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Astronomy
As you can guess from the title, The First Three Minutes tells the story of the moments following the Big Bang. The early universe sets the stage for the development of the cosmos we observe today, and the Cosmic Microwave Background is a key link between the distant past and the present day.
Balloon science is an often-neglected older cousin of rocket science and NASA's primary goal with this launch is to test a better balloon
But despite being commonplace, spaceflight is still far from routine. In fact, in the six decades since the Soviet Union started the space race, just eleven nations and the European Union have achieved indigenous launch capability, sending a locally developed rocket into orbit.
Elon Musk knows how to make a splash, and today he outlined his plan to turn humanity into a "multiplanetary species". Musk painted a picture of a future where travel to Mars was downright cheap, with tickets costing as little as $200,000, the median price of an American home. So is this possible? I have no idea, but it makes for a great Fermi question, a problem so fuzzy and incomplete that educated guesswork is the only way forward.
Last Friday, work kept me late at the office. It was a clear and cloudless night and the stars were out as I biked home in the dusk. And as my pedals turned, the night sky wheeled more slowly above me.
