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“The Santa Lucia, Argentina Meteorite Fall”Ken Murphy / 1:46 pm January 24th, 2008 Taylor, McCartney Viewing the Moon in a new lightKen Murphy / 3:30 am January 22nd, 2008  “New Views of the Moon”, edited by Bradley L. Joliff, Mark A. Wieczorek, Charles K. Shearer, and Clive R. Neal. Published in 2006 by the Mineralogical Society of America and the Geochemical Society, it weighs in at a stout 721 pages with index. One spelling error noted, illusive for elusive, and a couple of typesetting errors. Oh, and sometimes sentences will get diverted, as often happens when writing at this level, and never. A Grand New Atlas of the MoonKen Murphy / 3:53 am January 16th, 2008 “New Atlas of the Moon” by Thierry Legault and Serge Brunier. Published in 2006 by Firefly Books, it is a translation by Klaus Brasch of “Le Grand Atlas de la Lune” published in France in 2004 by Larousse. I was reading through this one at dinner one night and the waiter commented that it looked like a really nice book. It is, with stunning (processed) photography of the Moon that is crisp and pleasing to the eye. The book also benefits from a large format, with pages measuring 36cm tall by 27cm wide. That’s 14 3/16″ x 10 10/16″ for you non-metric types. Mining the Moon for Fun and ProfitKen Murphy / 3:22 am January 11th, 2008 “The Moon: Resources, Future Development, and Settlement” is quite a nifty tome of Moon knowledge compiled by Mssrs. David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, and Madhu Thangavelu. It lays out a compelling case for conducting human (and robotic) operations on the Moon in the advancement of our society. The introduction gets right to the brass tacks, noting a number of ways in which our Moon offers opportunities as an arena for activity: “Sunshine” (DVD)Ken Murphy / 3:06 am January 9th, 2008 DNA Films Librarian’s Note: This one is quite a taut thriller. Murphy’s Law, human error, and the usual psychopath make for an edge-of-your-seat journey to the Sun. The BicentiluneKen Murphy / 3:33 am January 8th, 2008 (or: 200 tales of Lunar Adventure)  Howdy all! I was reviewing the reviews over in the Lunar Science Fiction thread in the Forums, and realized that once you add up all of the constituent stories I was finally at over 200 to date. I know it’s hard to believe that enough people have found the Moon sufficiently interesting as to actually write a story about it, but there are many more left to go in the Lunar Library, and I’m unearthing more all of the time. To help make it easier, I’ve divided the stories into very rough categories. No claim is made as to the accuracy of the categorizations. The basic rules of the road are that clicking on the story title will take you to the review featuring that story. From the review you should be able to link through to the ‘file card’ in the Lunar Library (a lot of the short stories won’t have one - yet), where you can find more information on the work. Some of the stories with expired copyrights are available online. Earlier on in the project I was also linking through to other websites through a ‘Would You Like to Know More?’ link. A note on the grading system, which is probably confusing at first glance. The ratings go from New to Quarter (or crescent), to half (or first-quarter) to three-quarter (or gibbous) to Full Moon. Purists will note that crescent, first quarter and gibbous would be the correct terms to use, but the quarter, half and three quarter designations are meant to denote the extent of Full-ness. (When the Moon is lit on the right half, it’s first quarter Moon, and when it’s lit on the left half it’s third quarter) Books for children are judged on a lesser scale, since they’re not really at the same level as adult books. While an average adult book would be a half Moon, an average kids book would be a quarter Moon. These 5 basic ratings are refined in two ways: So a New Moon at apogee rating is a particularly bad book, while a Full Moon at perigee is a particularly fine story - well crafted, free of