All posts by ehilge
To be taught, if fortunate
Science fiction and fantasy author Becky Chambers gave a short talk at JPL last week. We were all expecting a fun conversation, probably accompanied by a powerpoint presentation, about what it’s like to be a science fiction writer. Instead she gave us so much more. Chambers’s talk was essentially a love letter letter to space…
At long last, here he was
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is perhaps the perfect pandemic book. I read it in the early months and finally bought a copy for my own shelves recently. The book follows the life of Count Alexander Rostov through 30 years under house arrest in the ornate Metropol Hotel in Moscow. Despite the tight…
A monkish existence
In addition to others featured here, Oliver Sacks is one of my favorite authors. For most of his life he was known as a respected neurologist and passionate storyteller who took a wholistic view of his patients, not seeing them as diseases that need to be titrated away, but instead as complex individuals. Although Sacks…
Scientific Progress
It occurs to me that much of scientific progress, at least in the realm of astronomy and our understanding of the universe, since the enlightenment can be described as a regression of the importance of human beings relative to the universe. Of course, it used to be obvious that the Earth was at the center…
Preparation
I’ve accepted that I can’t control much about Mars. When you start a new day as a rover driver the terrain is what it is, sometimes rocky, sometimes sandy, rarely amenable to remote robotic activities. Science describes what they want and sometimes we can do it, sometimes we can’t. There are power constraints, data constraints,…
Tactical Plans
Deciding where to drive a rover on Mars is a complicated process. We break it down into three levels of fidelity at JPL: strategic, tactical, and supratactical. Strategic planning is long-term thinking on the scale of months to years and addresses questions like roughly where do we want to go, what are the high level…
Wisdom Sits in Places
In school I recall being taught that the land is “sacred” to indigenous cultures in a similar way that a church or mosque may be considered sacred by adherents of that religion. Although there may be some truth to that statement I’ve always found the comparison to be severely lacking in nuance. Wisdom Sits in…
One Thousand True Fans
There’s a concept, popularized by Kevin Kelly, that you only need 1,000 true fans to make it as an artist or creator. You don’t need to go viral, don’t need millions of followers, and don’t need to be a household name. All you need is 1,000 people willing to show up and pay $10 or…
Psychopomps
I don’t consider myself a huge fan of nature waiting in general, but I have come to appreciate writing that explores the intersection of landscape and culture, or as Robert Macfarlane self describes his own writing, the intersection of landscape and the human heart. Macfarlane has a skill to go beyond eloquently describing nature along…
Backyard Astronomy
I have an admission to make. You know all of those stunning new images coming from the James Webb Space Telescope? I haven’t been all that interested in them. I feel like I should be. I’m an amateur astronomer and part of what got me into the hobby as a kid were all of those…