If you are a Mars-head like I am, you spend a lot of time thinking about terraforming Ares (the greek name for Mars). That is, making a pretty cold, thin atmosphere into a thicker, balmier one and planting a bunch of palm trees and laying some shuffleboard courts down and then just waiting for the first shuttles carrying retirees from Phoenix. Lots of science fiction careers have been staked on realistic supposition about how such a process would enfold. For my money, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy is the best. But I’m in Utah, not on Mars (though sometimes I wonder) and so I’m really interested in Aresforming…how can we make Utah more like Mars? (more…)
All posts for the month July, 2011
Aresforming: The fine art of mucking up a wet planet
Posted by DougReilly on July 10, 2011
http://bicycleastronomy.org/2011/07/10/aresforming/
Astronomy and Clafoutis
One of my big goals for being an “Astro VIP” for the Park Service this summer was to do as much public outreach as I could. Well, I can safely stand in front of that “Mission Accomplished” banner without fear of later historical revisionism. Astronomy outreach is a mixed skill set that involves simultaneously talking (which for me, with Italian genes, implies considerable flapping of the extremities) and manipulating a sensitive optical instrument so that an entire heterogenous group of 10-50, pint size to double-wide, has a chance to view whatever it is I’m talking about. It’s a bit of a trick. The upshot of this particular kind of teaching, and this should make most professional teachers jealous, is that my students for the most part (more…)
Posted by DougReilly on July 9, 2011
http://bicycleastronomy.org/2011/07/09/astronomy_clafoutis/
Subscribe via RSS
