|
|
Subscribe to OotC:(Click the feed icon below)  Sections:
|
“Countdown” (DVD)Ken Murphy / 11:37 pm April 30th, 2009  Altman, Robert (Dir.) The 100th Carnival of SpaceKen Murphy / 1:46 am April 29th, 2009  has arrived! This week the traveling show takes up residence at One Minute Astronomer, where they pitch one of the biggest tents ever to hold all of the great space goodness that has turned out this week as the myriad space bloggers show off their wares. This week’s Carnival of Space, at nearly a centillion entries, stands as one of the largest assemblages to date of space words, images and moving pictures traversing the Universe from Earth to the furthest bounds of infinity. This one is a Collector’s Item, so be sure not to miss it! It’s Centastral-rific! Scouting the MoonKen Murphy / 12:35 am April 28th, 2009  One of my longer term goals during my space adventures has been to counsel the various scout merit badges relating to space exploration. A few years back I put together a Boy Scout Space Exploration merit badge session at the Frontiers of Flight museum at Love Field in Dallas. They routinely run Aviation merit badges there, and wanted to see if the Space Exploration one was doable. NSS of North Texas helped out with the last revision of the merit badge handbook, so it seemed like a logical fit for the chapter to counsel the badge. It worked, but logistically it was very difficult to put together, and I haven’t taken a stab at another one. Recently though, we found out from the UTA Planetarium’s Starry Messenger newsletter that the Planetarium would be hosting a session for various Girl Scout space badges. The chapter contacted them to see if we could help out, and they agreed to our assistance. As a consequence, instead of spending a day out on the links smacking a little white ball around the countryside for our annual corporate golf event, I spent the day inside running Brownies, Juniors and Cadets through the Moon-related requirements of the different badges. Since someone else was running the logistics it was a much easier experience in that regard, which doesn’t mean that over two score girls won’t run you ragged. Review: Orphans of Apollo (DVD)Ken Murphy / 4:47 am April 21st, 2009  We open with a launch of a Saturn V, forever an emblem of the Apollo program. Space activist Rick Tumlinson provides his view of why it ended, and author Tom Clancy notes what we’ve foregone. A whole host of individuals in space business and activism were interviewed for this documentary, from James Muncy to Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria. We’re introduced to the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (RSC Energia), which has been operating the Russian space program since the beginning, and we learn of the precarious position of the Mir space station subsequent to NASA’s practice runs for ISS in the 1990s. (which, admittedly, had left NASA a bit spooked about the aging Russian station) Russia was still recovering from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a small group of entrepreneurs shows up on the doorstep with a basket of cash. Their goal - commercialize the Russian space station and save a tremendous asset that’s already in orbit. Thus is born MirCorp. The 99th Carnival of SpaceKen Murphy / 1:28 am April 21st, 2009  has everything you want, at Alice’s Restaur…whoops, make that Alice’s AstroInfo. This week’s Carnival of Space is bigger than ever, and she bakes it all together into a big loaf of space-y goodness. Make sure to get on over there before it’s all gone! The BIG question this week is not about black holes or trans-Solar planets. No! The BIG question this week is WHO? is going to be hosting the record-breaking, stupendous-beyond-belief, planet-shattering 100th Carnival of Space??? [and who’d a thunk it would have made it this far all those years ago (2007) when a bunch of blog amateurs set out on a long, strange trip. Excelsior, my good Sirs and Ladies…Excelsior!] EVA Reviews Richard Branson’s “Business Stripped Bare”EVA / 11:05 pm April 16th, 2009  Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur Richard Branson, as you might guess, is on my list of people who I would love to interview for EVA Interviews: The Business of the new Space Age™. I haven’t yet asked him to be my guest as I have a few glitches in the process of conducting these interviews that I need to work out. Until then, I thought you might be interested in a taste of what such an interview might be like with a review of his latest book Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur The kids are alrightKen Murphy / 11:00 pm April 16th, 2009  So I managed to wrangle my way into the