20 years ago today on on June 10, 2003, NASA’s Spirit rover lifted off from Cape Canaveral and began its 7-month journey to Mars. It left Earth one month before its twin, Opportunity as part of the collective “Mars Exploration Rovers” mission. At that time, only one rover had successfully operated on the surface of Mars*—the microwave-sized… Read more: The Legacy of Spirit: 5 Major Contributions to Mars Science (Medium)
For International Women’s Day, I posted a call to action on Twitter for the space sector, since it’s the realm I inhabit: In the replies, someone asked for ideas on how companies can take actions, which was fantastic to see. Here are five suggestions that can help not only women, but anyone from underrepresented groups, thrive in… Read more: 5 Ways Companies Can Create Better Workplaces for Women (Medium)
An Opportunity operations team member’s reaction to a new documentary about an old friend. January 2004: I was in my sophomore year of college, studying astronomy at the University of Washington. The Sojourner rover had me hooked on the Red Planet from the day it landed in the summer of 1997. The moment that rover took its… Read more: “Good Night Oppy” Tells the Human Story of Robotic Space Exploration (Medium)
While this year may have sucked pretty hard on Earth, some pretty cool stuff happened in (and/or near) space in 2021. And while robots and rockets tend to steal the show, all of those bits of technology were designed, built, and operated by humans! Let’s look back at the past year. See more: 10 Amazing Things Humans… Read more: 10 Amazing Things Humans Did in Space in 2021 (Medium)
With the “billionaire space race” taking center stage in the media over the past few months, we’ve lost sight of why so many people are passionate about space. This morning, Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin launched four people into space, including Star Trek’s own Captain Kirk, William Shatner*. While this flight only lasted mere minutes, the… Read more: It’s Time to Reclaim the Narrative Around Space from the Billionaires (Medium)
Nervous Mars scientists around the world watched with bated breath as the behemoth Curiosity rover began its descent toward the surface of the Red Planet, known as the “Seven Minutes of Terror.” We’d never sent something this size to land on Mars. We’d never used anything like the Skycrane to land on another world. This was an audacious mission,… Read more: 9 Big Discoveries by Curiosity for its 9th Landiversary (Medium)
Graduate school is hard. Not going to sugar coat that. But it can also be a truly amazing and unique time in your life, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be miserable on top of being difficult. Here are some things you can do and think about before you even start applying to Ph.D. programs* that can… Read more: Surviving Grad School: 3 Tips Before You Even Apply (Medium)
The Space Race might have been America versus the Soviets, but how was the race viewed by the rest of the world? On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on a celestial body beyond Earth while Command Module Pilot Michael Collins kept dutiful watch from orbit overhead.… Read more: The International Impact of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing (Medium)
For years, I’ve been quite frank and open on social media (mainly Twitter) about a lot of aspects of my life and professional career as a scientist: How having a physical disability has impacted things, my experiences with harassment that nearly drove me out of the field, making the shift from academia to industry, and more. But my gender identity… Read more: I never thought being queer impacted my professional life as a scientist. I was wrong.(Medium)
The tiny 4-pound (1.8 kg) helicopter that hitched a ride to Mars with NASA’s Perseverance rover just got a mission upgrade. Initially planned as a “technology demonstration” to prove whether or not powered flight was possible in the thin martian atmosphere, Ingenuity surpassed all expectations on the—at the time of writing—four flights it has successfully conducted thus… Read more: Ingenuity Gets an Upgrade on Mars (Medium)
As a scientist who works on robots that we send to other planets, I often hear complaints about how much money is spent on “space.” Space is viewed as this futuristic pipe dream, the realm of eccentric billionaires with money to burn. Many don’t see how money spent on “space” has any benefit to humanity, especially with pressing… Read more: How Space Benefits Canadian Life on Earth (Medium)
Most people are probably familiar, even if not by name, with the iconic “Earthrise” and “Blue Marble” view of Earth taken by Apollo astronauts on their journeys to the Moon. Apollo 8’s Earthrise, taken on Christmas Eve in 1968, is often referred to as one of the catalysts that led to the environmental movement and the creation of… Read more: For Earth Day: Ten Stunning Views of Earth from Space Missions (Medium)
Scientists and engineers are nerds who like to have a bit of fun—even when it comes to their spacecraft. Let’s take a look at some of the Easter Eggs they’ve put aboard the rovers and landers on Mars: Read more: https://tanyaofmars.medium.com/martian-easter-eggs-87a075fd6f2b
Mars is a freezing polar desert. Nearly all of the water there is locked up in ice in the polar caps or surface frost, buried underground, or locked up in the mineral structures within rocks. But some of it exists high in the air as water-ice clouds. The image above shows the latest view of these clouds on… Read more: Twilight Clouds—on Mars (Medium)
