Ron Miller, Author at Gizmodo

The Great Sahara Sea That Almost Was

In 1874, Captain Francois-Elie Roudaire, a geographer in the French army proposed a daring idea. No doubt inspired by the successful completion of the Suez canal a few years earlier, he suggested the creation of a 120-mile-long canal that would connect the Mediterranean Sea to a part of the Sahara Desert in Algeria that lies…

io9 Ron Miller Jul 20

What Do You Call an Alien From Uranus?

My first thought is a “Urinal,” but that’s probably wrong. What to call the inhabitants of the different planets and moons has always been a minor stumbling block for scifi authors. Here’s how to do it right. With one exception, the names of the planets are taken from those of Roman gods and goddesses. There…

io9 Ron Miller Jul 17

Is Mars Ruled by Beavers?

NASA has been accused of covering up evidence of all manner of lifeforms on Mars: lizards, snakes, rats and squirrels, among other things. But has it really been covering up an even bigger secret? Yes indeed, according to an article Thomas Elway wrote for the May 1930 Popular Science. He starts off with a catalog…

io9 Ron Miller Jul 11

How America Could Have Ruled the Earth in 1898

In every war, inventors inundate the military with thousands of crackpot ideas for super-weapons. But even among these, there is one standout: Newton Harrieson. When the United States went to war with Spain in 1898, he proposed a simple way to defeat the Spanish: tip the Earth onto its side and freeze them. Harrieson was…

io9 Ron Miller Jul 8

The Strange Story of the Man Who Invented the Space Gun

In 1937, Princeton engineering professor Edward Fitch Northrup published a book called Zero to Eighty. And, in what must be one of the strangest scifi novels ever written, Northrup developed the idea of the modern “mass driver,” or rail gun. Northrup was a respected professor of electrothermic engineering. Among his 104 patents was an induction…

Books & Comics Ron Miller Jun 25

Everything You Know About Jules Verne is Probably Wrong

Jules Verne is one of the best-known authors who ever lived. A record 300 movies, TV shows and plays have been based on his work and more are on their way. But although everyone knows Jules Verne much of what they know is wrong. Illustration by Gilles Roman Movies, bad translations and urban legends have…

Books & Comics Ron Miller Jun 17

Ancient craters on Mars may have been oases for life

Meteorite craters on ancient Mars may have been home to primordial life forms. Because hydrothermal systems host the most ancient known lineages of life on earth, many biologists think that the first organisms on this planet arose in hot springs. On earth these were largely volcanic systems, such as those that exist today in Yellowstone.…

io9 Ron Miller Jun 14

If Earth Had a Ring Like Saturn

Our planet is lucky enough to have a large moon orbiting not too far away, which makes for very pretty moonlit nights. But for spectacular skies it might almost be worth trading in our moon for a ring like Saturn’s. In fact, the earth did once have a ring—as part of the formation of our…

io9 Ron Miller May 20

The Space City That Could Have Been, If Not For Wernher Von Braun

During the 1950s, Darrell C. Romick, a Goodyear Aircraft engineer and an early member of the American Rocket Society’s spaceflight committee, presented several visionary papers. He outlined a future world of ion propulsion, re-usable launch vehicles, manned lunar missions and permanently occupied orbital colonies And this was two decades before Gerard K. O’Neill proposed his…

io9 Ron Miller May 10

The first splatter movies were live on stage a hundred years ago [NSFW]

Six nights a week and every Sunday afternoon, theater-goers in Paris were treated to an hour’s-worth of gore, beheadings, torture and disembowelment. The effects were so explicit and so realistic that a house physician was always on stand-by duty, ready to administer a dose of brandy to the faint-hearted. Warning: NSFW images! There were even…

Movies Ron Miller May 6

The Great Baltimore Space Program of 1928

The prehistory of spaceflight is filled with mad scientists. Some of their work led directly to the development of space exploration…others had a much weirder destiny. Such was the case with Robert Condit, who built a rocket in 1928 that he planned to fly from Baltimore to Venus. Condit’s spaceship was a 24-foot-long bullet made…

io9 Ron Miller May 2

An Earth-Sized Planet is Orbiting the Nearest Star

The triple star system of Alpha Centauri is only 4.3 light-years—about 25 trillion miles—away. The possibility of an earth-like world orbiting our nearest neighbor has been a kind of holy grail of astronomy — and something taken for granted by countless SciFi authors. Happily for everyone, astronomers at the European Southern Observatory in Chile recently…

io9 Ron Miller Apr 11

How I Helped Get Us To Pluto

Back in 1991 I did a series of illustrations for a set of US commemorative postage stamps, one for each planet and the Moon. There was a spacecraft associated with each world . . . except Pluto. And there was something about that stamp that rankled a lot of scientists. In 1993 JPL engineer Robert…

