American ski instruction, despite being located in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, has a reputation for being slow, cautious, safety-oriented, and rule-obsessed, a reputation it deserves in contrast with places like Scandinavia or the Alps, the latter of which … Continue readingWhite Paradise
Working up the scenario for my Great Christmas Blizzard, which I’ve decided will take place in 2045 (because why not make it take place the same year as the great rogue comet in one of my other stories, right?), I find that my attempt at … Continue readingThe Ultimate Storm?
I’ve previously written about survival strategies for nations and mankind “after the doomsday shroud”, the worst conceivable nuclear war. Which got me thinking about a fascinating piece of Cold War history: the “Deep Underground Command Center”, or “DUCC”. If civilian command and control of the … Continue readingDeep Underground Launch Center
Fundamentally there are three schools of thought for spacecraft that enter and exit planetary atmospheres (spacecraft that stay in space have their own design considerations, and in any case can get much wilder): capsules, spaceplanes, and lifting bodies. Anybody who’s even passingly familiar with spaceflight … Continue readingCatching a Lift
Image is one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s sketches for Broadacre City; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. What would a genuinely futuristic transportation system look like? From land to air to sea, from human-powered to nuclear-powered, and from everything in between, our options for … Continue readingThoughts on Futuristic Transportation
We hear much talk about globalization and its effects on human societies, but relatively little about the promise a more globalized and technologically advanced world holds for improving fundamental aspects of our daily lifestyles. Much discourse around the topic over-complicates globalization, which is fundamentally the … Continue readingLifestyles in a Fully Globalized Future
The role of transportation technology, specifically the fastest transportation that the masses can afford and the infrastructure permits, is a pervasive but often unconsidered factor in our daily lives, influencing our built environment and even our social and economic opportunities. After rapid advancement in the … Continue readingPersonal Transportation of the Near Future: Flying Cars and Beyond
Click here for full resolution. This is my new oil-on-canvas piece, depicting the sun setting on a city floating in the clouds on some alien world. The two spheres contain lighter-than-air lifting gases; on a world with denser air like Venus they could contain airy … Continue readingSunset Flight to Cloud City
Once space colonization begins in earnest, what will be the sports and physical hobbies taken up by the dwellers of the black skies? Here we will explore how off-world athleticism might plausibly evolve starting from its origins and extending into the foreseeable near future. Athletic … Continue readingAquamusicals in Space: Worldbuilding Zero-G Sports