http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/index.htmNews and first-hand observations of the commercial space age from Michael Belfiore, freelance writer for <i>Popular Science</i>, Wired News, and more.ennoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:01:59 PSTBlogger http://www.blogger.com179125http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/11/im-not-texting-im-driving.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:01:59 PSTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-1677827987327546650Check out this video from a group of National Instruments engineers who rigged up a remote controlled car with an iPhone as the controller.NI press rep Trisha McDonell tells me there are practical uses for this project: "these applications can help in autonomous vehicle research which are used in rescue missions."Looks to me like these guys are just having a ball taking texting and driving to a 0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/10/happy-40th-birthday-internet.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:07:48 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-2227223301287423279Seed magazine has posted an excerpt from my new book about DARPA in honor of today's anniversary of the first connection on the Internet.No, no, it wasn't Al Gore who created the Internet. It was the Advanced Research Projects Agency, today known as DARPA. Way back in 1969, a couple of researchers at UCLA sent the first message between networked computers of disparate types. It was part of a 0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/10/darpa-book-now-available.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:26:13 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-7190019225708026768My book on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is now available in print, electronic, and audio form.The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Shaping Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs is the first mass market book on the Department of Defense Agency that gave the world the Internet, GPS, stealth technology, and lots more.Listen to me read in this excerpt 0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/10/quantum-to-cosmos-festival.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:45:53 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-2091906035224024960The Quantum to Cosmos Festival starts today in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It's ten days of presentations, panel discussions, movies, demos, and a whole lot more sponsored by the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.You can catch most of the events live online at the festival website at http://q2cfestival.com/. For instance, tonight at 7 Eastern, 10 physicists talk about the future of their0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/10/2009-popular-mechanics-breakthrough.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:38:35 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-1618156673450857211Last night at the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards, Dean Kamen delivered the most eloquent appeal for getting kids interested in science and technology I've yet seen.His remarks took the form of his acceptance speech for the Leadership Award. He was speaking off the cuff, but this is something he's been thinking about and actively working on for the last twenty years."This biggest problem 0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/10/x-prize-five-year-anniversary.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Sun, 04 Oct 2009 02:47:55 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-2340981193225483975On this day five years ago, Brian Binnie won the Ansari X PRIZE by hurtling out of the atmosphere faster than a rifle bullet. It was the second time in less than a week that SpaceShipOne made the trip from Mojave Airport, fulfilling the prize requirement for a back-to-back flight by a commercial spaceship.Even as Brian was circling to his high altitude launch point attached to the belly of White 1http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/10/transhumans-in-woodstock.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Sat, 03 Oct 2009 16:39:40 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-4052148800284756414I love this town. Last night, just down the road from my office on Tinker Street, in the same studio where I recorded this video, a group of world-class thinkers in applied science fiction came together to talk about what it means to be human.Ray Kurzwell, James J. Hughes, and Martine Rothblatt concluded that we are little more than the processing power of our neurons--a function that will soon (0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/09/first-poet-in-space.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:00:25 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-6276287391997737929Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté blasted off for the International Space Station this morning aboard a Russian Soyuz space capsule.He'll spend a week and a half in orbit on what he's calling the first poetic social mission from space. The event will culminate in a 2-hour performance from space and around the world called Moving Stars and Earth for Water, to be webcast live on October 9 at 1http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/09/spacex-preps-for-falcon-9-launch.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:20:01 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-7711346321731010048SpaceX has been busy since my visit to company HQ for my recent Popular Mechanics article.I've just received a progress report from the company, including some gorgeous photos of vehicle assembly and testing in progress.The Falcon 9 launch vehicle is getting ready for its maiden flight from Cape Canaveral some time in the next few months. On board will be a test version of the Dragon capsule that0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/09/its-wrap-for-darpa-audio-book.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:12:32 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-2641931989180730828I've just finished reading the audio version of my book on DARPA, The Department of Mad Scientists, for Random House Audio.My director, David Rapkin, seemed particularly taken with the chapter on the Urban Challenge, DARPA's autonomous vehicle race.David hung on my every word, having me retake every sentence or phrase in which I hesitated, mispronounced a word, or otherwise stumbled.The result 0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/09/darpaeerc-green-jet-fuel-wins-popular.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:27:00 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-7129344080597782336This summer, Flometrics launched a sounding rocket from the Mojave Desert powered by a 100% vegetable oil fuel. Flometrics president Steve Harrington tells me the rocket performed better than expected; the supersonic flight tore the tail fins off the sucker.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency commissioned the fuel from the Energy and Environmental Research Center in North Dakota as part0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/09/darpa-audio-book.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:39:45 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-1660996565312248967I'm commuting to New York City this week to record the audio version of my book about DARPA, The Department of Mad Scientists, for Random House Audio.It will be available as an iTunes download when the print version releases, October 20.My director is Grammy Award winner David Rapkin, a twenty-plus-year veteran of the business who's not only taken the trouble to read the book before our sessions,0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/09/ghost.