Eric Berger’s new book gives me a whole new appreciation for what Elon Musk and all of the talented engineers at SpaceX have managed to achieve. The commercial space landscape has come a long way in the past decade. Ten years ago, SpaceX barely had any successful launches under their belt. The Space Shuttle was about to retire, and I… Read more: “Liftoff” Showcases the Game-Changing the Early Days of SpaceX – Book Review (Medium)
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… Read more: The Lost Lure of Space Tourism? (Medium)
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… Read more: My Disability Does Define Me (Medium)
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… Read more: What Should I Study if I Want to Work in Space? (Medium)
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… Read more: 5 Career Options in Space Beyond Academia (Medium)
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.… Read more: Call Me Doctor (Medium)
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… Read more: Back to School with Planet, Week 4 | Mars or Earth? (Medium)
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
This is the third installment in our Stellar Minds series, where we profile Planet’s extraordinary employees and their accomplishments. Keep checking our blog for upcoming features on some of the most remarkable people in aerospace today. I can remember exactly what first got me interested in space as a kid, and it’s probably not anything that would first come… Read more: Coming Back To Earth With Planetary Scientist Tanya Of Mars (Planet)
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… Read more: After Working on Mars, I’ll Never See Earth the Same Way (Medium)
NASA’s InSight lander has been making a splash in the news thanks to its capable weather station—but it’s not the first robotic meteorologist we’ve had on Mars. Last week, NASA unveiled the first weather data from its InSight lander, which arrived on Mars in late November of last year. With a primary goal of collecting seismic and… Read more: Monitoring Martian Weather, Part 1: On the Ground (Medium)
Last week, NASA officially said goodbye to the Opportunity rover after 15 years on Mars. Contact was lost last June after the strongest dust storm ever observed on the Red Planet engulfed the rover, blocking sunlight from reaching her solar panels. Even after the dust storm subsided, attempts to regain contact with “Oppy” (as she is often… Read more: After Oppy, an opportunity for NASA to work with SpaceX (The Houston Chronicle)
20 years ago today on on June 10, 2003, NASA’s Spirit rover lifted off from Cape Canaveral and began its 7-month journey to Mars. It left Earth one month before its twin, Opportunity as part of the collective “Mars Exploration Rovers” mission. At that time, only one rover had successfully operated on the surface of Mars*—the microwave-sized… Read more: The Legacy of Spirit: 5 Major Contributions to Mars Science (Medium)
For International Women’s Day, I posted a call to action on Twitter for the space sector, since it’s the realm I inhabit: In the replies, someone asked for ideas on how companies can take actions, which was fantastic to see. Here are five suggestions that can help not only women, but anyone from underrepresented groups, thrive in… Read more: 5 Ways Companies Can Create Better Workplaces for Women (Medium)
An Opportunity operations team member’s reaction to a new documentary about an old friend. January 2004: I was in my sophomore year of college, studying astronomy at the University of Washington. The Sojourner rover had me hooked on the Red Planet from the day it landed in the summer of 1997. The moment that rover took its… Read more: “Good Night Oppy” Tells the Human Story of Robotic Space Exploration (Medium)
While this year may have sucked pretty hard on Earth, some pretty cool stuff happened in (and/or near) space in 2021. And while robots and rockets tend to steal the show, all of those bits of technology were designed, built, and operated by humans! Let’s look back at the past year. See more: 10 Amazing Things Humans… Read more: 10 Amazing Things Humans Did in Space in 2021 (Medium)
With the “billionaire space race” taking center stage in the media over the past few months, we’ve lost sight of why so many people are passionate about space. This morning, Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin launched four people into space, including Star Trek’s own Captain Kirk, William Shatner*. While this flight only lasted mere minutes, the… Read more: It’s Time to Reclaim the Narrative Around Space from the Billionaires (Medium)
Nervous Mars scientists around the world watched with bated breath as the behemoth Curiosity rover began its descent toward the surface of the Red Planet, known as the “Seven Minutes of Terror.” We’d never sent something this size to land on Mars. We’d never used anything like the Skycrane to land on another world. This was an audacious mission,… Read more: 9 Big Discoveries by Curiosity for its 9th Landiversary (Medium)
Graduate school is hard. Not going to sugar coat that. But it can also be a truly amazing and unique time in your life, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be miserable on top of being difficult. Here are some things you can do and think about before you even start applying to Ph.D. programs* that can… Read more: Surviving Grad School: 3 Tips Before You Even Apply (Medium)
