Fall 2023
To the moon
If you understand hydrogen, you have a future. » More ...
Space exploration
Winter 2022
Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA’s Johnson Space Center
Edited by Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal ’04 PhD History
Texas A&M University Press: 2022
One made the coffee every morning. “That was just standard operating procedure,” she explains, noting one boss never called her by her name. It was always “Young Lady.”
Another, in her first job out of high school, babysat for astronauts after work. Still another, a mathematician, was asked to fill in for two weeks for a secretary who was on her honeymoon. When she … » More …
Spring 2018
Talkback for Spring 2018
Yacht club
Is there still an active Cougar yacht club? My friends own the Elmore, which was featured in your magazine in the early 2000s. It’s for sale now, in great shape, and still owned by the Cougar fans. It would be a great boost for the yacht club and could possibly keep it in the Cougar family. She’s still painted Coug colors and was built in 1890!
Sarah Seltzer
Seattle
Rocket man
I was in the Signal Corps of the U.S. Army’s satellite tracking station at Ft. Stewart, Georgia, from April 1958–March 1959. I was working telemetry the night Cape … » More …
Summer 2017
Space farming
Surviving the challenges of deep space exploration could rely as much on botany as astrophysics.
NASA sees plants not only as potential food sources aboard future spacecraft but as natural oxygen producers. The space agency is preparing for its first in-depth study of how growth and development of plants is affected by gravity, or more specifically the lack of it.
“The overall significance is what it could mean for space exploration,” says Norman G. Lewis, a Regents professor at Washington State University’s Institute of Biological Chemistry and principal investigator for the NASA-funded study. “Whether it’s colonizing planets, establishing a station, … » More …
Fall 2016
Talkback for Fall 2016
Another close encounter with outer space
Fifty years ago, 1966, I graduated from WSU and then went to work for NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California. I spent the next 40 years exploring our solar system. WSU gave me the “right stuff” to be a part of sending a “spacecraft where no spacecraft had gone before.” I was in the Pioneer Project and we sent the first spacecraft to the outer planets, Pioneer-10, to fly beyond the orbit of Mars through the asteroid belt and encounter Jupiter in 1973. After the flyby of Jupiter, Pioneer-10, on an escape trajectory from the Sun … » More …
Summer 2017
Space Cougs
Since the 1960s, engineers, biologists, and even historians who graduated from Washington State have contributed to the exploration of our solar system. You can read about a few of them below. If you know of other Cougs who have been involved in space exploration, please send their stories and we’ll include them here.
Thora Waters Halstead ’50
Space biologist
Microbiologist Thora Waters Halstead pioneered the field of space biology and her research now is a critical piece of NASA’s plans to send astronauts to Mars.
Waters, who earned her undergraduate degree at Washington State University in 1950, was a trailblazer at NASA … » More …
Summer 2016
The new frontier of asteroid mining
Meteorites can show our relationship with the solar system, but they also provide clues to the composition of asteroids both near and far. Those asteroids could be the next frontier for some space explorers.
Planetary Resources in Redmond is one of the private companies that sees potential in mining near-Earth asteroids for ice and rare metals. They plan to do it using technology we already have, inexpensively and on private rockets. CEO Chris Lewicki compares the hunt for asteroids to the American West.
“It’s like the first steam engines: not much to look at, but they helped us settle the West,” he says.
Using small … » More …
Summer 2016
Colonizing the stars
Traveling to the stars is one thing. Living there is another.
Washington State University is tackling challenges that could enable future astronauts to survive indefinitely on Mars and other extraterrestrial locations.
At the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture, for example, a team of students designed a domed habitat that could be built robotically from Martian or Lunar soil with a special 3D printer. Dubbed the WazzuDOME, it was selected by NASA as a finalist in a design competition last year and earned the team a trip to the world’s largest science fair, the annual Maker Faire, in New York City.
“We took … » More …
Summer 2016
Perchance to dream
You might find Guy Worthey at the WSU Planetarium narrating a show on meteors. Or up at Jewett Observatory playing bass guitar with his band for the Jazz BBQ Star Party.
The visionary associate professor of physics and astronomy is also known around campus as a science fiction fan and charter member of the Palouse Astronomical Society which hosts public star parties throughout the region.
When asked if he’d like to travel in space, he laughs, “I want to go! How much is the ticket? When can I sign up?!”
Beyond the lure of adventure, Worthey says today’s race to explore the … » More …
Summer 2016
Close Encounters from Outer Space
The errant asteroid hurtled through space at 40,000 miles per hour. Tumbling in a wild orbit, it glinted with sunlight as it neared the Earth. At 65-feet wide, the potato-shaped object should have been easily detected but no one saw it coming.
On the morning of February 15, 2013 the asteroid exploded with the force of 500 kilotons of TNT about 15 miles above the city of Chelyabinsk in the Russian Ural Mountains. The fireball was reportedly 30 times brighter than the sun. The shockwave blew out windows in hundreds of buildings and injured more than 1,500 people.
It was Earth’s most powerful meteor strike … » More …