Dallas Regional Science & Engineering Fair (DRSEF) Awards Luncheon again this year, and I’m glad I was able to do so, as it was once again a terrific event. Southern Methodist University (SMU) has been working with DRSEF since its inception in 1957, so it was a polished and smooth-flowing affair. Four groups were promenaded across the stage: -Junior Life Sciences It’s getting close to the ISDC 2009…Ken Murphy / 3:23 am April 15th, 2009  Of all the space conferences around, the International Space Development Conference is the one for the Everyman. It’s the largest citizen space conference, and the only one to which the general public is truly and openly invited. That’s because the National Space Society is a grassroots organization meant for everyone. You don’t have to be a scientist or engineer for it to be of interest. The conference program is meant to be enjoyed by all persons who are enthusiastic about the possibilities of space and humanity moving out into space, to write great new chapters in the story of humanity, and to take the life of Earth out to where there is no life in the Universe. The 98th Carnival of SpaceKen Murphy / 1:50 am April 14th, 2009  is to be found at Universe Today (a/k/a Carnival of Space Central) as we continue the mad rush towards the centennial 100th CoS. This week’s Carnival of Space again features more than a score of space stories drawn from the best space blogs on the net. Since it’s closest to April 12th I’ll dub it the Yuri’s Night edition. Enjoy! “little einsteins: Space Mission Adventure”Ken Murphy / 1:08 am April 7th, 2009 Fisher-Price, Inc. Librarian’s Note: Works reasonably well with some of the other space playsets. Includes Rocket Moon Rover. The 97th Carnival of SpaceKen Murphy / 6:11 pm April 4th, 2009  is a family-friendly budget-rate edition at Cheap Astronomy. This week’s Carnival of Space features more than a score of articles on all things space, and pays its respects to the International Year of Astronomy 2009, which is currently celebrating 100 Hours of Astronomy. More on that later, but I’m overdue for frisbee golf with the nephews. Review: MoonKen Murphy / 2:09 am April 4th, 2009 So the LPSC conference threw me off my stride, and I forgot that the movie Moon was being screened in Dallas at the AFI film festival until Chris, one of my fellow NSS of North Texas chapter members, sent out a reminder that there was going to be a second showing last night. The tickets were sold out, but there was something called a rush line where I could wait to see if there would be any empty seats. Arriving about an hour before the show I was about number 30 in the line. This was not looking good. The line wouldn’t open until five minutes of eight after everyone else was seated. By quarter of eight there were about 50 people and some young lady came around with a camera to record us losers who hadn’t gotten tickets. The AFI coordinator came down to announce that there was a 99.9% chance that no one would get in…but we do have these other fine movies with plenty of room that are starting right now. Now I’m down to about number twenty. Folks behind me start peeling off, but hardly anyone in front. Quarter after eight and I’m down to about fifteenth in line. The coordinator pops back down to announce that they are still seating folks with AFI passes and it looks like a full house…but these other fine movies are just starting, so if you can hurry you can see them. More of the cineastes peel off. Tenth…seventh…fourth. The trio in front of me is talking it over. I tell the guy I am here until the bitter end because the only reason I am there is to see Moon. Finally, it’s down to me and the young lady behind me. Are we together? Um…no, but we can be. He announces that there is one single seat left. Every fiber of my being is screaming that it is my duty as a gentleman to allow the lady to see the film. I… She allows that I was before her in line. I thank her profusely and bolt for the escalator. I got the last seat on the far left of the front row. Thank you again, Miss, if you’re reading this.  