Lori Garver's NASA shift, and other stories
Welcome to Ramin’s Space, the newsletter from WIRED space writer Ramin Skibba. You can read more about the newsletter here. If you like it, please consider subscribing and sharing this post.
How Lori Garver Launched NASA’s Commercial Space Partnerships
In 2009, the state of NASA’s human spaceflight programs looked dire. The space shuttle fleet would soon be grounded, and its proposed replacement had veered off course and over budget. The glory of the Apollo era seemed far away. Then Lori Garver arrived and became a leading architect of NASA’s shift toward partnerships with the growing space industry, including SpaceX and Blue Origin. I’m proud to share this, one of my biggest interviews for WIRED.
The Black Carbon Cost of Rocket Launches
From the stratosphere’s perspective, rocket launches don’t happen often and a single rocket has a minimal impact. But there’s more launches every year. A team of atmospheric scientists used state-of-the-art models to show how black carbon belched out by rockets around the world is likely to gradually warm parts of the middle atmosphere and deplete the ozone layer.
The First Privately Funded Killer Asteroid Spotter is Here
NASA, the European Space Agency and other organizations have been hunting for near-Earth asteroids for decades, but many such space rocks haven’t yet been found. Now a team of researchers at the nonprofit B612 Foundation developed a new system, and the first privately-funded one, for spotting these kinds of asteroids. (This was my most popular story for WIRED over the past month.)
The FAA Says SpaceX Can’t Expand Its Texas Launch Site—Yet
SpaceX seeks to expand its launch and test site in Boca Chica, Texas for the Starship and Super Heavy, near a wildlife refuge, a popular coastal spot, populated areas, and the Mexican border. The FAA’s long-awaited assessment says that if SpaceX completes some 75 actions to limit environmental hazards, they can proceed, but they also say that a launch license isn’t guaranteed.
In other writing…
The unwritten laws of physics for Black women
I love this moving feature story by Katrina Miller, a new WIRED contributor, about her personal experience and others’ as physicists and Black women at the University of Chicago.
How animals perceive the world
What is it like to be a bat? The philosopher Thomas Nagel asked this confounding question in the 1970s, and people are still struggling to answer it. Ed Yong, staff writer at The Atlantic, takes a stab at it in his new book, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal The Hidden Realms Around Us.
The stargazers
What did the ancient Maya see in the stars? A lot, it turns out. I recommend this piece in Science magazine by Josh Sokol, who pushes back against a West-centric worldview that neglects many other contributions to knowledge about space and astronomy.
The theft of the commons
In this thoroughly researched essay for the New Yorker, Eula Biss explores the concept of the commons and the origin and evolution of property rights in England. I feel obliged to quote from Woody Guthrie’s iconic song: “Sign was painted, it said ‘private property.’ But on the back side it didn’t say nothing. This land was made for you and me.”
Astronomers reimagine the making of the planets
New worlds, like Mercurys and Jupiters, emerge over many millions of years from a protoplanetary disk orbiting a young star. But discoveries of the vast variety of exoplanets show that this can happen in myriad ways, and those distant worlds can teach us about the history of our own solar system, too. Interesting feature story in Quanta magazine by Rebecca Boyle.
How notes from the mothers of astronomy were reclaimed in art
Starting in the 1880s, Harvard hired hundreds of “women computers,” who studied starscapes on astronomical plates and made many discoveries but received little credit for them. Now that’s beginning to change. I like this National Geographic story by Liz Kruesi.
Roe had revolutionized life for women
My colleagues at WIRED have provided lots of critical coverage in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision that took away women’s abortion rights, including this piece by Maryn McKenna. And as Amy Gajda argues, many other kinds of privacy rights are now at stake, too. I also recommend Greg Barber’s take on the Supreme Court limiting the federal government’s ability to develop climate policies.
What I’m reading: Normal People by Sally Rooney. I’m actually listening to it as an audiobook, as I’m recovering from eye surgery. Reading has always been part of my life, and not being able to do it is almost like losing a limb.
Looking back: Five years ago, I wrote about shoddy forensic science for the first time, in Undark magazine. Forensic science still needs systemic reform and standardization in the US, including its use in the courtroom.
More about me: I’m the space writer at WIRED magazine, and I’m based in San Diego. I used to be a freelance writer and journalist, and before that, an astrophysicist. You can find me at my website, raminskibba.net, and on Twitter @raminskibba. I’m also former president of the San Diego Science Writers Association (SANDSWA) and on the board of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), though the opinions I express are mine alone. If someone has forwarded this email to you, you’re welcome to subscribe too.