The Pale Blue Dot – NASA

Time to shift gears a bit…

The primary focus of this blog has been politics and current events. Occasionally I muse about other topics, but I definitely have skewed my writing toward the political world. I’m not going to stop doing that any time soon. However, I would like to redirect my focus now and then, specifically toward topics that actually provide me with some optimism. Politics, especially American politics over the past few years, generally does the opposite.

Soooo… let’s talk about space!

I want to start a regular feature discussing space topics. But it will probably end up being more sporadic and random than it will be regular. Of course, if people read it, then it may become a bit more regular. In theory.

Anyhoo…

I’m going to cover subjects ranging from overviews of objects in our solar system to musings on space exploration (both past and future), and then on to the wonders of exoplanets, and eventually to the possibilities of alien life.

These will be topics that interest me. I will provide information as accurately as I can, and I will endeavor to make it entertaining. But I do need to stress that I have almost no formal scientific training. Everything I write is information I’ve researched myself. So it’s possible this stuff will be riddled with errors. It may even be as ridiculous as my political commentary – shocking as that sounds.

Growing up, more than *almost* anything else – I wanted to be astronomer. Even if I never physically left Earth, I wanted to explore the cosmos. As a kid, I followed the final planetary legs of the Voyager missions (Voyager 2 reached Neptune when I was 7), I watched every episode of the original Cosmos, read up on every shuttle mission, visited Powell Observatory in Louisburg, Kansas to watch Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smash into Jupiter, and hung out on a roof of the University of Missouri-Kansas City to look through telescopes on summer evenings.

My formal schooling largely ended after high school, but I continue to educate myself as best I can into adulthood. I have been a member of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City, and am a frequenter of many blogs and publications. There are a ton of good resources on the interwebs for learning about space and science in general. I’m going to list a few of my favorites below as just a small sample of what’s available out there.

I would advise anyone who’s interested to check out these links. And maybe even if you aren’t interested… perhaps a new passion might take hold.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue to blather on about the world of politics and current events. I’ll occasionally vent about pop culture, and toss some boxing musings out on my other blog. It’s a big universe. There’s room to talk about… well, everything.

I better get started.

http://www.nasawatch.com/ – It’s not affiliated with NASA – but it does, um, watch it.

https://www.universetoday.com/ – General space and astronomy blog. It’s one of the older ones still being regularly updated.

http://www.planetary.org/ – The official site of the Planetary Society.

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/ – A blog discussing the possibilities of interstellar travel.

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/ – A fun personal blog that officially ended in October 2017 – but the archives are still available dating back to January 2008.

http://www.syfy.com/tags/bad-astronomy – Astronomer and writer Phil Plait’s current space blog, hosted by SyFy.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy.html – Phil Plait’s blog from 2012 to 2017.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/#.Wsp2HogrImI – Phil’s blog from 2008 to 2012.

Finally, for just a little more Phil Plait, here’s his first episode on YouTube of Crash Course Astronomy. These short (10-12 minute) episodes are educational and addictive.