Continuing the recent spate of Moon-related movies, director Duncan Jones brings us the philosophical musings of Moon, starring Sam Rockwell as Helium-3 miner Sam Bell stationed on the far side of the Moon at Sarang Station. He’s nearing the end of his three-year contract, and good thing too, as he’s starting to get a little loopy from the isolation and lack of human companionship. The work is not too bad. The mining machines, reminiscent of the spice harvesters from Dune, are largely automated, and Sam only needs to go out to visit them every now and then to collect the full canisters of He-3. On one such trip he starts seeing things, a strange dark-haired girl near the harvester, and the distraction leads to an accident. Sam awakens in the infirmary, and that’s where things start getting convoluted. The plot is fairly complicated, and I don’t want to give too much away, but it has been revealed that one of the twists is the fact that Sam has to deal with a clone. There are plenty of plot twists and turns after that to keep you guessing as to just what exactly is going on, but slowly Sam puts the pieces together and the truth is rather ugly. The bloodline of this movie spans the science fiction genre, and it pays homage to and evokes more films than I can name. The opening of the movie is an advertisement for the corporate operator of the Moon facilities, Lunar Industries. The structure of it gave me a wicked flashback to GaiaSelene: Saving the Earth by Colonizing the Moon. I don’t know if it was intentional, but just like the documentary, the ad’s first half talks about the energy issues we face here on Earth, and then the second half on how the resources of our Moon can address those issues, with the corporation claiming to supply 75% of Earth’s power from their Lunar Helium-3 operations. Moving into the film, the design of the sets strongly reminded me of sci-fi classics like Space: 1999, Outland, and 2001: A Space Odyssey (the Director also mentions Silent Running and Alien in his Space Center Houston Q&A). There was a strongly industrial and corporate feel to the scenery that seemed very appropriate. When Sam was taking the rover out to the crawlers I was remembering scenes from Star Cops. There was one interior scene that might well have been lifted directly from Space: 1999, the similarities were so striking.  The main plot delves deeply into the director’s interest in philosophy, in this case as applied to clones. Here the film pays homage to films from Blade Runner to, dare I say it, Metropolis. There’s a fascinating sci-fi twist to it that I don’t think I can discuss, as the gentleman speaking before the movie said there’s a twist that we’re not supposed to disclose, and I honestly am not sure which particular twist he was talking about, but that they would hunt down and find anyone who did so. There’s comedy hearkening back to Dark Star. There’s disquieting horror, and more than once you’re just like, whoa, dude, that’s inhuman. But oh so terribly corporate. I should mention GERTY, since it’s voiced by Kevin Spacey and acted via emoticons. It’s Sam’s robotic assistant, traversing the base by means of tracks in the ceiling. This is one of the areas where they used CGI, and it’s quite discretely done (at least from the perspective of the far left seat of the front row). Mostly, though, the equipment was real life heavy-duty industrial type stuff. I rather enjoyed it, and will certainly see it again when it comes to theatres this summer to delve a bit more into the philosophical side of it. The science was fairly high-fidelity, and it’s obvious that film-makers are starting to learn about the benefits of using the silence of vacuum space to their advantage. Still, a hatch does not make a clanging sound in a vacuum, and there are a few other inconsistencies as well. You have to admit that it is tough to replicate things falling in 1/6th gravity in terrestrial movie studios. Maybe they should rent out the Zero-G plane like the Mythbuster guys did.  As good as Moon is, it’s not quite a Full Moon (subject to revision when I can see it from a decent perspective). I’m going to go with a strong waxing three-quarter Moon rating for this fine film. Some Moon-related links: Atomic Popcorn Review  “Universal War One: Revelations #1 - the flood” (comic)Ken Murphy / 11:56 pm April 1st, 2009  Bajram, Denis Librarian’s Note: The first round just came out in hardcover, and a second round of comics has begun. Sure the outer Solar system is a mess now with holes in Saturn’s rings and Uranus cut in half and all, but now the threat has come home to Earth and only the Pegasus Squadron can stop the malefactors. “Get Ready to Moonwatch”Ken Murphy / 11:55 pm April 1st, 2009  Grego, Peter “Spring Moonwatch”Ken Murphy / 11:51 pm April 1st, 2009  Staff “Asteroid Alert”Ken Murphy / 11:46 pm April 1st, 2009  Parsons, Paul “Shrapnel - Aristeia Rising #4″ (comic)Ken Murphy / 11:23 pm April 1st, 2009  Sherman, M. Zachary. Illus. by Bagus Hutomo Librarian’s Note: Just found this one at the comic store. Mecha wars on Venus. Not your usual location for military violence, but the Solar system is a big place. |
Out of the Cradle Classics25 Good Reasons to Go to the Moon Carnivals of Space #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 
|
