Les Johnson

Palacio Barolo, Buenos Aires. A 100‑meter‑tall homage to Dante’s Divine Comedy—Inferno in the dark, gargoyle‑lined lower levels, Purgatory in the middle floors, and Paradise in the tower and lighthouse reaching into the sky.

It was designed by Mario Palanti, a Milanese architect who worked extensively in Buenos Aires in the early 20th century.

For example, the basement and ground floor, with their darker, heavier Gothic ornament and monsters in the lobby, symbolize Inferno, and the nine vaulted archways off the central hall correspond to the nine circles of Hell.

From theater to bookstore. El Ateneo Grand Splendid in Buenos Aires might be the most beautiful bookstore to get lost in stories. As an author and ' friendly neighborhood rocket scientist,' this is my kind of place to orbit!


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Standing inside the Devil’s Throat in northern Argentina feels like stepping onto Mars.

These towering red sandstone walls were carved over millions of years by water and wind, leaving a narrow canyon that looks eerily like the kind of landscape we expect to find on Mars. The iron-rich rocks give the cliffs their deep reds and oranges, making this stretch of the Quebrada de las Conchas a perfect analog for future explorers training for the Red Planet.

If you like this glimpse of “Martian Argentina,” imagine what it will look like when humans finally stand in a place like this on Mars.

The Centauri star system is the closest to the Earth (~4,2 light years and composed of 3 stars - Alpha, Beta, and Proxima Centauri) and almost impossible to see in the northern hemisphere - but clearly visible here in Argentina. It is also the setting for my science fiction book series that begins with Saving Proxima (with co-author Travis Taylor),

The night sky is full of wonders IF you look up to see them!

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Think every major telescope sits on a famous mountaintop in Hawaii or Chile? Think again.

Right here near Salta, Argentina, the TOROS observatory is proving that world-class science happens in places you’d never expect. This robotic telescope doesn’t sleep, it’s constantly scanning for high energy transient events that may accompany the detection of gravity waves.

The universe doesn’t care about postcards. It reveals itself wherever we build the patience to look. Sometimes that’s a remote valley in northwest Argentina. Sometimes it’s the place you least expect.

Where’s the most surprising place you’ve ever encountered science in action? Tell me below.

Salta Argentina from above.

Rode the cable car up to this view before heading into the IAA Latin American Conference on Space and Society. Moments like this are a reminder that perspective changes everything.

Whether from a mountain or from orbit, my goal is the same: use space to improve life here on Earth.

Standing at Newstead Abbey, Lord Byron’s home, I stumbled into the legacy of another literary rebel: D.H. Lawrence. Banned, censored, and decades ahead of his time, Lawrence challenged how we think about love, class, and human connection.

Would D.H. Lawrence be “cancelled” today… or would he be trending?

Walking through Newstead Abbey in the UK, I was reminded how unexpectedly connected history can be.

Lord Byron, one of the great Romantic poets, was also the father of Ada Lovelace, who went on to become the world’s first computer programmer.

From poetry to algorithms, the roots of the digital age trace back to places like this.

History doesn’t just live in books. It lives in the spaces we explore.


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While recently in Nottingham, England, I learned that it was the hometown of Nobel Prize winner Stanley Whittingham, the pioneering chemist who revolutionized our world with rechargeable lithium-ion battery technology.

Whittingham's groundbreaking work in the 1970s laid the foundation for the batteries that power everything from our smartphones to electric vehicles and spacecraft. His discovery of using titanium disulfide as a cathode material in lithium batteries earned him the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Who knew?

In the mountains of the Carolinas, watching fog settle into the valleys, I’m reminded why this is my happy place. These views are a gift, but they only stay this way if we love them enough to protect them.
Let’s enjoy the quiet, tread lightly, and keep wild places wild for whoever comes after us.