Guy Stewart's Blog, page 22

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 31: "A Human, a dolphin, an elephant, an octopus, and a crow walk into a…hmmm…zoo? The octopus says…”

Five decades ago, I started my college career with the intent of becoming a marine biologist. I found out I had to get a BS in biology before I could even begin work on MARINE biology; especially because there WEREN'T any marine biology programs in Minnesota.

Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS in biology and a fascination with genetics, I started to use more science in my fiction.

After reading hard SF for the past 50 years, and writing hard SF successfully for the past 20, I've started to dig deeper into what it takes to create realistic alien life forms. In the following series, I'll be sharing some of what I've learned. I've had some of those stories published, some not...I teach a class to GT young people every summer called ALIEN WORLDS. I've learned a lot preparing for that class for the past 25 years...so...I have the opportunity to share with you what I've learned thus far. Take what you can use, leave the rest. Let me know what YOU'VE learned. Without further ado...

So…what do boring ‘facts’ have to do with ‘Creating Aliens’? There either ARE aliens or there ARE NOT aliens. Easy question, right? If there ARE aliens, we have move science FICTION from the realm of weirdo magazines (ANALOG, ASIMOV’S or NATIONAL ENQUIRER) to serious magazines (online or otherwise – like NATURE or NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, or SCIENCE DIGEST).
It doesn’t seem surprising though, given that Artificial Intelligence was science fiction until just a decade or so ago – and now, all I have to do is turn my computer on and I have instant access ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) “…a large language model–based chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched on November 30, 2022, which enables users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language used”.

So, why not aliens?

OK – let’s go there. I’ve been thinking about this for a long, long time. Let’s start with our favorites: STAR WARS and STAR TREK.

You can choose: Chewbacca!

I’m gonna choose: Gul dukat.

Chewie (sounds like the name of a dog toy…) and Gul dukat – “Gul” isn’t his name like mine is Guy (Coincidence? I think NOT!), “it’s a Cardassian military rank and title. Often those officers who served as the commander of a vessel, from warships, a space station, or a labor camp.”

Chewbacca didn’t come from anywhere until the guy who used to own STAR WARS but sold out for a $4.05 billion (aka George Lucas. He CREATED SW; Steven Spielberg DIRECTED several of the films).

Later writers gave Chewie his past, but initially, he was “window dressing” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca); one critic commented, “How can you be a space pilot and not be able to communicate in any meaningful way?”

How about Gul ducat and the Cardassian Empire? Again, his people were invented for convenience-sake as a foil for both Captains Picard and Sisko; only given their appearance gradually. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardassian#:~:text=%22The%20Wounded%22%3A%201991,-The%20emblem%20of&text=The%20Cardassians%20were%20invented%20by,with%20teleplay%20by%20Jeri%20Taylor.)

Television and movie aliens are invented for story effects and little, if any, thought is given to how they might behave differently from Humans. In fact, Chewbacca behaves like a giant hairy Human (instead of an alien who evolved on a wholly different world, which was devoid of Humans) and Gul dukat behaves like a bad (though somewhat complex and practically believable) Human (instead of an alien who evolved on a wholly different world, which was devoid of Humans) – but both of them are horrible aliens.
Why?

Because we can understand them. We “get” their motivations. They have feelings that are pretty much Human feelings. Chewie pets Han Solo when he finds out he’s not dead. Gul dukat and Captain Sisko, while they don’t exactly “like” each other, they respect each other…a rather Human reaction for a creature that has more to DIS-like about mammals than like about them. Though, I imagine on Cardassia Prime, the “dominating” life forms will be reptilian. You’d think Cardassian and Klingons would be better pals (as Klingons are also evolved from reptiles)…

All of this to say that when we meet real intelligent aliens (if they even exist, and as I say in my own Alien Worlds class, “There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that life exists on any planet up Earth!” (BECAUSE its existence has been covered up by US (and world) Government Agencies!!!!!) or if you say, “Well, there just MUST be!”

