Emily Lakdawalla

Jan 25, 2017, 20:52 PM by Emily Lakdawalla

Four years ago, I announced that I was writing a book about Curiosity, describing the mission from its inception through its nominal mission. I am still not done, so am taking a three-month break from other work -- including this blog -- in order to focus and finish. I'm seeking scientists and engineers to serve as guest bloggers.

Four years ago, I announced that I was writing a book about Curiosity, describing the mission from its inception through its nominal mission. Three years later, I acknowledged that the book was still not finished (in fact, I didn't work on it at all in 2015). I've made quite a bit of progress in the last year -- but so has the rover. I've realized that if I'm ever going to catch up with Curiosity, I need to drop everything else to focus on the work. So, with some trepidation, I asked my bosses for a three-month sabbatical to finish writing my book. And they said yes!

My sabbatical begins on Monday. My self-imposed rules: No Twitter except at lunch break. No Slack. When necessary, no email except at lunch, either. Hopefully, with all that tuned out and no insistent deadlines, I'll be able to make rapid progress down the home stretch. I welcome people's suggestions of good Spotify playlists for focused research and writing.

The book isn't available for pre-order yet. Email me and I will put you down on a list for a mass email when preordering is possible.

My absence will leave a hole here on the blog through April, and for that I'm really sorry. I will show up here to post two to three blog entries in the next three months. Keeping up with Curiosity's ongoing status is obviously closely related to my book research, so I'll continue those updates at my current pace of about one every other month (we're due for one soon, and I expect I'll post one in late March or early April), and I've got an update cooking on Mastcam-Z that has to simmer on a back burner for a while longer. Apart from that, I won't be here. So I'll need help.

You can write about a cool new result (especially if it's not your own), or explain why something that people are excited about is not likely to be true, or fill us in on the status of a mission, or explain some important piece of background, or talk about a cool random online data source, or a favorite or thought-provoking picture, or explain a space career. Posts can be 200 words or 2000 words as the subject warrants. When you write for The Planetary Society, you can be a bit more technical than you would writing for most other outlets, and you'll be writing for a sympathetic audience hungry for behind-the-scenes details, no matter how mundane they seem to you.

It's likely that when I come back from my sabbatical, the blog will not be quite the same thing as it has been in the past. It's been ten years since I started writing it, a decade in which the online space news landscape has changed quite a bit. It's also been a rather tumultuous year, and I plan to use these three months to reflect on how I can best act to change the world, as Bill Nye always commands us to do. I feel less and less satisfied doing rushed news-update-style reporting, and am more interested in spending more time to explain science or engineering in depth, in articles that will be useful over time, not just this week. (I am really enjoying writing the book, when I can find time to do it!) I also want to do more work to develop resources to help people get into the art and science of space image processing, building resources that will have value for people for years to come. But I can't do that kind of writing while keeping up writing and editing so many stories on the blog; something will have to give, and it's most likely going to be the publication pace.