interstellar travel unstuck.
[Slate]
clips, Physics, Astronomy and Space, Science and Technology, Science Policy and Technological Culture, Technology
tags: 100 year straship, DARPA, exotic propulsion, gravity drives, interstellar travel, NASA, nuclear rockets, quantum vacuum fluctuation, Slate, solar sails, space travel, zero point energy
Salvaging space
1 September 2011
Cleaning up low-Earth-orbit debris might lead to new space technologies.
Why problems are sometimes useful to have.
[Slate]
Weapons in space
16 August 2011
The future (and past) of weapons in space–the vulnerabilities of satellites and the difficulty of banning weapons
An in-depth report, for purchase or subscribers.
[CQ Global Researcher]
Looking for ET
25 February 2010
Signs of life
As the search for alien life turns 50, its practitioners find new methods
Dodging bullets…
30 September 2004
Far away, so close
A large asteroid sweeps by the Earth. Where are the others?
Looking for planets around distant stars
23 September 2004
In search of the Earth Mark II
Terrestrial exoplanets will likely be found soon.
Telescopes in orbit
28 August 2004
X-ray specs
A retrospective on NASA’s Great Observatories, Compton, and Spitzer.
Understanding gravity
21 August 2004
An invisible hand
A gravitational mystery affecting pendulums and satellites–could General Relativity be wrong?
Quantum oddities
17 June 2004
In the twinkling of an ion
Two groups have succeeded in teleporting quantum states.
Understanding gravity
15 April 2004
Turn, turn, turn
A new satellite, Gravity Probe B, will test Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.
Novel computational techniques
1 April 2004
Bit by bit
Developments in quantum computing and chaotic computing
Standard modelling
27 March 2004
Precise in every part
A new measurement of the muon is revealing problems with the standard model of physics.