Space in the Seventies.

As I've mentioned a few times, according to my childhood ambitions, I should be working on the Moon by now. Or commuting from my otherworldly Arvo Job to my groovy pad in the swankiest district of the hippest, domed metropolis on the Martian plains. At the very least, I should be living on a cool, colony habitat orbiting Jupiter or some distant star.

If you want to relive that dream, pop over to http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/space-colony-art-from-the-1970s/  and see what the future used to look like.

 Forests.

But in space!

In the 1970′s the Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill with the help of NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University held a series of space colony summer studies which explored the possibilities of humans living in giant orbiting spaceships. Colonies housing about 10,000 people were designed and a number of artistic renderings of the concepts were made.

Space on a Shoestring

I'm excited about how the race to Mars seems to be hotting up. We might just get off this rock yet. And I like this NY Times article with NASA  / Hollywood budget comparisons and much philosophising about what maketh a viable space program. Money? Ingenuity? Poorly paid technicians?:

Just days after the launch of India’s Mangalyaan satellite, NASA sent off its own Mars mission, five years in the making, named Maven. Its cost: $671 million. The budget of India’s Mars mission, by contrast, was just three-quarters of the $100 million that Hollywood spent on last year’s space-based hit, “Gravity.”

“The mission is a triumph of low-cost Indian engineering,” said Roddam Narasimha, an aerospace scientist and a professor at Bangalore’s Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research.

Ever since MIR, I've been a fan of not-so-shiny Soviet technology - I just have this notion that if they ever do get into space and start working there, the Russians will have the type of vehicles you can crash into an asteroid, stick back together with gaffer tape, siphon some vodka into the depleted warp drive, kick into gear, and keep heading for the stars (and watching Solaris decades ago only strengthened this belief.) India seems to agree:

It is a question of philosophy, and each country has its own,” explained Mr. Radhakrishnan. “The Russians, for example, believe in putting large amounts of time and resources into testing so that the systems are robust.”

 And for those who always argue that there are far more pressing problems than space exploration that need money thrown at them, there's this neatly Indian perspective:

Scientists have also said that space exploration and the alleviation of poverty need not be mutually exclusive. “If the Mars mission’s $75 million was distributed equally to every Indian, they would be able to buy a cup of roadside chai once every three years,” said Mr. Narasimha, the aerospace scientist, referring to the tea that many Indians drink.

“My guess is that even the poorest Indians will happily forgo their chai to be able to see their country send a rocket all the way to Mars.”

Of course, said poor people, if given half a chance, might just voice their disagreement. Sometimes, a cup of chai is just what you need to get you through the day.

We've Been Snapped by Curiosity

Smile! The latest and largest of NASA's plucky Mars rovers is busy taking photos of us.

The two bodies in this portion of an evening-sky view by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity are Earth and Earth's moon. The rover's Mast Camera (Mastcam) imaged them in the twilight sky of Curiosity's 529th Martian day, or sol (Jan. 31, 2014).

For those who need some orientation, here's a helpful guide marking the position of the Earth and the Moon (seems a bit unclear in these photos - it might be best to just follow the link):

 

I do so love there NASA pics. If I can't get out there and zoom around at warp speed, at least I can enjoy the Instagram version of space.

Take Me Out To The Red

Over at The Mary Sue, they're reporting a shades-of-Firefly SF series in development which is evocatively titled Red. It's described as:

a neo-Western drama about the first human settlement on Mars and life on this new frontier, centering on the relationships between the town’s female sheriff, a doctor and a criminal.

Mars. Colonisation. Space cowboys and cowgirls. Maybe a shootout at the Mt Olympus O.K. Corral. Count me in, at least for the first few episodes, then we'll see if it's got that vibe we crave. And if it stirs up interest in heading outwards for those high frontiers, if it makes space exploration look sexy and colonisation exciting, that can only be a good thing for humankind in general, even if it is a tad misleading. Go ask any pioneer who trudged across a desert.

I hope the Mars rovers put in a guest appearance :)

I miss the Firefly episodes that never were :(

Outer Space Just Got Pinker

As an addendum to yesterday's post, I've just discovered that to commemorate the first anniversary of Curiosity's landing on Mars, NASA has teamed up with Mattel to create the Mars Explorer Barbie.

