No more driving for Spirit
It’s the end of an era. The rover team has decided to leave Spirit where she is. Other than getting the solar panels in better position to catch sunlight, the rover will become a stationary science center. This morning, the NY Times had a story that didn’t sound particularly optimistic. But this afternoon, the rover [...]
Planning Spirit's escape
Back to my favorite space topic– the Spirit rover. I’m fascinated by the meticulous science and engineering effort going into an obvious obstacle: a robot stuck in the sand. The only problem? The robot and the sand are millions of miles away. So far, even though it’s been 8 months, Spirit’s still stuck. But scientists [...]
The role of great sources
Though my writing life ranges from writing health stories for teens to writing about research topics and careers issues for scientists, the sources that I speak with for the former type of article generally don’t overlap with those for the latter. Until now. Last spring, I was working on an article about the common cold, [...]
