The first official image of a reusable Russian/European manned spacecraft has been released. It will replace Russia’s current Soyuz vehicle and will allow Europe to participate in crew transportation.
The ship will carry six crew into low-Earth orbit and four on missions to the Moon, which rivals the US Ares/Orion system. The new design includes thrusters which will let the craft make a soft landing when it returns to Earth.
Link (via Posthuman Blues)
We’ve mentioned the Echo Park Time Travel Mart previously. For a limited time, they’re offering five gorgeous travel posters advertising vacations in time.
826LA and the Echo Park Time Travel Mart are proud to premiere a collection of five original travel posters by Los Angeles based artist Amy Martin. Each poster advertises a vacation destination in the far past or distant future, transforming the predictable aesthetic of the travel poster with ironic sloganeering such as “Life is Bigger in Pangaea” and “Enjoy Tokyo 2.0″ coupled with clean, retro graphic design.
All proceeds to go 826LA, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching kids ages 6-18 creative writing and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.
They’re available online at the 826LA store or at or at the Echo Park Time Travel Mart–which I had no idea was an actual store instead of a clever mockup–at 1714 W. Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles. They’re $19.99 apiece or $89.99 for the whole set.
I love the vintage look of these posters and the whimsy inherent in the whole idea. If I had a place to hang it I might pick up one myself.
(via io9)
NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft has shot footage of the moon transiting Earth as seen from 31 million miles away. Scientists are using the video to develop techniques to study alien worlds.
“Making a video of Earth from so far away helps the search for other life-bearing planets in the Universe by giving insights into how a distant, Earth-like alien world would appear to us,” said University of Maryland astronomer Michael A’Hearn, principal investigator for the Deep Impact extended mission, called EPOXI.
They hasten to point out that any alien civilization would need much more advanced technology in order to see Earth as clearly. I question why they felt the need to point that out.
Anyway, neat.
Link (via Slice of SciFi)
Given Shadow’s reading list over the past couple of years, I would have thought that science fiction was moving in a strongly Brit-ward direction. However, It Doesn’t Have to be Right… feels that literary SF is still very Americocentric and is combating that by listing 20 British SF novels that everyone should read.
In addition to being written by British authors, the stories he’s chosen take place either in the UK or in futures where nations don’t exist any more. Not all are current–H.G. Wells and George Orwell make the list–but the more recent authors are solid choices.
Sean Tevis is a geekly geek in Kansas who’s sick of his troglodytic state representative. He’s running to replace him, and is looking to raise some money to help with his campaign. Specifically, he’s trying to raise $8.34 from 3,000 people. To promote his cause, he’s created an awesome xkcd-tribute cartoon series entitled, “It’s Like A Flamewar with a Forum Troll, but with an Eventual Winner.”
No state rep in Kansas history has ever had more than 644 donors, but he’s already quadrupled that number.
Welcome to the future of politics.
Link (via BoingBoing)
As you’ve probably seen, well, everywhere by now, Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly) is experimenting with a new way of getting quality entertainment to his audience. He’s posting three short episodes of a super-villain musical comedy drama…thingie online, for free.
However! These episodes will only be available for a short time. Parts I and II have already been posted. Part III will go up on Saturday, July 19. Then they all go away at midnight on Sunday, July 20. Whereupon they will be made available for download for a nominal fee, and eventually they’ll all be available on DVD with mad extras. (See his Master Plan for details.)
I’ve been seeing references to this all over the blogosphere, but just got around to watching it yesterday. Drop what you’re doing and go watch this thing. Then go buy the DVD. Go right now!
::: sing-song voice :::
~/o I’m going to the Nebulas, I’m going to the Nebulas o/~
From SFWA:
Harry Harrison, creator of The Stainless Steel Rat and author of the novel that inspired the movie Soylent Green, will be honored as the next Damon Knight Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America during the 2009 Nebula Award Weekend® in Los Angeles, Calif.
Harrison’s selection was announced by SFWA President Russell Davis after consulting with the Board of Directors and participating past presidents. The Nebula Awards Weekend will be held April 24-26 in Los Angeles, Calif., with the awards presentation banquet to be held on the UCLA campus to tie in with the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Past SFWA President and Grand Master (2004) Robert Silverberg will be presenting.
“There are few moments in life that can be taken out and savored in memory. One happened today,” Harrison said. “A phone call from our President Russell Davis with the startling news that I was to be the 2009 Grand Master nearly led to the collapse of a stout writer!
