STD Season 2. Bonus: Orville

 AARRRGH, art, blather, Gah., Meh., science fiction, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 262019
 

So Star Trek: Discovery season 2 premiered a little over a week ago behind the CBS All Access paywall. It has been such a staggering success that they have made the first episode available for free on YouTube, and it was there that I watched it. I had heard from some reviewers that the producers had listened to the complaints about season 1 and tried to make season 2 better, more like an actual Star Trek show. And having watched it… they failed. It’s bad.

The writing is bad. Things happen without cause or consequence; people do inexplicable things. The episode starts off with a mangled version of the “Space: the final frontier” monologue that promptly goes wrong and turns into a myth from some African tribe 100,000 years ago (I have doubts that even with advanced technology that people in the 23rd century would have clue one what beliefs people had 100,000 years ago)… and that myth is just thrown out there and not referenced again. The writers think that “smartassery” is what the fans want in lieu of wit. And the writers threw in a bunch of what they seemed to think were jokes, presumably to help capture the “Orville” fanbase.

The acting is bad, in particular the horribly named “Jet Reno.” A character clearly thrown in in order to Seem Cool.

The action is bad and inexplicable. The little landing pods are straight out of a video game, and make as little sense. Why the frak do they spin around like that? If they are meant to head into dangerous environments, why are they one giant transparent and relatively fragile bubble?

The technology is bad, such as the small device set up on the shuttlebay floor that magically transforms into a *giant* device. Apparently it was folded up into a  pocket dimension, a technology you’d think Starfleet would have made a bit more use of in later centuries. Or any use of.

Kid Spock sucks.

Everyone is a jerk.

Captain Pike actually looks like Jeffrey Hunters Captain Pike, but is entirely unlike him. OG Pike was serious to the point of morose, weighed down by the burdens of command. This one is a smirking wisecracker.

It is clear that the producers tried to make the premiere of season 2 more like Star Trek, but it’s a bad imitation.

“The Orville” has also recently premiered its second season and has five episodes under its belt so far. They, too, have retooled the show, though not nearly as much. “The Orville” has turned down the comedy; personally, I’m a bit disappointed by that. But “Orville” was always a mix of comedy and good sci-fi, and the sci-fi remains good. Just… not quite as funny.

STD is Star Trek for people who don’t like Star Trek. Orville is non-Star Trek for people who *do* like Star Trek. I have high hopes (but low expectations) that I’ll live long enough to once again see Star Trek for people who like Star Trek.

If you feel the need to watch the STD season 1 premiere episode, it’s HERE. It’s free, which seems a bit overpriced.

 Posted by at 1:52 pm

A Sharper View of Ultima Thule

 awesomeness, news, photography, science, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 252019
 

New Horizons’ Newest and Best-Yet View of Ultima Thule

Obtained with the wide-angle Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) component of New Horizons’ Ralph instrument, this image was taken when the KBO was 4,200 miles (6,700 kilometers) from the spacecraft, at 05:26 UT (12:26 a.m. EST) on Jan. 1 – just seven minutes before closest approach. With an original resolution of 440 feet (135 meters) per pixel, the image was stored in the spacecraft’s data memory and transmitted to Earth on Jan. 18-19. Scientists then sharpened the image to enhance fine detail.

 Posted by at 7:30 pm

This. This, right here.

 AARRRGH, cats, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, THIS is why Trump won, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 252019
 

Just… WOW. It’s always amazing when the lunatics tell you honestly just what they truly think.

David Harris jr. Takes on a very emotional liberal woman with no hair.

Posted by The Hispanic Conservative on Wednesday, January 23, 2019

 

“Emotions are the only things that are real in this world.”

“Emotion is fact. Emotion is real.”

“As a human being we should pay attention to fear and not logic.”

“Emotions is one removed from spirit.”

“I’m afraid of that hat.”

