Weekly Space Hangout – Jan 9, 2015: Andy Weir of “The Martian”

Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)
Special Guest: Andy Weir , author of “The Martian”
Andy was first hired as a programmer for a national laboratory at age fifteen and has been working as a software engineer ever since. He is also a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of subjects like relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. “The Martian” is his first novel.

Guests:
Morgan Rehnberg (cosmicchatter.org / @cosmic_chatter)
Ramin Skibba (@raminskibba)
Brian Koberlein (@briankoberlein)
Dave Dickinson (@astroguyz / www.astroguyz.com)
Nicole Gugliucci (cosmoquest.org / @noisyastronomer)

This Week’s Stories:
SpaceX Launch Delayed to Jan 10
Checking in with Opportunity
Super oceans on Super Earths?
Astronomy 2015
Comet Lovejoy
8 New Exos for Kepler (225 AAS)
More AAS Meeting News
Killer stars heading our way…
quasar backlighting to study Milky Way
New Andromeda image
A recipe for making planets
Poking at the Early Universe
Spooky Nebula is Coldest Known Object in Universe
GAO Upholds NASA Funding for SpaceX and Boeing Space Vans/Sierra Nevada Loses Their Protest
NASA’s Chandra Detects Record-Breaking Outburst from Milky Way’s Black Hole
Hubble Discovers that Milky Way Core Drives Wind at 2 Million MPH
Potentially Dangerous Asteroid to Fly by Earth on January 26
NASA’s Kepler Marks 1000th Exoplanet Discover, Uncovers More Small Worlds in Habitable Zones
Crowdsourcing Exceeds One Million Classifications of Possible Planetary Habitats
Super-Earths Have Long-Lasting Oceans
JWST Hardware Entering Key Test Phase
Crash Course Astronomy: New Astronomy Video Series Premiers on Thursday, January 15, 2015 [starring Phil Plait]
America Is Colder than Mars. Some Parts of it, Anyway
Astronauts Get Their Own LEGO Minifigures on Space Station
Neil deGrasse Tyson Is Bringing Science to Late Night Television

We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Friday at 12:00 pm Pacific / 3:00 pm Eastern. You can watch us live on Google+, Universe Today, or the Universe Today YouTube page.

You can join in the discussion between episodes over at our Weekly Space Hangout Crew group in G+.