io9 Ron Miller Apr 11

What the Death of the Sun Will Look Like

About 1.2 billion years from now, the sun will begin to change. As the hydrogen fuel in its core is used up, the burning will spread outward toward the surface. This will make the sun grow brighter. This increased radiation will have a devastating effect on our planet. Here’s what that might look like. The…

io9 Ron Miller Apr 9

How Germany Planned to Fry the World

Back in 1945, Life magazine revealed to its readers how “U.S. Army technical experts came up with the astonishing fact that German scientists had seriously planned to build a ‘sun gun’.” This, the magazine explained, would have been a gigantic orbital mirror that would “focus the sun’s rays to a scorching point on the earth’s…

io9 Ron Miller Apr 1

How Artists Once Imagined the Earth Would Look from Space

Ever since the invention of the telescope, people knew what the planets of the solar system looked like. By the turn of the 20th century, we even had excellent photos of many of them. But before the first satellites—-or even the first high-altitude photos from V2 rockets and stratosphere balloons—-no one had any idea what…

io9 Ron Miller Mar 25

Mars vs. The Comet

October 19, 2014 might be a bad day for Mars. At least if Comet 2013 A1 (Siding Spring) has anything to do with it. The latest trajectory of the comet generated by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office indicates the comet will pass within 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) of Mars—and there is a strong possibility that…

io9 Ron Miller Mar 15

Now You Can Watch this Lost Space Movie from the Dawn of World War II in Germany

Rocket Flight to the Moon, a film also known as Spaceship Number I Starts (Weltraumschiff I Startet), was made in 1938 by the Bavaria Film-Kunst. Since the Germans cancelled most of their science fiction films once the war began, the film that remains is only a short, 23-minute remnant, edited from scenes already filmed. One…

io9 Ron Miller Mar 13

The Artist Who Helped Invent Space Travel

If Lucian Rudaux was the Grandfather of space art, Chesley Bonestell was the father. He was born on January 1, 1888, 15 years before the Wright brothers first flew and 38 years before the launch of the first liquid-fuel rocket. When he died 98 years later, men had walked on the moon and spacecraft had…

io9 Ron Miller Mar 11

Here’s what it looks like when meteors hit the rings of Saturn

Recently, the cameras on board the Cassini spacecraft caught images of meteors racing through the rings of Saturn. Or, rather, photos of the clouds of debris created as the meteors impacted the icy ring particles. These meteors were probably a lot smaller than the Chelyabinsk meteor—-let alone the monsters that rained onto Jupiter—-being perhaps only…

io9 Ron Miller Mar 6

Ron Miller

The Great Sahara Sea That Almost Was

What Do You Call an Alien From Uranus?

Is Mars Ruled by Beavers?

How America Could Have Ruled the Earth in 1898

The Strange Story of the Man Who Invented the Space Gun

Everything You Know About Jules Verne is Probably Wrong

Ancient craters on Mars may have been oases for life

If Earth Had a Ring Like Saturn

The Space City That Could Have Been, If Not For Wernher Von Braun

The first splatter movies were live on stage a hundred years ago [NSFW]

The Great Baltimore Space Program of 1928

An Earth-Sized Planet is Orbiting the Nearest Star

How I Helped Get Us To Pluto

What the Death of the Sun Will Look Like

How Germany Planned to Fry the World

How Artists Once Imagined the Earth Would Look from Space

Mars vs. The Comet

Now You Can Watch this Lost Space Movie from the Dawn of World War II in Germany

The Artist Who Helped Invent Space Travel

Here’s what it looks like when meteors hit the rings of Saturn

Picture Perfect: Artemis 2 Returns Home After a Stellar 10 Days in Space

Artemis 2 Day 10: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

It Sure Looks Like This Is the End for the Current Era of ‘Star Trek’

Before ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Blew Up, Disney Scrapped a Pixar Movie With a Similar Vibe

‘Doomsday’ Asteroids Could Have Kickstarted Life on Our Planet

LEVOIT Air Purifier Now at All-Time Low in a Limited Allergy Season Deal, Filtering Out 99.97% of Dust, Pollen, and Dander for Less

What on Earth Is Happening With ‘Doctor Who’?

France to Ditch Microsoft Windows as Europe’s War on American Tech Rages On

I Can’t Decide Which ‘Resident Evil Requiem’ Perspective I Liked More

I Rewatched the Live-Action ‘Speed Racer’ to Feel Something Again

Asus Zenbook A16 Review: Start Considering Snapdragon on PC, for Real

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws