Outreach and Projects | Cora Yanar Schneck

History Survival Guide

The History Survival Guide (or, A Time Traveler’s Guide to Surviving History) started in July 2019. History Survival Guide is pulp-era inspired STEM and history blog that explores different engineer and scientific concepts with practical information about how to recreate by hand. Nothing is assumed and all concepts are built up from the ground–skipping nothing. After all, how would you reinvent the wheel? Or a computer?

Each page is the accumulation of research for a particular topic, synthesized, and summarized in a useful ‘survival guide’ format. So far, topics covered include using the proper motion of stars to determine what time period a time traveler could have found themselves in, deciphering over a hundred ‘Hobo Symbols’ of the 1800’s, how to read the Pioneer Plaque, and how to build an astrolabe by hand!

Freelance Science Writer and Researcher

I work on the research and initial script drafts for some videos on the YouTube Hoog channel which cover the history of science.

Total: 2.5 million+ views (as of July 2026)

The message NASA wants aliens to see: The Pioneer Plaque was designed and constructed in 3 short weeks. The golden surface is engraved with cryptic symbols that speak in the universal language of math

The Hardest NASA Mission in History: A primer on NASA’s Galileo mission to Jupiter and its Moons. This follows the history, construction, launch, and cornucopia of problems the Galileo mission encountered.

The Probe That Entered Jupiter: The life, death, and subsequent violent evaporation of Galileo’s probe. This follows the Herculean effort it took to construct a probe that was always meant to die. A probe that was launched into Jupiter’s crushing depths and its race to send back as much data as possible before breaking apart—each part evaporating in turn

The Hardest Soviet Mission in History: The all too short life of Sputnik 1 and the Soviet team that fought to bring it to life