Carl Sagan, late astronomer and author, has been gifted with the brilliant rejoinder echoed (supposedly) by the character from his novel CONTACT and made into a movie of the same name and played by Jodi Foster: Ellie Arroway : [to a group of children] “I'll tell you one thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us... seems like an awful waste of space. Right?”

But the FACT is that, despite numerous forays into trying to find and contact aliens (see link here: https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/9-times-us-probed-question-aliens-ufos/), the US government has nothing to actually show for it – just adding more fodder to the conspiracy theorist’s bonfires.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve been teaching the Alien Worlds class for close to three decades – I’m teaching one now. I’d LOVE for us to find real evidence of real aliens. However, the biggest problem won’t be protecting them from either the Government or the UFOlogists – but in UNDERSTANDING them. While language will absolutely be a challenge for the two sides to overcome, the real challenge will be in understanding how we process the world around us.

We have trouble communicating across CULTURAL divides on Earth – as a middle class American, raised in this country for 66 years, I have a certain way of viewing the world. Were I to be introduced to a room with other 66-year-old men in it: from China, Qatar, India, Bangladesh, South Africa, Nigeria, and say…Brazil – I wouldn’t be able to speak with all of them; perhaps the Nigerian and Indian. What would we say to each other? Perhaps we could talk about our grandchildren? Probably…maybe how we spend our days…

But we’re also all Human. What would I speak to a dolphin about? An octopus? An elephant? A crow? It almost sounds like the beginning of a joke: “A Human, a dolphin, an elephant, an octopus, and a crow walk into a…hmmm…zoo? The octopus says…”

Can you make up a conversation between them all? I’m not sure, but because my most recent writing adventure is to write humorous science fiction, I think I’ll give this a try!

But I guarantee it will be easier than writing the same scene with realistic aliens in it…

Sources: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-house-oversight-committee-probes-ufos-and-wider-implications; https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190390376/ufo-hearing-non-human-biologics-uaps
Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

IDEA ON TUESDAY 607

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)
H Trope: Ghost Towns
Current Event: http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/mn/taconiteharbor.html

Mary Croft may have been the only certified dredge operator on the North Shore of Lake Superior – but she hadn’t expected to be the ONLY operator in the abandoned town of Taconite Harbor.

The dredge she captained was mostly operated by an “artificial intelligence idiot”, which was why she was required by Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company to actually direct the floating suction dredge boat. The harbor was a small one, the taconite loads mostly taken out by rail, and the robots inside did most of the work in the town.

Her job would take a week and the company wanted her to work as much time as possible, so they’d given her one of the floating suction dredgers with an actual bed, galley and deck. “Henry?” she said.

“Please call me Hal,” said the idiot.

She shook her head. “I’d rather not. I have an original DVD of the old movie 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.”

“You can’t,” said Henry.

“I can’t what?”

“Have an original DVD. The movie 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was filmed in 1967 and premiered in 1968. The first true DVD was not manufactured for movies until 1995.”

“You know what I mean."

“I do not.”

She sighed and shook her head. “Let’s call it a day and shut down operations,” she said, tapping the shutdown key on the flat screen.

“Very good, ma’am.”

Mary rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and stepped out on the deck. Henry would take it from here until the actual docking procedure which she would do in the gloaming. She loved that word, she thought, unfolding and dropping into the lawn chair she kept carefully stored until the end of the day. No one would have said anything if she’d lounged about all day, issuing orders to Henry via her cellphone, but that had never worked for her. When she did a job, she wanted to actually DO something. For the time being, however, Henry was working hard pulling in and storing the collapsible pipe they used to siphon sediment from the floor of the harbor. It was pumped to a barge where it was dried and shipped down to Duluth for further processing or shipment to central North American markets.

The sun had fallen behind the steep shoreline to her left. It was a calm evening, a choice night on the cool waters of Superior. Such a night was rare enough to make her sigh.

Farther out across the water, to her right on the lake, waves rippled like a thin band of diamonds reflecting sunset light.

What was left of the town was now invisible as was the power plant. It had once operated on coal and had had a solar conversion during the third term of America’s first black president. There was no one left living there.