How do you debate with a worldview like that? You can’t. You can’t argue with it, you can’t reason with it, you can’t appeal to it’s sense of honor… because a worldview like that is devoid of honor and reason.

Instead, when dealing with these whackadoodle freaks, wear your MAGA hat (or whatever you like), keep your bodycam running and go about your day with a song of joy in your heart and a hearty “I owe you nothing” on your lips. Take as your role model not the whipped dog, but the carefree defiant cat.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 4:58 pm

Chinese Billionaire: Danger Seeker

 Forward!, Hmm..., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 242019
 

Being a Chinese billionaire may not be as dangerous as being Rex Kramer at a BLM protest, but it seems to be pretty risky:

Friends Don’t Let Friends Become Chinese Billionaires

Forbes listed 115 billionaires in China in 2015.  But 72 of them have dies over the past eight years:

15 were murdered, 17 committed suicide, seven died from accidents and 19 died from illness. Oh, yes, and 14 were executed.

Woof. They averaged 48 years old when they died.

China rather smoothly transitioned from a Communist regime not to a capitalist one, but to a national socialist or mercantilist regime. They don’t mind you getting rich, so long as you toe the line.

 

 

 Posted by at 9:34 pm

So crazy it just might work

 art, Crazy, Hmm..., news, science fiction  No Responses »
Jan 242019
 

There are two concepts that seem to define H.P.Lovecrafts work more than any other: “Cosmic horror,” and MADNESS. So if you are going to make a movie directly based on an HPL story, you’ve got to stand ready to crank out one or the other or, preferably, both. Which means you should have actors who can act, you know, crazy. Gentlemen… behold:

Nicolas Cage Reuniting With ‘Mandy’ Producers for H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation ‘Color Out of Space’

The rest of the “Color Out of Space” ensemble includes Joely Richardson, Q’orianka Kilcher, Tommy Chong, Elliot Knight, and Julian Hilliard.

Tommy Chong. TOMMY CHONG.

Note that the casting is as ethnically diverse as a late 80’s Benetton ad and likely for the same shallow reasons, or perhaps as a direct “F You” to Lovecraft and his famous disdain for Them Other Folks.

It’s been a good long while since I read “Color” (or “Colour” in the obsolete form that HPL was fond of), but I recall it as being slow and calm with the horrifying decay, not balls-to-the-wall bonkers bugnuts that Cage can do so entertainingly. Still, I’m looking forward to seeing what he does with it.

 Posted by at 5:10 pm

Bad day at Boca Chica

 AARRRGH, Gah., history, Hmm..., news, projects, rockets, spacecraft, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 242019
 

D’oh.

Additionally, the Blue Origin New Shepard made it officially to space:

 

Bonus: Popular Mechanics interview with Elon Musk where he describes using methane or water transpiration cooling for the Starship stainless steel structure during re-entry.

 

 Posted by at 11:53 am

This will surely be universally popular

 Gah., Meh., news, projects, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 242019
 

The idea of “orbital billboards” is not new, but the Russian firm “StartRocket” has a desgn that is perhaps more technically feasible that many prior ideas. An array of cubesats would fly in a grid-pattern formation, with each satellite deploying a solar sail-like unfurlable mirror; by orienting each satellite correctly, the mirror would either reflect light down to Earth or not, making a simple dot matrix display in the sky.

Their video ad:

The more satellites in the grid, the bigger and more complex the text or image could be.

While technically feasible, there would seem to be some substantial challenges. Once again, the feature that makes the system would is a big lightweight “solar sail.” This means that solar photon pressure would be constantly acting on the small cubesats… but more importantly, atmospheric drag would be a serious issue. Since some would be flying oriented 90 degrees off to the others for several minutes at a time, drag would operate on some differently than others; the grid would seem likely to fall apart pretty quickly. Even at the proposed altitude of 500 kilometers, drag would be a recognizable issue. The array would only be able to pull off a handful of messages per day, and each of those for only a few minutes; it would seem likely that the rest of the time would need to be spent in correcting the formation via a dance of solar sails. Which would seem likely to make the array look to ground observers like it was flickering. Whether cubesats would have the ability to keep that up, I don’t know. I suspect that even with the best systems, atmospheric drag and impacts with tiny bits of space junk would soon turn the sails into perforated tatters, as well as dragging the whole system out of the intended orbit.