errors, good character and plot development, portrays good moral values and ethics, conveys a lot of Lunar knowledge, and so forth. A waxing half Moon would be a bit better than average story. ‘Jason X: Death Moon’ is a good example of the New Moon (it is the one story I haven’t bothered to waste my time finishing), ‘Moonwake’ is a fine example of a Full Moon. Good editing is important (and worth paying for), and I consider misspellings in children’s stories to be unconscionable. Many a story, especially, but certainly not exlusively, by the independently published authors has dropped a notch or two (or more) because of mistakes. To their credit, many authors have gone back and revised their texts. It probably stings, but I think most recognize that I try to be impartial and objective in my reviews, and a fair critique helps lead to better results all around. Some may be wondering why I’m bothering to review Moon stories, and the short answer is that I intend to write a book about the Moon in science fiction after I’m done, and these reviews are my working notes. I’ve got about 50-60, maybe more stories in the Lunar Library, and I know of others that I’m looking for. A print copy of Daniel Defoe’s ‘The Consolidator’ is a good example, and there are older sci fi mags with Moon stories in them that I have yet to discover. So there are at least 100 more to go. Enjoy your adventures on the Moon! Carnival of Space #35 is Up…Ken Murphy / 3:24 am January 4th, 2008 over at the Music of the Spheres blog. There’s even Bonus Material this time around! “The Sam Gunn Omnibus”Ken Murphy / 3:32 am January 3rd, 2008 Bova, Ben ALERTS: Analysis of lunar exploratory robotic tasks for safetyKen Murphy / 8:47 pm January 1st, 2008  International Space University Great expectations: an assessment of the potential for suborbital transportationKen Murphy / 8:41 pm January 1st, 2008  International Space University “Planetary Geology, Preliminary Edition”Ken Murphy / 5:51 pm January 1st, 2008 Stoddard, Paul “Moon Math - Craters: Supplemental Educator Guide”Ken Murphy / 4:34 pm January 1st, 2008  “Moon Math - Craters: Supplemental Educator Guide” “Un empire très céleste: La Chine à la conquête de l’espace”Ken Murphy / 3:08 pm January 1st, 2008 Sourbès-Verger, Isabelle & Denis Borel “We Came in Peace for All Mankind: The Untold Story of the Apollo 11 Silicon Disc”Ken Murphy / 4:21 am January 1st, 2008 Rahman, Tahir “Totality: Eclipses of the Sun”Ken Murphy / 3:52 am January 1st, 2008 Littmann, Mark, Fred Espenak and Ken Willcox “The 3-D Sun” (poster)Ken Murphy / 3:03 am January 1st, 2008  Solar & Terrestrial Relations Observatory “Advances in Meteoroid and Meteor Science”Ken Murphy / 2:41 am January 1st, 2008 Trigo-Rodrigue, J.M., F.J.M. Rietmeijer, J. Lorca & D. Janches (Eds.) “Phases of Earth’s Moon” Learning ChartKen Murphy / 2:15 am January 1st, 2008  “Phases of Earth’s Moon” Learning Chart “Asteroids” Learning ChartKen Murphy / 2:11 am January 1st, 2008  “Asteroids” Learning Chart “Eclipses” Learning ChartKen Murphy / 2:04 am January 1st, 2008  “Eclipses” Learning Chart “Rocket Science: Rocket Science in the Second Millenium”Ken Murphy / 1:34 am January 1st, 2008 Zaehringer, Alfred & Steve Whitfield “Krafft Ehricke’s ‘Extraterrestrial Imperative’”Ken Murphy / 1:30 am January 1st, 2008 Freeman, Marsha “Learn & Carry: Space Adventure” (w/CD)Ken Murphy / 12:54 am January 1st, 2008 Galvin, Laura Gates. Illus. by Higgins Bond & Thomas Buchs |
Out of the Cradle Classics25 Good Reasons to Go to the Moon Carnivals of Space #157 - The 2010 ISDC Round-Up Edition #112 - The Big Moon Day Show #94 #57 - This One's for the Ladies #31 #18 Best of the Moon 2008 2007 2006 Teacher Tools for the High Frontier Big Moon edition Space Navigation Rocks in Space International Space Station Technology Samples Of a Garden on the Moon Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Summer Space Reading Camp The New Moon The Old Moon The New High Frontier The Old High Frontier Rocket Gyrls Reading Club 
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