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While NASA has successfully landed nine spacecraft on Mars over the past 50 years and China scored a 2021 touchdown, no one has ever reached Phobos or its sidekick Deimos. And no one has managed to fetch samples from Mars, let alone its moons. https://apnews.com/article/japan-mars-moon-mission-fb51fbbf90374631e8ae658f9ca461 JAXA launched their MMX (Martian Moon Explorer) spacecraft successfully on October 20th. It hopes […]
Beyond Spacesuits: How Genetic Engineering Could Make Us Martian
When we think about colonizing Mars, we usually imagine advanced spacesuits, dome cities, and massive terraforming projects. Beyond Spacesuits: How Genetic Engineering Could Make Us Martian Wish I had seen this writing prompt this past June! I could have written… Well, probably something very similar to this. Only without the obvious use of AI. Just […]
Shadows on the Hudson: The Forgotten Borderland Raids of Saratoga
This is the second of a series of posts introducing the five-part historical fiction novel Unbowed, which will be published in November 2026. All five parts are based on true events and real people – my ancestors. The first post described the outcome of the Battle of Dunbar in 1650 and one of its survivors, […]
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Tag Archives: Japan
Shika Kenshin – Stage One
The first stage of three A few days ago, I took my daughter to a scheduled dental checkup (shika kenshin), sponsored by our local municipal citizen’s welfare department. Like all the other health check ups (at seven months, a year, … Continue reading
On the Pond
This past Sunday, my wife, daughter, and I joined in an outdoor barbecue at a prefectural park originally built for a Japanese emperor. Sounds impressive, I guess…Taisho Tenno wasn’t a particularly long-lived emperor by modern standards, and was in poor … Continue reading
Ja-Bread and Rice Country
My daughter had only five or fix teeth when we were on vacation in North America this past August. Despite that fact, she developed an incredible appetite for bread that has only gotten stronger since then. We had generally avoided … Continue reading
