The Curious Engineer

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Casey Handmer's blog

caseyhandmer.wordpress.com

Space, Travel, Technology, 3D Printing, Energy, Writing

ScienceTech news / industrySociety / politics / economy

’10’15’20’25
Posts
379 from 7 Jun 2010 to 23 Oct 2026
Posting
monthly (17 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/feed/

2026 12

  1. It took me seven months to get my baby an Australian passport
  2. How deep is Tulainyo Lake?
  3. In Defense of the Marginal Baby
  4. The enormous size of the oil and gas market drives adoption of synthetic fuel production
  5. How to build a crazy awesome Australian immigration system
  6. How to build a lunar mass driver
  7. Australian Dynamism
  8. Australia will run an overt command economy by 2040
  9. Garmin watch faces
  10. Notes on the Fermi Paradox
  11. Space AI: I guess we’re doing Moon factories now
  12. Direct Current Data Centers

2025 25

  1. Energy Predictions 2025
  2. Scaling Career and Family: Systems Thinking, Public School, Home Enrichment
  3. Antimatter Development Program
  4. Terraform Talent Development
  5. NASA’s Orion Space Capsule Is Flaming Garbage
  6. Career Development Guide for Job Seekers
  7. Life on Mars
  8. How to get samples back from Mars
  9. Australian Economic Stagnation
  10. Economics and AI take off
  11. Sierras Projects
  12. Hyperdrive City
  13. How to reason from first principles
  14. NASA Is Worth Saving
  15. Questions about AI 2025
  16. Why am I searched every time I go to Australia?
  17. To Conquer the Primary Energy Consumption Layer of Our Entire Civilization
  18. Long duration propellant stability in Starship
  19. California’s path to redemption
  20. What can we send to Mars on the first Starships?
  21. Maximizing electrical power output from a nuclear reactor delivered by Starship to a base on Mars
  22. Stuff you should have been taught in college but weren’t
  23. Moon Escape!
  24. Dittemore’s Law
  25. The Los Angeles wildfires are self-inflicted

2024 28

  1. Salton Sea statistics
  2. Part 8 Shikata Ga Nai
  3. Part 7 Senzeni Na
  4. Part 6 Guns Under The Table
  5. Why do we need a Department of Government Efficiency?
  6. It Is Time To Build The Monster Scope
  7. Solar and batteries for generic use cases
  8. Powering the Mars base
  9. We can Terraform the American West
  10. SLS is still a national disgrace
  11. Entrepreneurship changed the way I think
  12. Anti-aging tech fixes demographic collapse
  13. Potentially undervalued companies
  14. Terraforming Mars with nanowires
  15. Antimatter is the best post-chemical rocket propulsion system
  16. How Terraform Navigated The Idea Maze
  17. How to Learn Hardware
  18. The solar industrial revolution is the biggest investment opportunity in history
  19. Can wind compete with solar?
  20. How to Feed the AIs
  21. How many scrolls await discovery?
  22. Global terrain map of Mars at 7 m resolution
  23. Genealogy Ancestor Search Using Math
  24. Terraformer Environmental Calculus
  25. The Well-Rounded Engineer
  26. Mars Helicopter 2.0
  27. A vision for the alleviation of water scarcity in the US Southwest and the revitalization of the Salton Sea
  28. Elon Musk is not understood

2023 17

  1. Mars Trilogy: Falling Into History (Part 2)
  2. What is going on with Mars Sample Return?
  3. Permitting Reform Or Death
  4. Time To Read All The Scrolls
  5. Future of Energy Reading List
  6. Radical Energy Abundance
  7. Mars Trilogy: Falling Into History (Part 1)
  8. You Should Be Working On Hardware
  9. How to Produce Green Hydrogen for $1/kg
  10. Reading ancient scrolls
  11. Grid Storage: Batteries Will Win
  12. The Terraformer Mark One
  13. We should not let the Earth overheat!
  14. Climate Tech Checklist
  15. Mars Trilogy: Homesick
  16. Mars Trilogy: The Crucible
  17. Terraform Industries Whitepaper 2.0

