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Andrew Cox

Astrophysics Undergraduate @ CU Boulder

Hi, I’m Andrew Cox!

I’m originally from a suburb of Atlanta and moved to Colorado in summer 2024 to pursue my education at CU Boulder. I’m currently a freshman majoring in Astrophysics and minoring in Geology.

I absolutely love space. I’ve spent countless hours studying topics from planetary geology to dark energy. Though most of it has been informal, I’m excited to pursue my formal education through undergrad and towards a possible PhD!

I also love writing, specifically realistic sci-fi. I enjoy word-building down to the most minute details and basing as much of my in-universe tech and politics on real world predictions and science.

Writings

These are some of my writings—a mix of narratives, screenplays, and a world building project.

Tal is caught in the midst of a suspicious attack on Hawking Station, a close-orbiting research post near the Sun.

Lae is on bard a generation fleet traveling to Proxima Centauri when her home ship is attacked.

Crow works to salvage resources on the Moon from debris fallen out of orbit during the Lunar Revolution.

Mall crash lands into the Kraken Mare during a colonization effort of Saturn’s moon, Titan.

The Inner Planets send a fleet to investigate the independent Pluto colonies after they disrupt the ice trade.

A world building project to develop and describe various cities in the Solar System.

Personal Takes

These are some personal takes I have on the world of astrophysics.

Do aliens exist?

I think it’s impossible for them not to, the real question is how common are they? I personally answer that question very optimistically. I believe microbial life is extremely common, and it’s possible we find microbes on the Galilean moons and maybe even on Mars. Intelligent life, on the other hand, is probably very scarce.

And based on how humans have only been around for 200,000 years out of the 13.8 billion of our universe, it’s very possible that every intelligent species out there is either extinct or thousands of times more advanced than us with very little in-between.

If we put it in context of the Fermi paradox, I think the Great Filter hypothesis is very plausible, and that great filter may lie somewhere around developing multicellular life. The recipes for life are abundant all through the universe, maybe it starts up a lot but rarely ever takes off.

How do we colonize space?

I think this is a tricky question without one good answer. I believe privatizing the space industry is a good start, but it’s important not to fall into a monopoly. I also believe that research purposes, while important, will not kickstart space colonization effectively.

The reasons humans colonized other areas on the globe was specifically to access resources for cheaper. In space, however, it’s much more expensive to harvest minerals from asteroids and return them to Earth compared to just mining those same minerals on Earth. They may be more abundant and less ecologically invasive, but cost is the preventing factor.

It’s important to establish space infrastructure to lower the price. It will take a massive initial investment, ideally from a collection of both companies and businesses, but once the infrastructure is in place it will become the cost-effective method for many resources.

Additionally, placing stricter environmental penalties on groups that mine the Earth for resources will also pressure them to find alternatives, and invest in asteroid or planetary mining as a long-term way to save money.

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