And then come the nuisance lawsuits…

Major corporations would be well advised to think twice before paying to have their brand plastered across the night sky, as there would be some level of negative blowback. But then people hated billboards, mucking up the roadside views, and yet here we are.

The StartRocket website starts off with a dubious quote from Andy Warhol:

“The most beautiful thing in Tokyo is McDonald’s. The most beautiful thing in Stockholm is McDonald’s. The most beautiful thing in Florence is McDonald’s. Peking and Moscow don’t have anything beautiful yet.”

Uh-huh. Go on and guess what *my* views on Warhol and his crappy “art” are.

Space has to be beautiful. With the best brands our sky will amaze us every night.

No ugly place there after this.

Riiiiiiiiight…..

The website also suggests that the array could be used to display helpful messages in times of natural disaster. But it seems to me more likely that it would be used to display propaganda.

 

 Posted by at 10:05 am

Mars 2021

 blather, Hmm..., Meh., news, politics, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 232019
 

How Trump Offered NASA Unlimited Funding to Go to Mars in His First Term

As usual for modern journalism, the headline isn’t exactly correct. In 2017, Trump rather offhandedly *asked* the NASA administrator if it would be possible to land a man on Mars by the end of his first term if NASA was given unlimited funding.

It’s not a particularly unreasonable sort of question to ask. And it is an interesting question. Ditch the personalities and the politics: if it was determined that We Must Get Our Asses To Mars ASAP, how quickly *could* NASA do it, given all the funding it could use? Obviously, infinite amounts of cash would not be helpful… after a certain point, you’ve got as many experts as you can use, and you’re working them at maximum output.

Additionally, if you expand beyond just NASA, you might end up with a different, better answer. SpaceX, a year or so ago, seemed to think they could get manned-capable rockets to Mars by 2022 or so. Well, maybe. But if they had NASA-level funding… that “maybe” becomes more likely.

And it also speed things along if you are flexible in your goals. Getting a man to Mars is a whole hell of a lot easier than getting a man *back* from Mars. So you could throw a couple guys in a lander-habitat with a truckload of C-rations to Mars a whole lot faster than you could prepare a round trip mission. This sort of thing has been looked at since the early 60’s; Bell Aerospace seriously examined the concept of sending a single man on a one-way mission to the Moon, with continual resupplies and *eventual* recovery by Apollo. This idea was met with a mix of repulsion and denial, but did lead to one of the dullest hard sci-fi movies ever, “Countdown.” And a few decades later it helped inspire the “Mars Direct” concept at Martin-Marietta, and more recently the rather oddly conceived and possibly scamulous “Mars One” project.

 Posted by at 7:35 pm

Hugo Chavez gives off a warm glow

 art, Forward!, news, politics  No Responses »
Jan 232019
 

American socialists like Bernie Sanders thought that Venezuelan kleptocrat Hugo Chavez was a man – with a set of policies – to emulate. Venezuelans have their own views on him and his legacy, demonstrated with a statue of the man:

 

 

 Posted by at 9:35 am

Three Radial Module Space Station

 projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 222019
 

Around 1963-64 a fair amount of effort went into the concept of a single-launch space station with artificial gravity. These stations would be launched atop a Saturn V and would deploy either toroidal or radial structures for the crew to inhabit. The design below (probably Lockheed) is reasonably representative of the radial-arm configuration. During launch the three arms would fold down “behind” the station core, and would deploy out 90 degrees once in orbit.

 Posted by at 10:08 pm
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