As a lover of all things space I enjoy reading a wide variety of perspectives. The more different the origin, the more likely I am to learn something new! Even in articles which contain errors or elements of confusion, there’s still a good chance that I’ll encounter a new way of thinking about an issue.

This is important. Space is hard, and it’s also hard to reason about. Humans often prefer reasoning by analogy, but with very few exceptions, reasoning by analogy in space is always wrong. So we need to find other ways to reason about space systems, architectures, mission concepts, and past history in a way that lets us derive the full learning value while avoiding the traps of lazy thinking. A robust commentariat is an essential part of training to think deep thoughts in space.

On the other hand, I am increasingly troubled by the persistence of a variety of common misconceptions in space journalism. So rather than complain or just feel bad about it, I’ve decided to write a series of blogs on each topic, the better to understand the issues myself and to function as a handy reference for others. Each blog represents my opinion only, but will be accessible to a general audience and rigorous enough to adequately support that particular viewpoint.

This post will remain pinned for some time and be updated to link to the posted topics below as they are published. I’m open to suggestions for new topics.

These posts can broadly be lumped into categories depending on how much harder or easier they make living in space. For example, I have bad news about Lunar water mining, but good news about radiation.

Good news

Bad news

General posts