Harris, Philip Robert
“Space Enterprise: Living and Working Offworld in the 21st Century”
Springer/Praxis
2009
ISBN13: 978-0-387-77639-2 Publisher’s Web Site
Librarian’s Note: Will this be the movie that demonstrates to the movie studios that there is in fact a market for smart science fiction? Whilst compiling the Lunar Library entry for this item it was ranked #10 (blu-ray) and #26 (DVD) at Amazon, and when I went to my local electronics bigbox to pick up a copy I got the next to last one. Personally, I like the way the movie examines the philosophical question of the industrialization of human beings via cloning.
Librarian’s Note: A nice issue to that celebrates the 20th anniversary of the magazine, the 35th anniversary of the organization, and this year’s 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing, and reminds us to look forward to this year’s 29th International Space Development Conference in Chicago as well as the new era in Lunar exploration.
Discovery Channel Sci-Trek
“Mining the Moon”
Discovery Communications
2009 Publisher’s Web Site
Librarian’s Note: A pretty good documentary, but with some jarring errors, like showing an incoming impactor with a tail of fire behind it as it heads to the Moon’s surface (um, no), or showing a picture of a grabben while talking about lava tubes and rilles. Not available in stores (surprise, surprise…)
Science Channel
“Essential Space Collection”
Image Entertainment
2009 Publisher’s Web Site
Librarian’s Note: Includes the up-to-date documentary “Base Camp Moon”, as well as five others, making this one a good educational value for the money.
Librarian’s Note: First met Virg at the Space Generation Forum, almost a decade ago at UNISPACE III. I was a U.S. delegate, he was a Romanian delegate. There were young delegates from all of the world and it was a terrific two weeks that I still remember vividly (especially the crush I had on Marlene).
Back to the law stuff, Virgil has significantly expanded the work done for his previous book, “Unreal Estate“. The only thing that still seems to be missing is a discussion of dispute resolution mechanisms. In my view ‘property rights’ are pointless if you don’t have a means of adjudicating disputes and then enforcing those judgments. When you do have such a mechanism for resolving disputes, the niceties of how the stuff gets divvied up amongst those who actually go out there and do stuff with it will sort itself out in the way that works best for space. … Hopefully.
Discovery Channel
Sci-Trek: Mining the Moon Jan 21, 2009 22:00h Jan 22, 2009 02:00h Publisher’s Web Site
Librarian’s Note: This was originally scheduled to air in December, but was delayed. Word came through the grapevine today that it was back on the schedule.
Librarian’s Note: Another terrific issue from the Moon Society. Whenever I learn something new (in this case the pole stars of the Moon), I’m always impressed. Lots of coverage of the recent Chinese spacewalk and some of their ambitions, as well as some background on the old Lunar Prospector mission that heightened the mystery of water at the Moon’s poles. There’s also a look at the Kindle electronic book, something I had noted in my last Lunar Library update in the form of a LunaKindle loaded with Moon reference books. If you’re not a member of the Moon Society, why not?
Moontasks University Design Contest
NASA Langley Research Center
Student Design Competition Notice of Intent Due: Dec 15, 2008 Competition Home
Student Challenge: Design tools and instrumentation packages for the next generation manned moon rover:
* Navigation in the darkness around the Moon’s south pole
* Power supplies for rovers in the dark
* Sample retrieval and on-site analysis
* Radiation detection and avoidance
* Communication with lunar outpost, with orbiters, and with Earth
* Video capture of sorties for transmission back to Earth
* Astronaut recovery and transport back to outpost
* Lunar regolith mitigation strategies for rover and space suits
Awards to be won! Fame and Glory! Make your mark on the Future!
Librarian’s Note: A nice article on some of the Moonwalker wannabes following the NASA path to the Moon. Others are trying to pathfind new ways to the Moon, and I wouldn’t mind being one of the folks that says hi to the NASA guys when they finally arrive. The Top 50 NASA photos is nice also, and there are a couple more space articles as well. Well worth a look!
MIT Open CourseWare (OCW)
16.89J / ESD.352J Space Systems Engineering
Spring 2007 On-Line Course
Librarian’s Note: Hat tip to Flying Singer over at Music of the Spheres for pointing this one out. I recognize all three of the texts for the course as top-notch reference books in the field. Kudos to MIT for putting this one out there.
Librarian’s Note: NASA’s asking everyone to test their Yankee ingenuity and come up with solutions in six topic areas:
Topic 1: Alternative Packaging Options
Topic 2: Minimum Functionality Habitation Element
Topic 3: Innovative Avionics Architectures & Sparing Strategies
Topic 4: Long-term Lunar Energy Storage Systems Concepts
Topic 5: Alternative Software Architecture Development Approaches
Topic 6: Lunar Regolith Moving Methods & Techniques
The most promising ideas will receive contracts up to $250,000 to develop the idea. This is open to all non-NASA U.S. institutions. Companies, universities, what have you. Let’s see what the folks outside of NASA can do on a short lead-time!
-Open to college students from the arts, including industrial design, architecture, computer design, and the fine arts
-Entries will be accepted in three major categories: 2D, 3D & digital.
-Cash prizes, certificates of achievement, and exhibit opportunities are planned.
-Winners likely announced in Jan 2008.
-All entries initially submitted digitally as 300 dpi jpeg images.
-An on-line gallery is planned for public viewing of the artwork.
-Winners will be asked to ship their work to NASA for exhibit purposes.
Update - Winners Announced!
NASA Langley has posted the list of winners of the art contest. My favorites were ‘Pole Colony’ and ‘Enabling Exploration’. Congratulations are in order for everyone who participated.
Glenn Reynolds notes the gender ratio at the conference (here’s Cassie at my conference, flirting with Pixel), and the winners of the Space Settlements competition.
and my favorite Babe…in the Universe had the good sense to entitle her post on the Space Investment Summit as “Fly Me to the Moon” (and I couldn’t agree more with her sentiment).
Librarian’s Note: Unfortunately I can’t make this year’s ISDC, but if it’s as good as the one I co-chaired last year, it should be a great success!