2022 13

  1. Mars Trilogy: The Voyage Out
  2. Mars Trilogy: Festival Night
  3. Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary
  4. We need more water than rain can provide: refilling rivers with desalination
  5. Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
  6. We’re going to need a lot of solar panels
  7. How to terraform Mars for $10b in 10 years
  8. Powering the lunar base, version 2
  9. Traffic Congestion and City Design
  10. Understanding the make-buy question in a growing Mars city
  11. Maximizing resume SNR
  12. Numerical convergence as a model for senescence
  13. Terraform Industries Whitepaper

2021 20

  1. Science upside for Starship
  2. Scaling Carbon Capture
  3. Starship is Still Not Understood
  4. Last minute trip to the Sierras
  5. Summer 2021 road trip
  6. Starship Moon Base Design Principles
  7. New Opportunities for Space Companies
  8. The Unstoppable Battery Onslaught
  9. So you want to build a carbon capture company
  10. Powering the Lunar Base
  11. “The Martian” + Starship
  12. Lunar Starship and unnecessary operational complexity
  13. Artemis can succeed using Starship
  14. Geodiaries
  15. Sea voyages
  16. Predictions 2021: Prospective
  17. Predictions: Retrospective
  18. SLS: What now?
  19. SLS: Is cancellation too good?
  20. How (not) to measure progress in science?

2020 28

  1. Biological data storage
  2. The future of electricity is local
  3. Supersonic electric flight
  4. Projects in lock down
  5. Post capitalism and post scarcity
  6. The Case for Space Stations
  7. Vision 2040: The first million on Mars
  8. Starlink packet routing
  9. Progression of space industrialization
  10. Book reviews
  11. Case Study: Iceland
  12. Failure
  13. Australian energy policy: no vision too small
  14. Building the Mars Industrial Coalition
  15. Starting the Mars Base
  16. A quick note on airships
  17. The Program 2020
  18. The big question: Why go to space at all?
  19. Mars exploration architecture comparison
  20. Even the dirt is poisonous!
  21. Long duration life support
  22. What about Venus?
  23. “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” is not an instruction manual
  24. Welcome to my secret underground lair!
  25. Don’t stage off Starship!
  26. Let’s breed space humans
  27. What would it be like to work on Mars?
  28. Oh no, space capitalists are coming!

2019 26

  1. Domes are over-rated
  2. Comments on this blog
  3. Starlink is a very big deal
  4. The SpaceX Starship is a very big deal
  5. Space debris, probably not coming to a backyard near you
  6. OMG space is full of radiation, and why I’m not worried
  7. On reasoning backwards from architecture to implicit requirements
  8. In space, no-one can reason by analogy
  9. There are no gas stations in space
  10. No really, space based solar power is not a useful idea, literature review edition
  11. Self replicating robots do not exist
  12. There are no known commodity resources in space that could be sold on Earth
  13. Lunar water is not that exciting
  14. Space-based solar power is not a thing
  15. Blog Series: Countering misconceptions in space journalism
  16. Caltech astrophysics and harassment: Lessons learned
  17. Genealogy as a window to the past
  18. Notes on long distance relationships
  19. Are modular space stations cost effective?
  20. Is nuclear power a solution to climate change?
  21. Grid dynamics
  22. The Lunar Gateway – NASA’s version
  23. Lunar exploration architectures
  24. Weekend trip to Okinawa
  25. Tesla receives biased coverage
  26. 2018 in review

2018 20

  1. Film review: Free Solo and First Man
  2. Working Title: Bombard All The Planets
  3. Mars global hydrology at full MOLA resolution
  4. Short story: Russian Salt and Snow
  5. What are the major causes of rocket launch failures?
  6. Searching for asteroids and other small dark solar system bodies with a network of ground-based stellar occultation cameras
  7. How to rig an election, or yet another think piece on gerrymandering
  8. "The Program," or, a strategy for universal prosperity in the twenty first century
  9. Unpopular opinions in space
  10. How to Industrialize Mars
  11. Atmospheres and Terraforming
  12. The High Frontier: A Technical Critique
  13. A new car and various lucky breaks
  14. Tiny 3D printed jets
  15. Cassini memorials
  16. India 2018
  17. Footprints/Tryst/Pragyan speech transcript
  18. Science fiction short story – That Final Moment
  19. Falcon Heavy and the era of post-scarcity heavy lift launch
  20. Rocket launches!

