Cassini, Cassini, Cassini

Here at the Lunar and Planertary Sciences’ Conference, I think it is safe to say that Cassini is in the house. From weather on Titan, to seasonal variations on Enceladus, to cracking of Dione, you can’t throw an iPad (those are also in the house) without hitting a Cassini scientist. I’ve...

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Of NASA and Budgets

Posted by pamela on Mar 20, 2012

Fine print: While I receive funding from NASA for some of my work, this blog post written by me as a private citizen. Today was the NASA Town Hall; that 1 or more hour window of time when some official from NASA stands at the podium and tells us how NASA will grow or crush our dreams. The very first NASA town hall meeting I attended was in 2003, at an LPSC meeting very much like the one I’m attending now, but that was a different economic...

Slow Science & Peer-Revie...

Posted by pamela on Mar 5, 2012

Science moves slowly. That may seem like an odd statement when the pace of press releases and breaking news seems to imply that new discoveries are flying fast and furious, with labs making discoveries and publishing them almost before they’re ready for prime time. What is missing from this perspective are the realities of the funding cycle and publishing cycle. I just had to fill out a form that required me to list all my recent...

A Rocket Car Future (for some)

Posted by pamela on Feb 28, 2012

Currently I’m attending the Next Generation Sub-Orbital Research (and Education) Conference in Palo Alto, California. I’m staring at all my notes struggling with finding a coherent theme, idea, or even emotion that I can use to tie together my thoughts. I find that I just can’t; this is a conference that simply defies being captured in a straight forward manner. My struggle to find a coherent message comes from half of my brain...

Kindness at 30,000ft

Posted by pamela on Feb 27, 2012

Earlier today I wrote on Google+ that there are day’s when you run head first into the tail-end of the probability distribution. Today was one of those days, and now that it’s over and I’m laying in bed typing, I can happily say I got to see both sides of the Gaussian. It started as a normal travel day for me. I got up far too early, shoveled myself in and out of the shower and into the car, following the inner mantra,...

Breaking Stereotypes with We a...

Posted by pamela on Feb 15, 2012

The question I get asked the most is “Why are you an astronomer?” The tone of this question varies from “I never thought I’d meet an astronomer? How did this happen?” to “Are you insane – that’s hard! Why would you do that!” to “Do astronomers have a reason to exist?” to, well…. reactions vary and it is clear I’m not the vision of what people expect an astronomer to...

In Inbox We Trust

Posted by pamela on Jan 29, 2012

Inbox Trust (TM) is one of those things you have to be really careful with. The reason people are able to spread malware and bilk too many people out of money is the same reason people sometimes take the wrong person home at the end of a date. The person crying over the “perfect guy” who disappeared after leaving a false phone number is the same sort of person who cries over the Nigerian prince who abused the bank account numbers...