Writing

Any space fans that grew up in the era of Apollo will likely tell you they thought that by the 2020s, we’d have humans living on the Moon and traveling to Mars. Weekend jaunts up to space hotels orbiting Earth would be commonplace, and maybe we’d be getting to spaceports in our flying cars.

But we don’t have any of this. As of right now, only 7 “tourists” have been into space. All were launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket coordinated by a U.S.-based company called Space Adventures (who prefers the term “private astronauts” rather than “space tourists”). These flights included a 10-ish-day stay on the International Space Station and came with estimated price tags of $20 million USD or more—definitely not within financial reach of most of us here on Earth.

Read more: https://tanyaofmars.medium.com/the-lost-lure-of-space-tourism-21daadc0cd48

I resisted the idea of this for years, but I’ve finally come to terms with it.

When I was a child, I was a pretty normal kid in terms of physical activity. Growing up mostly before the age of home internet, all we had at our house was a Commodore 64 that my dad could only sporadically get to work. This meant my younger sister and I spent a lot of time playing outside. In grade 5, I was on the local basketball team—chosen specifically because I thought it would be unexpected of me as the shortest person in my grade (which is also why I chose to play trombone the same year). Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t great at basketball and so in grade 6, I switched over to softball after being inspired by the Mariners nearly making it to the World Series. From about age 7, I’d also been an avid dancer. One of my only career aspirations beyond my love of space in my entire life was to become a professional Irish dancer after Riverdance took the world by storm.

But as I entered junior high, everything changed.

Read more: https://tanyaofmars.medium.com/my-disability-does-define-me-a7fc3b9d9881

The space industry is rapidly growing, with an almost overwhelming array of options to chose from.

At the SEDS Ascension conference today, a student question came up during a panel I was on: If you’re interested in a lot of different things when it comes to space, how do you pick what to focus on?

This is a great question, and one that would have helped me early in my university path in terms of selecting a major. Starting college, I knew I was obsessed with Mars, and so I went into astronomy because planets are in space. It wasn’t until the end of my junior year that I realized I should’ve majored in geology to study Mars. While I don’t regret the time I spent in astronomy—I still learned a lot of interesting and useful stuff—it would’ve definitely saved me some time and energy to have gone directly into geology!

Read more: https://tanyaofmars.medium.com/what-should-i-study-if-i-want-to-work-in-space-1a4f66477f13

NASA’s Perseverance rover carried an Easter egg onboard: A family portrait showing the evolution of our wheeled avatars on the Red Planet. What have these rovers taught us?

Read more: https://tanyaofmars.medium.com/a-rover-family-portrait-ce7fb8f8f6c6

Building upon the article I posted about the pyramid scheme of academia, let’s get into some specific non-academic career options if you are studying space-related fields.

This list is U.S.-centric, but there are likely analogues to each option in many other countries as well. Please note that none of the companies or entities mentioned in this article are meant as an endorsement, and are provided for informational purposes only.

Read more: https://tanyaofmars.medium.com/5-career-options-in-space-beyond-academia-f2c31802a39

NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars today with the goal of searching for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. But exploring Mars is important beyond just the search for alien life.

Read more: https://tanyaofmars.medium.com/exploring-mars-is-about-more-than-martians-d9a73e9ad31c

While things were pretty rough here on Earth in 2020, it was an amazing year for space exploration. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights and remind ourselves of some of the truly awesome things humans are capable of…

Read more: https://tanyaofmars.medium.com/2020-was-a-great-year-for-things-trying-to-leave-this-planet-30dea1689dfa

This week, The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by Joseph Epstein that the institution with which he is (or now perhaps “was”) honorarily affiliated, Northwestern University, themselves called “misogynistic.” I’m not even going to link to the piece here because it doesn’t deserve the internet traffic, but Google it if you wish to read more. Epstein opens with…

Read more: https://medium.com/an-injustice/call-me-doctor-7884b56c7024

Mars: The Red Planet. Sometimes our nearest neighbor beyond the Moon (switching off with Venus depending on the time of the year). A cold, desolate desert of a planet — currently the only planet in our Solar System inhabited solely by robots.

What could this red world possibly have in common with Earth?

It turns out, quite a lot!

Read more: https://medium.com/planet-stories/back-to-school-with-planet-week-4-mars-or-earth-858123465958

Space has been my career goal since I was a child. As a teenager, I began looking in earnest into what exactly that would entail, reaching out to local space advocacy groups and folks working in aerospace for guidance. From this I formulated my 5-step plan…

Read more: https://tanyaofmars.medium.com/academia-is-a-pyramid-scheme-bfac519fa05e

For over a decade, I went to work on Mars.

There was a routine to each day: Come into the office. Make a cup of Earl Grey. Sit down at my computer and delve into the images sent to Earth from Mars overnight. In those moments, I was no longer on Earth. A watchful robotic eye orbiting 175 miles above the surface of the red planet acted as my proxy in the harshness of space.

Alas, I wasn’t wearing an awesome spacesuit to make the journey — although I would like to think that my collection of space-themed T-shirts was at least somewhat as cool…

Read more: https://humanparts.medium.com/a-martian-perspective-on-earth-27f29f72b41

Read more: For All Humankind (Mango Publishing, Book)