2017 11

  1. Principles of Mars urban planning (first pass)
  2. Visit to Ohio and Australia
  3. SpaceX update at IAC 2017
  4. Estimating Mars settlement rates
  5. How To Fund Space Settlement – Where Does The Money Come From?
  6. Honeymoon
  7. St Petersburg 2017
  8. Drones and planes
  9. Cuba 2017
  10. A roadmap to an industrially self-sufficient Mars base in the minimum time
  11. Does Lunar resource exploitation make sense?

2016 16

  1. 14 days to have a relaxing holiday.
  2. SpaceX Mars plan analysis
  3. Mars Society Talk: Confronting the Credibility Gap for Crewed Exploration of Mars
  4. Returning to Russia for the Eastern Economic Forum
  5. A quick jaunt to China
  6. Artemis and Esteban wedding speech
  7. 90 hour weekend with B
  8. Illustrating Mathematics at ICERM
  9. Mars future hydrology
  10. Flying through Death Valley
  11. Gliding adventure
  12. J visits LA
  13. Hawaii 2016
  14. We have found gravitational waves!
  15. Jan 23-24 Weekend Adventures
  16. India 2015

2015 28

  1. Australia 2015
  2. San Francisco Weekend 2015
  3. Adventures over the last few weeks
  4. Y hike 2015
  5. The Martian: A Technical Commentary
  6. Burning Man 2015
  7. Ephemerisle 2015
  8. Mum and Dad visit the USA
  9. John Nash dies in NJ car accident
  10. Visions of the future with Kim Stanley Robinson
  11. Next Generation Mars Lander and Return Vehicle
  12. Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev found guilty
  13. The California Tech: Caltech Space Challenge
  14. Great grandfather walkabout
  15. Grad school, exploitation, and gender: the discussion continues
  16. Women offer honest perspectives on grad school – The California Tech
  17. Last month’s adventures
  18. Security Issues Complicated Advancement of Journalism
  19. Disease continues to exist in the world
  20. Why do smart people form stupid organizations?
  21. Daring FBI burglars to attend film screening of 1971 at Caltech
  22. Dawn wall – conquered!
  23. Seattle and Arizona Road Trip
  24. Washington DC
  25. Journalists murdered by fundamentalists in France
  26. Obama reaches emissions agreement with China
  27. Colour Analysis
  28. 2015 in review

2014 19

  1. Ukraine – 2014 in review
  2. Film review: Citizenfour moving, unsettling
  3. Elon Musk’s twitter: Time to unveil the D
  4. Weekend adventures!
  5. M visits the USA, 2014
  6. Geology field trip to Mono Lake
  7. Article: Hong Kong Protests
  8. NASA Commercial Crew Transport Capability: Winners and Loser
  9. Sierras Hike 2014
  10. Burning Man
  11. Mystery Trip to Spain 2014
  12. Work! What do I actually do?
  13. Yosemite 2014
  14. TAM 2013 conference
  15. Zion National Park
  16. E visits LA (again)
  17. Conferencing on the East Coast
  18. The worst conference talk ever…
  19. Long lost blog update