I do like the fact that after luring the little girls in with much pinkness and rover cuteness:

The packaging art also includes a list of facts about the history of American women space explorers, plus a link to the space agency's Women@NASA website.

I'm not a great fan of pink myself (though I understand that historically, it was once viewed as a powerful, vibrant colour before being demoted to a weak, "female" shade, but now seems to be swinging back and climbing the ranks as it is defiantly embraced and empowered again. Humans are funny creatures, imbuing the merest things with meaning according to societal trends and then using those templates to take shortcuts when thinking.) Anyway, anything that says space exploration is not just for boys, that girls can do these things too and do them their own way with feminine sass and flair if they choose (and not, if they also choose) can only be a good thing.

 I hope this means we'll soon see little girls unselfconsciously playing space launches and landings in their bedrooms and racing their spacesuited dolls at breakneck speeds around the lounge room coffee table in pink exploration buggies. I hope to see them organising tea parties in back yards for Barbie, Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity, and the five of them, whilst eating pretend scones, discussing with aplomb the difficulties of setting up a Martian colony.

And if, as they grow older, these girls look up at a starry sky and see that the universe, which doesn't give a hoot about human politics, is actually a cool, gender-neutral place full of wondrous challenges, then I'd say Barbie's job is done.

Party Time!

Over at the JPL/NASA site, everyone is wearing funny hats, streamers deck the consoles, whistles are being blown and everyone is reminiscing about that amazing event which happened just one year ago when Curiosity, that huge hunk of wonderfully sturdy technology, successfully landed on Mars. What an achievement! And one that the earthbound teams involved are still justifiably and most palpably proud of. There are plenty of stunning photos, videos, and fun information like the list of Curiosity's mostly chirpy wake up songs that the MSL team have played at the start of each Martian day. You know, stuff like Don't Worry, Be Happy - just the thing to cheer up an explorer far from home and all alone on an alien world.

You can even get into the spirit of things by sending a postcard to Curiosity.

Aaah, how I love those plucky Martian rovers.

Getting Into The Spirit Of Things

This is turning out to be quite a week. I've just sold another SF story, namely The Stars Their Hesitation, which stars Spirit, as in the plucky, little Martian rover that could, and other assorted space probes, to Bards and Sages Quarterly.

 I've always felt a bit sad about the probes hurtling through space all alone, and the rovers switched off and left on their lonesome on the windswept plains of the Red Planet after doing such a sterling job for us, and, well, this story is partly my way of thanking them all for their efforts and making things right, and partly about other things...

It'll be out in October.

Space Ponies

Revisiting Kim Stanley Robinson's Green Mars as an audio book in my break at the Arvo Job today, I heard the line There was movement at the spaceport and had to giggle. I replayed it just to me sure. (For confused non-Downunderers, this harks to a classic Oz poem - I'm sure you know the movie.)

I then had to hit pause and take a moment to clear my mind of the impressive image of a herd of brumbies thundering through Valles Marineris, Tom Burlinson coming up at the rear cracking a whip.


That's what happens when you watch too many Mars documentaries with mind-boggling graphics.

From Spacecraft to Starship

I have to admit, I nicked that great title about Voyager 1 from this Washington Post article. It was just too cool and evocative to not nick.

But as a great fan of the workhorse technology of the Early Space Age that just keeps going and going and going, I was always going to do a quick post to celebrate that on this day,  35 years ago, way way back in 1977, Voyager 1 was launched. In a sequence that often confuses peoples, and mucks up careless sources, it's sister probe Voyager 2 blasted off first, a month earlier in August 1977, but because Voyager 1 was launched along a shorter and faster trajectory, it all sorted itself out in the great beyond and Voyager 1 actually reached Jupiter and Saturn first. Timing is everything.