The Space Race might have been America versus the Soviets, but how was the race viewed by the rest of the world? On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on a celestial body beyond Earth while Command Module Pilot Michael Collins kept dutiful watch from orbit overhead.… Read more: The International Impact of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing (Medium)
For years, I’ve been quite frank and open on social media (mainly Twitter) about a lot of aspects of my life and professional career as a scientist: How having a physical disability has impacted things, my experiences with harassment that nearly drove me out of the field, making the shift from academia to industry, and more. But my gender identity… Read more: I never thought being queer impacted my professional life as a scientist. I was wrong.(Medium)
The tiny 4-pound (1.8 kg) helicopter that hitched a ride to Mars with NASA’s Perseverance rover just got a mission upgrade. Initially planned as a “technology demonstration” to prove whether or not powered flight was possible in the thin martian atmosphere, Ingenuity surpassed all expectations on the—at the time of writing—four flights it has successfully conducted thus… Read more: Ingenuity Gets an Upgrade on Mars (Medium)
As a scientist who works on robots that we send to other planets, I often hear complaints about how much money is spent on “space.” Space is viewed as this futuristic pipe dream, the realm of eccentric billionaires with money to burn. Many don’t see how money spent on “space” has any benefit to humanity, especially with pressing… Read more: How Space Benefits Canadian Life on Earth (Medium)
Most people are probably familiar, even if not by name, with the iconic “Earthrise” and “Blue Marble” view of Earth taken by Apollo astronauts on their journeys to the Moon. Apollo 8’s Earthrise, taken on Christmas Eve in 1968, is often referred to as one of the catalysts that led to the environmental movement and the creation of… Read more: For Earth Day: Ten Stunning Views of Earth from Space Missions (Medium)
Scientists and engineers are nerds who like to have a bit of fun—even when it comes to their spacecraft. Let’s take a look at some of the Easter Eggs they’ve put aboard the rovers and landers on Mars: Read more: https://tanyaofmars.medium.com/martian-easter-eggs-87a075fd6f2b
Mars is a freezing polar desert. Nearly all of the water there is locked up in ice in the polar caps or surface frost, buried underground, or locked up in the mineral structures within rocks. But some of it exists high in the air as water-ice clouds. The image above shows the latest view of these clouds on… Read more: Twilight Clouds—on Mars (Medium)
Eric Berger’s new book gives me a whole new appreciation for what Elon Musk and all of the talented engineers at SpaceX have managed to achieve. The commercial space landscape has come a long way in the past decade. Ten years ago, SpaceX barely had any successful launches under their belt. The Space Shuttle was about to retire, and I… Read more: “Liftoff” Showcases the Game-Changing the Early Days of SpaceX – Book Review (Medium)
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… Read more: The Lost Lure of Space Tourism? (Medium)
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… Read more: My Disability Does Define Me (Medium)
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… Read more: What Should I Study if I Want to Work in Space? (Medium)
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… Read more: 5 Career Options in Space Beyond Academia (Medium)
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.… Read more: Call Me Doctor (Medium)
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… Read more: Back to School with Planet, Week 4 | Mars or Earth? (Medium)
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
This is the third installment in our Stellar Minds series, where we profile Planet’s extraordinary employees and their accomplishments. Keep checking our blog for upcoming features on some of the most remarkable people in aerospace today. I can remember exactly what first got me interested in space as a kid, and it’s probably not anything that would first come… Read more: Coming Back To Earth With Planetary Scientist Tanya Of Mars (Planet)
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… Read more: After Working on Mars, I’ll Never See Earth the Same Way (Medium)
Read more: For All Humankind (Mango Publishing, Book)
NASA’s InSight lander has been making a splash in the news thanks to its capable weather station—but it’s not the first robotic meteorologist we’ve had on Mars. Last week, NASA unveiled the first weather data from its InSight lander, which arrived on Mars in late November of last year. With a primary goal of collecting seismic and… Read more: Monitoring Martian Weather, Part 1: On the Ground (Medium)
Last week, NASA officially said goodbye to the Opportunity rover after 15 years on Mars. Contact was lost last June after the strongest dust storm ever observed on the Red Planet engulfed the rover, blocking sunlight from reaching her solar panels. Even after the dust storm subsided, attempts to regain contact with “Oppy” (as she is often… Read more: After Oppy, an opportunity for NASA to work with SpaceX (The Houston Chronicle)