2013 14

  1. Mexico 2013 field trip
  2. The Tesla Model S: What’s all the fuss about?
  3. Landing (softly) on Mars
  4. Hyperloop grapevine corridor alternatives genetic algorithm
  5. Fantasia and Fugue on Mars settlement transport technology
  6. Little sis’ comes to California!
  7. The Amazing Meeting 2013
  8. Hawaii 2013
  9. Yosemite version 2
  10. Death Valley field trip
  11. Cameron Carpenter at the LA Phil
  12. Costa Rica Alternative Spring Break Trip (part 2)
  13. Costa Rica Alternative Spring Break Trip (part 1)
  14. Australia for Christmas

2012 9

  1. Space Elevator/Lift Physics
  2. Pushing the limits of the possible with respect to space telescope design
  3. Canyoning near Caltech
  4. Spring 2012 Geology field trip
  5. San Francisco with T and S
  6. Mt Whitney, again
  7. When Lucent Met Herakut and Latry at the LA Phil
  8. Avalanche safety course
  9. Sister comes to the US of A

2011 42

  1. Surprise trip to Australia
  2. M visits Pasadena
  3. Dispatches from the cultural front: Laszlo Fassang plays organ at Walt Disney Hall
  4. Ge 136 field trip to Baja California, Mexico
  5. Lang Lang at the LA Phil
  6. Camping for one night only
  7. Photos and wrap
  8. Spain, land of mañana…
  9. The game
  10. On the loading of A320s
  11. Austria, home of Almdudler!!
  12. Slovenia, the outlier
  13. Croatia, part 2.
  14. Bosnia and Herzegovina
  15. Croatia, part 1.
  16. Montenegro, or Crna Gora to the initiated.
  17. Kosovo, Europe’s youngest country
  18. Macedonia and the end of my 24th birthday
  19. Albania and the best birthday ever!!
  20. Greece!
  21. More crazy travels; Turkey!
  22. F1rst post!
  23. Impending travel!
  24. After Princeton – the way home
  25. Princeton excitement
  26. Russian subtitles
  27. 33 hours in New York (plus a few in Princeton)
  28. Mystery trip to Florida
  29. Cedar Flat – book review
  30. Mt Wilson Hike
  31. Sunset in the redwoods
  32. More adventures
  33. Echo mountain climb
  34. Organ recital – Published in the California Tech!
  35. When nothing really is something
  36. A and B came to town.
  37. Mammoth Ski Trip 2011
  38. Maska Scorbi
  39. Composers day music party
  40. Walk to the beach!
  41. The air is so thick, it stings! (Or recreation, part 2)
  42. What some people do for fun

2010 51

  1. Christmas 2010
  2. Belated update
  3. More videos
  4. Videos are up
  5. Florida trip
  6. Moving to the US
  7. Vladivostok and last post
  8. Last days in Kamchatka
  9. The weather improved
  10. Fog, rain, snow, wind.
  11. More photos and not much else
  12. Some photos from Russia up
  13. Hot mud and rain
  14. Kamchatka rocks my world
  15. Magadan – Khabarovsk – Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
  16. Magadan adventures
  17. Magadan!
  18. Corrections, etc
  19. The Kolyma Highway, or, In Soviet Russia, luck pushes YOU!
  20. The Kolyma Highway, or, if you fear rejection, hitchhiking is not for you (part 2)
  21. I was blogged!
  22. The Kolyma Highway, or The School of Infinite Patience (part 1)
  23. subsidiary statistics
  24. Half way and stats
  25. Big trucks, the first kitch-hitch, and the worst road in the world.
  26. sneaky 24 hours in sydney time
  27. Correction
  28. I forgot to say
  29. Lakes east and west
  30. Taishet!
  31. Novosibirsk by car
  32. Some photos are up
  33. 1/3 of the way?
  34. Some more photos
  35. No photos, sorry
  36. Russian Sunday
  37. Crossing the border
  38. Border zone fishing
  39. Location of glacier
  40. Mongolia, a land untouched by road building.
  41. Photos?
  42. Main roads
  43. Wild wild west
  44. Awesome 24 hours
  45. photos are up
  46. Ulaan Baatar
  47. Some photos
  48. First Post
  49. Volcanoes!
  50. Recent trip to Tasmania
  51. Test