Space: What Now? Blog
Blog(Home)
Quotables
About Tom Hill
The Book
Purchase
Calendar
Gallery
Favorite Links
Space: Read Now
Articles/Essays
Other Topics
Contact Me

Here's the latest on space, and my opinions on it...
 
This is the legacy site, with blog entries from November, 2004 through June, 2011.
Updates after June 9, 2011 can be found at http://spacewhatnow.com/SWN

Archive Newer | Older

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Virtuality
I watched the two-hour movie Virtuality from Friday night. The plot was interesting to me, but my favorite part was how hard they worked on some of the science. The craft Phaeton is to be the first interstellar mission, and the story picks up as they're approaching Neptune for a slingshot out of the solar system. The craft is built like a large ring (like the rotating ship in Battlestar Galactica) with an orion propulsion system. The entire mission is being filmed as a reality TV show with some awesome views of the spacecraft exterior showing the stars rotating relative to the motionless camera, and the crew uses virtual reality goggles to escape for some R&R. The show wasn't picked up by Fox, but there's certainly some potential for another network (SciFi?) to do so. If you want to try and make that happen, there are some resources here. There's also some cool videos there, like this one showing the building of one of the sets.
8:03 pm est

Monday, June 22, 2009

Goofy Timing/
So, we're coming up on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, and the laser experiment based on equipment left on the surface gets cut. Make no mistake: if there's no good science coming from it, I think it's time to cut it, but the timing is just weird.

In other news, the first couple to get married in zero gravity tied the knot.
5:02 am est

Monday, June 15, 2009

Virtuality Flies an Orion!
Not the new Orion that NASA's building, but the original Orion, proposed to get us to the stars and get rid of nuclear weapons at the same time. Check out twelve minutes of the show.

The show looks good without the Orion angle, but the geekiness quotient went over the top with it.
9:38 pm est

Friday, June 12, 2009

How Congress Screwed up Space Part #6,293
If the House's attempt to cut funding for COTS is allowed to stand, the way forward for cheaper space access will be murky at best. I may have more to say later.

Sunday Update: Looks like this story is less than the original fire. I love the whole "we saved money by winding down a program that was already winding down" stuff. All politicians do it, but I still twitch when I see it in action.
9:20 am est

Friday, June 5, 2009

Risk and Propellant Depots
Some discussion at Selenian Boondocks and Transterrestrial Musings about NASA's current risk culture and how that may have played into their decision for the current architecture to take us back to the moon and beyond. Plus, I've been a fan of depots for a long time.
5:42 pm est

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Zero-G Wedding
A couple is getting married on a Zero-G plane. This is a pretty cool concept. I guess the next step is a marriage on a suborbital flight.
8:36 pm est


Archive Newer | Older

Space: Search Now! with Google

Tom and Discovery
cimg0120.jpg
Taken During a Tour of KSC on 6 Oct 2010

TEMPOł Update
tempocopy.jpg
Click on the picture to go to the Mars Society TEMPOł Page

Solar System Ambassadors
header3.jpg
Click on the image above to see Tom's SSA profile

Email Comments to tom [at] spacewhatnow.com

Latest book! Click on the cover to purchase
fronttry2small060504.jpg
I Want to go to Mars is a picture book for beginning readers

More information on I Want to go to Mars can be found in the devoted section of this web site.

Join the Space:What Now? email list for updates on book events or articles published by the author. Email addresses will not be shared.
I kind of wrote this off, thinking I was being spammed, but I'd like to know if people are really signing up. Please enter the text you see below in the second line, and I'll get a warm, fuzzy feeling that people are actually reading and signing up for mail!

alphanumeric.gif

Email address:
Text Code:
  

Now Available!
frontcovermed.jpg
Clicking here will take you to purchasing options for SWN

Get your SWN Gear!
Image of a Space What Now golf shirt
Powered by CafePress

Space science news
Headlines provided by Moreover

Scotty

The Updated Past, Present and Possible Futures of Space Activity