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Wed, 09 Sep 2009 07:04:36 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-2757653128581421151One of the great joys of my work is that I get to meet some truly extraordinary people. Fred Burton got wind of my upcoming book on DARPA and sent me a copy of his Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent.Ghost is one of the best books I've read in some time, a brilliant work of riveting you-are-there reporting, full of heart, humor, and unflinching telling details of our country's war on 0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/08/spacex-propulsion-chief-explains-merlin.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:20:40 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-1245286765230418896Tom Mueller Describes Merlin Enginebrought to you by LivescribeThis month's issue of Popular Mechanics has a feature by me about Space Exploration Technologies, the startup that might just end up building America's next orbital spaceship--and provide charter flights to NASA.I told the SpaceX story in my book Rocketeers, but I've been angling for years to land a magazine story to cover it. In 2http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/08/kepler-space-telescope-on-nat-geo.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:37:15 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-371810154296155298NASA's Kepler space telescope, launched in March and returning data since June, gets star billing on "Alien Earths" premiering on the National Geographic Channel tomorrow night at 9 PM Eastern and Pacific time.Launch footage, animation of the probe in operation as it trails the Earth in a solar orbit, and speculation from researchers about what it will discover bracket an engaging program on the 0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/07/naked-science-living-on-moon.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:31:30 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-7846215350180424544The National Geographic Channel is showing a not-to-be-missed program on returning to the moon, this time to stay.Naked Science: Living on the Moon airs on Sunday, July 19 at 9:00 p.m. Pacific and Eastern time, the day before the 40th anniversary of the first manned moon landing by Apollo 11.I got a review copy of the show, which is a well balanced treatment of what's required for going back to 0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/07/spacex-first-operational-satellite.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:56:19 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-5990159155366539113Last night Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) launched its first operational satellite from its pad in Marshall Islands. This is the first time that a privately funded liquid fuel rocket has achieved this milestone.This was the fifth launch of the Falcon 1 rocket and the second time it succeeded in reaching orbit (the last payload was of a dummy satellite).It's another vindication of SpaceX 0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/07/len-kleinrock-describes-birth-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:53:22 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-3095532725513328564Leonard Kleinrock, who published the first paper on packet switching in 1962, and who led the ARPA-funded team at UCLA that made the first connection on the Internet, described the scene to me on the phone to me a few minutes ago.Sitting at a computer terminal at UCLA on October 29, 1969, one of Kleinrock's team members typed two letters that were received via the infant Internet by a computer up0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/06/spaceshiptwo-engine-tests.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:37:16 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-7534282851150032601Virgin Galactic put out a press release last week along with this video about the successful conclusion of the first round of rocket motor tests for its SpaceShipTwo passenger ship, being built by Scaled Composites.Not too many technical details here, so I did some digging to find out more. Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn referred my queries to Mark Sirangelo, manager at engine 0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/04/darpa-books-new-table-of-contents.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:17:05 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-8689413632694425862My book about the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, now not only has a cover, but a finalized table of contents as well.Full title: The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial LimbsPublisher: Smithsonian Books/HarperCollinsPublication date: October 20, 2009Table of Contents:IntroductionHow I came to write the book and why 0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/04/darpa-book-cover.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:34:34 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-4833910156963183579My DARPA book now has a cover. Thanks to Harry LeBlanc for suggesting a variation of the subtitle. Now it's off to copyediting and fact checking, and we're on schedule for October's publication date.0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/03/jade-star-belfiore.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Mon, 30 Mar 2009 03:09:15 PDTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-2800081152043375876My second daughter, Jade Star, was born Saturday, 3/28/09, at 4:19 a.m. She was 6 pounds, 11 ounces.She made a dramatic entrance; Wendy and I only barely made it to the hospital in time after a very short labor. Jade was in Wendy's arms within 10 minutes of our hitting the door.Both Wendy and Jade are in perfect health. I'll bring them home this morning, after taking our 3-year-old, Amelie, 3http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/03/space-dominance.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Thu, 05 Mar 2009 08:26:50 PSTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-6649357877822256532Popular Mechanics made my roundup of spacefaring nations and their current capabilities the top story on popularmechanics.com today.With the Space Shuttle set to retire next year, the Russians getting increasingly focused on manned commercial spaceflight, and ambitious government space programs ramping up around the world, we're definately heading into a new era.0http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/02/ticket-to-ride.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Mon, 09 Feb 2009 07:40:26 PSTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-4178967313575533807Popular Mechanics has made my first published piece for them the lead story today on popularmechanics.com.The story explores possible ways to get to space on the cheap--really cheap--like 20 bucks for a trip to suborbital space.I also provided initial research help on last month's cover story, the one with the shuttle-derived ship taking off in the screenshot. I have more Web stories for PM in 1http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2009/01/space-technology-copywriter.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michael Belfiore)Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:12:00 PSTtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14833426.post-6012382228904529493Today I launched some upgrades on my website to reflect a new focus for my work: high-tech copywriting.I've been engaged in marketing and public relations writing in one form or another since 1995, when I became a freelance technical writer for companies like Northwest Airlines and Target. I moved next into public relations writing, still with an emphasis on technology.When SpaceShipOne left the 0