When the three remaining streetlights farther up the shore, intermittently lining the stretch of road that had once been the main street of the long-abandoned town, abruptly lit, she frowned.

When lights on either side of the abandoned basketball court at the near end of the street, close to Taconite Harbor itself, suddenly lit, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She went into the boathouse and grabbed a pair of digital binoculars, took them out and scanned the shoreline.

The lights were gone.

Frowning, she lowered the binoculars and rubbed her eyes. When she looked again, the lights were on and in the distance was the slow, faint thup-thup-thup of a basketball bouncing...
Names: ♀ Hebrew, English; ♂, acronym of: Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer; also “a venerable nickname for Henry, Harry and Harold, famously used by Shakespeare in King Henry IV as the name of the king's son, the future Henry V”
Image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #23: Sarah Pinsker “& Me”

In this feature, I’ll be looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”

I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

Without further ado, short story observations by Sarah Pinsker – with a few from myself…

SP: “Some stories simply need more time. The ideas need breathing room, or the author needs time to develop the skills to write it. I took my novelette “Wind Will Rove” to the Sycamore Hill peer workshop in 2015, then put it aside for a year before revising it. The advice at the workshop was encouraging and thoughtful, but I knew I wasn’t ready to do the work necessary to transform a good draft into the story I thought it could be. I thought about it during that time, and how to make the changes, all without touching the document again until I thought I was ready.”

I can very much understand this. I’d written a serial novel that I wanted to compile and create a “real” novel. I finished that 11 years ago! I knew I had nowhere NEAR the skill it would take to mold all of those bits and pieces into a coherent Kim Stanley Robinson GREEN MARS-length novel.

And yet, now that I have the skills necessary (NOT THAT IT WAS EASY!!!) I finished THAT job this past summer. Then the ROM on my computer died and the finished book is locked in Memory Limbo. I found I had to take it and split it into two books in order to submit it to the ONLY publisher who might be interested in handling it. But skill-wise, I was ready.

SP: “My goal is to make…rushed stories the exception, rather than the rule. I’ve come around to the theory that those situations come up and need to be handled, but most stories are better for a little aging.”

Lately, I’ve set myself a personal challenge: learn to write humorous SF. I know – only funny people can write funny!

I have since found that that isn’t true – I KNOW I’m a funny person; especially to teenagers. I could crack a class up given half a chance, and have the group laughing without too much trouble. Of course, dealing with teens, most of my humor is self-deprecatory! The fact that I’m writing flash makes me want to send the thing off the INSTANT it’s finished. But, while I HAVE sold pieces that have a good sense of humor, those are few and far-between. Sending them off right away usually means a quick (or lengthy!) generic rejection – mostly because, as Pinsker notes, “…most stories are better for a little aging.” I’m either impatient – or I’m afraid to send something out. It’s been rejected once or twice, and I look at it and tell myself it’s rotten and certainly not the worth the pain of subbing it a half dozen times.

Hesitation is the BIGGER issue for me, but I’m guilty of sending things our FAR from finished.

“…Sturgeon writes, ‘ask the next question.’ That’s what my first-draft-and-out-the-door stories lack. A first draft has all the shine of the original inspiration, if I’m lucky enough to have removed it from my head intact, but it’s often superficial. It has good bones, some turns of phrase I’m pleased with, characters and structure that carried me through. And yet it often lacks depth. The ‘why’ or the ‘and then’ to the ‘what if?’”

“A story I’ve finished without rush has time to go to one of my critique partners.”

I’ve almost never had a critique partner – I find they’re not particularly helpful to me. That probably says more about ME than it does about the idea of finding someone you can trust enough to offer advice to you (and who isn’t PAYING YOU to take their advice!) However, as evidence, I offer the following.
I tried to join a children’s writers group. To see what they thought of a story I’d actually sold already to CRICKET The Magazine for Children. I handed out copies and the next meeting the unanimous verdict of the group was that there were things they DID like about, it just wasn’t ready to be sent to CRICKET (“Heaven forbid! They’d never buy anything like this!”) The fact was that, the editor HAD bought the story. It was also purchased for supplemental reading for a programmed Fourth Grade Reader series. I never went back.