After an impressive reconnaissance of Jupiter, Saturn and its moon Titan, Voyager 1 whizzed on ever outwards, passing Pioneers 10 and 11 to become the most distant man-made object from Earth. Voyager 2 is trailing its sister probe, and against all odds, both Voyagers continue to happily chug along, enjoying the stellar sights, and gathering and dutifully sending information back to their distant creators with their archaic, but still functioning, instruments:

Each only has 68 kilobytes of computer memory. To put that in perspective, the smallest iPod — an 8-gigabyte iPod Nano — is 100,000 times more powerful. Each also has an eight-track tape recorder. Today’s spacecraft use digital memory.

Primitive they may be by today's standards, but like the admirable Martian rovers that just kept on giving and giving, the two Voyagers have exceeded all expectations by keeping it together and steadily approaching the end of our solar system. Scientists predict that any time now, Voyager 1 will break through the hot turbulence at the edge of our solar system's heliosphere and sail on into the (perhaps) relatively cool calmness of interstellar space beyond.

So, yes, Voyager 1 will become a starship. What a promotion!

Ah, they built 'em tough in the old days. There's a lot to be said for screwdrivers and simplicity. I like my space technology to be rugged and robust and repairable. That way, when we finally do head on outwards, we'll be able to jump start engines, weld together emergency parts from scrap metal, and fix malfunctioning computers with a swift kick rather than having to find the nearest spaceship outlet selling slick, disposable, slot-in units with a limited warranty. 
 

Vale, Neil Armstrong

So I woke up to the news that Neil Armstrong had passed away at the age of 82, and thought not another one. It seems that the members of a certain generation of space dreamers and inspirers and adventurers and doers are leaving us one by one, and one is left with an uneasy feeling that we might not be worthy of their legacy, might not be up to the task of exploring those distant and dangerous frontiers that await us. But thank goodness we were privileged to know them for a while.

Neil Alden Armstrong was a Navy pilot (he flew 78 missions over Korea), test pilot, aerospace engineer, NASA astronaut, university professor, husband, father and grandfather, and, from all accounts, a truly nice guy. And he liked horses. He was also, of course, a legend - the first human to walk on the moon. The man and the dream are hard to separate, especially for those of us who sat enthralled in front of our TV sets on that memorable July day in 1969 (we knew it had to be a seriously important event because they let us skip class and sent us home from school) to watch a shadowy image transmitted from a place far beyond Earth. After that, anything seemed possible. The sky was not the limit and humankind was headed for greatness, and we couldn't have had a better figurehead to herald in that era than Neil Armstrong. He never let us down, even as those around him let the dream drift, and he never grubbied that special moment in history with his subsequent behaviour. For his whole life, he remained that rarest of things - a genuine hero that we could safely admire and be inspired by.

His first spaceflight was the Gemini 8 mission in 1966, when he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft. His second and final spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. What a pity we didn't get the chance to witness a third spaceflight and take up his offer in 2010 to be commander on a Mars mission. His life was full and amazing enough, but still, Neil Armstrong on Mars - can you picture it? And see how, with that one remark, he once again prodded our imaginations.

Vale

Neil Alden Armstrong

August 5, 1930 - August 25, 2012

 

"I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer."

-Neil Armstrong, 2000.

So long (?), Spirit.

NASA sent the shutdown command to the Mars Spirit Rover on May 25, seven years after the exploration vehicle landed. Spirit was scheduled to operate for approximately three weeks and cover a distance of a couple of hundred yards. Instead, it operated for more than five years and travelled almost five miles. Spirit made its last transmission on March 22, 2010.

Still, you never know...

Spirit‘s sister craft, Opportunity, is still operating.

Strawberry Mars Forever

0 rejections, 2 stories submitted. One is (hopefully visceral) SF horror, the other a 7000 word (tough to place) fantasy.

This morning I had to accept the fact that the SF story I’ve been working on for the past 2 weeks (and countless years on and off before that) still isn’t ready to face the world. I was hoping to submit it to the Warrior Wisewoman anthology, but it needs more of something. A better ending would be good too. I remain convinced, however, that one day it’ll be a beauty. So tomorrow I’ll switch to the bear story that has been coalescing in my head for a couple of days now. It’s dark, it’s sad, it’s ready to be poured onto a page.

I love this NASA image of the Martian landscape. It looks like strawberry ice-cream with chocolate flakes (or maybe I’m just hungry).

I wonder what Heinlein would have made of it.