Monica Hernandez

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Space propulsion Featured

Nuclear Advances for Space and Earth in 2023

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Space issues Featured

Open Source and Open Science for the Space Industry

Open science and open source software and hardware have strengths and advantages. However, from a cybersecurity perspective, it isn’t easy to anticipate the consequences for space.

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Space tech Featured

Ocean-based R&D for Space

The scale, complexity, risk, and difficulty of conducting ocean-based R&D for science, energy, and general exploration, can lay the groundwork for space.

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Space tech Featured

Discovery At the Edge of Our World

Many mysteries will continue to be revealed thanks to research and development in the Chilean Atacama desert.

Spacefaring Featured

A Question of Scale and Vantage Point

In our lifetimes, we might witness how humanity could finally harness breakthroughs to unprecedented new levels, unlike anything we’ve imagined.

Spacefaring Featured

Engineering Biology and Genetics: Synthetics for Space

The advances in synthetic biology and genome editing can redesign biological organisms and modify our genetic codes for new possibilities that would ensure long-term survival in space

Spacefaring Featured

Space Logistics, Challenges Ahead

The current payload launching momentum will force us to think about space logistics sooner than we think.

Spacefaring Featured

Space business and science as usual?

Recent discoveries in human genetics raise new questions about our current physiology and, more importantly, hint at the challenges of long-term, sustained space travel and settlements.

Spacefaring Featured

Big Questions, Complex Answers

Rich sources of innovation and engineering in different domains and industries, such as deep sea exploration, genetic engineering, etc., might open valuable R&D avenues for space.

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Space economy Featured

Soaring to Our Future, A Review of Artemis I Payloads

It will be interesting to see the latest breakthroughs in compressing and making sense of big data from the Artemis I CubeSat missions. Not all of the satellite imagery and sourced data will be helpful.

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Space issues Featured

Genetic Engineering For Space Travel

To what extent will a sustainable and healthy life in space require a paradigm shift in genetics? For example, will our civilization engineer its DNA makeup in the search for life beyond Planet Earth?

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Space issues Featured

Sexual Reproduction, Childbearing, and Sustainability in Space Part II

According to Australian physician, Dr. Rowena Christiansen, engineering artificial gravity might pave the way to fully research human reproduction safely in space and we may end up with new subspecies of humans who are perfectly evolved to one environment only.

Space issues Featured

Sexual Reproduction, Childbearing, and Sustainability in Space Part I

We don't fully understand about the basics of human sexual reproduction in space. For humanity to thrive in space, sexual reproduction, pregnancy, child growth, and development need to come under greater focus.

Spacefaring Featured

Popularizing Space Travel

“Spaceport KSC” is the first time in my life that I’ve ever witnessed a fully-built spaceport for civilian spaceflight. It truly sets the stage to start imagining answers to basic travel questions.

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Spacefaring Digest 2022.06

Quantum applications Featured

Keeping Time, The Crunch for Atomic Clocks in Space

The more we study the world at the quantum scale, including the behavior of atoms as markers of time and as exquisite sensors to probe unstudied matter, the more we might understand how to navigate to other worlds without having to depend on Earth-based antennas.

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Spacefaring Digest 2022.05

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Space tech Featured

The Complexity of Space Software, We’re not in Kansas anymore

With many early missions leveraging custom, commercial off-the shelf, and open source software packages, the issues of software complexity and lack of interoperability have been brought forth in my conversations with space engineers and CEOs.

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Spacefaring Digest 2022.04

Space robotics Featured

Designing for Space Robots, A Machine Point of View?

Design and engineering considerations must have an inclusive, participatory process between robots as partners and the broader society. And at the same, it will be critical to start designing for space from a machine point of view.

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Spacefaring Digest 2022.03

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Spacefaring Featured

Who is an Astronaut? Space Jobs in the Era of Frequent Space Travel

The frequency of space travel requires us to define and refer with greater precision the jobs needed in space over the following decades.

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Spacefaring Digest 2022.02

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Spacefaring Featured

The Thinker’s Sanctuary: Science Fiction for Space

There have been noticeable trends in science fiction. I want to share some initial thoughts in response to these space-related conversations. First, I define modern science fiction in its simplest terms as the artistic genre in literature, film, visual arts, music, and other aesthetic expressions, that addresses scientific advances of

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Spacefaring Digest 2022.01