Welcome to the technical section of my site! The navigation bar above will take you to subsections devoted to areas of personal interest. These subsections contain technical material (some more so than others) that I feel would be of worth to someone wishing to know more about that area. If you're not a techy sort of person, don't be shy - give it a try. You may be surprised at how smart you really are!
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I have been interested in this area since the late 70's (dates me, doesn't it?), when I read the first asteroid defense plan, "Project Icarus," devised by some folks at MIT. Since then, I have "dabbled" in this arena, and have recently had the privilege of sitting as a member of a defense working group, chaired by an Air Force general. This section contains some ideas by myself and others on the subject. |
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One of my primary areas of expertise. I got into this area back in '97 because of the need to advise spacecraft operators on the Leonid meteor shower, and it has been non-stop ever since. Now that the period of "intense" Leonid activity is over, I have switched to studying/forecasting other meteor showers, such as the Perseids, and looking at better ways to model the complex of "background" or sporadic meteors. |
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Marshall is a propulsion center, and we get to work with some pretty far-out concepts, such as space tethers. Several of these critters have been already been deployed in space, and at least one more is awaiting a ride out into the "great beyond." Here are some of my thoughts on tethers (especially on the hazards they may pose to satellites in Earth orbit) and their much bigger, futuristic cousin, the Space Elevator. |
Copyright(c) 2003 Bill Cooke. All rights reserved. The content within this site reflects my personal opinions and are not those of NASA or my employer, Computer Sciences Corporation.