“It’s still soaking in,” he said. “But may I express my fervent thanks to all involved for this signal honor.”
Already an established illustrator and freelance non-fiction writer, Harrison published his first science fiction story, “Rock Diver,” in the August 1951 issue of Worlds Beyond. From that point he went on to produce more than 62 novels, eight short fiction collections, six non-fiction books and countless short stories. He also found the time to edit 35 anthologies over the span of his career.
His active involvement in the science fiction community throughout the 1950s led to his becoming a charter member of SFWA.
“Why, I can recall with a tear in one rheumy eye, when SFWA was a just a wild idea put forward by Damon Knight,” Harrison said. “A few of us nodded and agreed with him and thus, with great hope and no money, this organization was born. I won’t dwell on the fact that this was over 50 years ago…
“Enough! Let’s look to the future not the past as we go from strength to strength and march—banners flapping—into the SF future,” he said.
Harrison was born in 1925 and served in the U.S. Army during World War II, an experience that made a strong negative impression on him and inspired his satirical Bill, the Galactic Hero novel series. A regular contributor to the legendary John W. Campbell’s Astounding, Harrison’s work often reflected his interest in environmental issues and non-violent resolutions to conflict. His best-known creations are The Stainless Steel Rat and Make Room! Make Room! on which the film Soylent Green was based. His more recent works include best-selling alternate world trilogies West of Eden and Stars and Stripes Forever!
Harrison is the 26th writer recognized by SFWA as a Grand Master. He joins Robert A. Heinlein (1974), Jack Williamson (1975), Clifford D. Simak (1976), L. Sprague de Camp (1978), Fritz Leiber (1981), Andre Norton (1983), Arthur C. Clarke (1985), Isaac Asimov (1986), Alfred Bester (1987), Ray Bradbury (1988), Lester del Rey (1990), Frederik Pohl (1992), Damon Knight (1994), A. E. van Vogt (1995), Jack Vance (1996), Poul Anderson (1997), Hal Clement (1998), Brian Aldiss (1999), Philip Jose Farmer (2000), Ursula K. Le Guin (2003), Robert Silverberg (2004), Anne McCaffrey (2005), Harlan Ellison (2006), James Gunn (2007) and Michael Moorcock (2008).
Until 2002 the title was simply “Grand Master.” In 2002 it was renamed in honor of SFWA’s founder, Damon Knight, who died that year.
More details about the Nebula Awards Weekend are available at http://www.nebulaawards.com/
In a recent interview, Buzz Aldrin said that science fiction was partially responsible for public apathy toward the space program (saying, in essence, if you see enough fictional tricorders, advances in CAT scan technology don’t seem very interesting any more).
io9–which does love its lists–has responded with SF books and movies that particularly inspire (or hinder) real scientific research.
Hindering: Blood Music
One of the earliest novels about nanotechnology and the dreaded “gray goo” scenario, Greg Bear’s book is about nanotech that goes awry, becomes sentient, and eats the entire world. Consumed by the nano, humans enter a kind of transcendent “noosphere” while their bodies become the raw materials of a new world. While this is a cool idea, it’s led to the myth that the outcome of nanotech is inevitably the (literal) breakdown of society.Inspiring: The Diamond Age
Neal Stephenson’s gorgeous and complex novel The Diamond Age is set in a nano-enabled world where human minds are used for distributed computing and electronic children’s books are so close to being sentient that they can raise children without the help of human adults. A young woman raised by one such book grows up to become a wise and brilliant leader. You can find a similar scenario in Linda Nagata’s nanotech novel The Bohr Maker, where an impoverished woman discovers a nanofabricator and uses it to transform the developing world.
It’s interesting to see the juxtaposition of positive and negative works for a particular branch of technology.
One day, science fiction fan Peter Sykes went looking for a list of books. “I wanted to buy the top 100 scifi books and couldn’t find a list I thought was statistically accurate, so I made one. I was so happy with the result that I decided to post it on the net as a public service to people in the same predicament.”
Then he made another list. And another one. And now he has an insane number of lists covering everything from books about the apocalypse to movies that feature robots. This is a pretty neat site, and it’s nice that someone’s taken the time to compile and post something so useful.
Link (via SciFi Scanner)
(p.s. - Although not nearly so obsessive comprehensive, the O*W*C has a modest list of lists, too.