Finally, in March of 2019, an interviewer at B&N Reads made this statement: “A wealth of varied lived experience comes through in these stories. At the same time, the focus is often on the future—an apocalyptic, post-climate change landscape. The result is what feels like an extended love song to the world, as it feels like much of what we know is about to slip away.”

SP responded, “I can’t tell you how much I love this take on my stories. Also, this may be a short answer, because yes. I feel like anyone who is paying attention is scared right now. I can’t shake a feeling of decay, and yet I still see beauty everywhere. I meet wonderful people. I have a new dog who has invented the fifty cutest ways to sleep. I have nieces and nephews who bring me constant joy. I get to go amazing places and see amazing things. But there are also progresses that I would have said were permanent a few years ago that now feel fragile. There’s a combination of beauty and brokenness just permeates everything.”

I was a science teacher for 41 years, and I still teach a summer school class on creating realistic aliens. I’m fairly accomplished with both communicating science and I often read journals and studies for my writing. (Most recently: “Importance of silicon and mechanisms of biosilica formation in plants” (Sahebi M, Hanafi MM, Siti Nor Akmar A, Rafii MY, Azizi P, Tengoua FF, Nurul Mayzaitul Azwa J, Shabanimofrad M. Importance of silicon and mechanisms of biosilica formation in plants; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25685787/ )

DIGRESSION: [I have both trouble believing and trouble hearing people who think so highly of Humanity that they fervently and violently believe that we’ve somehow created the power in ourselves to alter the climate of this planet so profoundly that there appears to be a certainty that we have, as a race of some 8 billion individuals doomed not just ourselves, but all other life on Earth to permanent extinction.

These people, many of them intelligent, learned scientists seem to have, for some reason, forgotten that “The mass [of the Chicxulub Crater impact object] is in the range of 1.0e15 kg to 4.6e17 kg (30,000 gigatonnes)”. (https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.6391#:~:text=The%20mass%20is%20in%20the,in%20the%20K%2FPg%20layer.) It did not obliterate all life on Earth.

The current mass of Humanity is hard to find, but Smithsonian Magazine in May of 2018 baldly proclaimed, “Of the 550 gigatons of biomass carbon on Earth…humans [weigh] in at 0.06 gigatons. (33 gigatonnes)”. [Of course, it's not the same thing. I'm trying to make a point!]  (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-make-110000th-earths-biomass-180969141/)

The Chicxulub meteorite was unable to obliterate all life on Earth. “Humankind is revealed as simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth by a groundbreaking new assessment of all life on the planet.” [What does this even mean? What is the unit of “utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth”? It sounds like an emotional estimate of the grandeur and power of Humanity – calculated by a Human.]

The Chicxulub meteorite accelerated the extinction of most of the dinosaurs, it didn’t cause life on Earth to end entirely. I doubt very much that if we cause our own extinction through climate change, no matter how egregious the insult to the planet is; that ALL LIFE ON EARTH WILL BE DONE FOR. We are NOT God or gods or even a particularly grand force of nature. LIFE will exist on Earth after our demise. And while we might accelerate our extinction a bit, I doubt in the long-run it will make much difference. We’re programed to believe or reason or think that we and all our stuff will last forever. But for strict materialists, that’s absurd. It’s all gonna vanish eventually, and on a geological scale, whether we’ve “become a dominant force in shaping the face of Earth,” or not, Humans will be gone someday. But I’m pretty sure the spirit we think is unique to us will still remain...I think it's one of my missions to write hopeful; even humorous fiction. That's what I'm working on...
References: AMAZON Page – https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07Q73JJB1/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=6546f4b0-4386-4c89-8198-a9a9856052c1&store_ref=ap_rdr&ref_=ap_rdr; https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/another_word_10_18/; https://sarahpinsker.com/interviewsImage: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhK6miXJMTMNyB3kzq-r6I2LVCTZJj0CDS0dPV2Qapl6e9rZPuHx2u5QKcKT1QGeDg1_tPMv-lpnuSr_eiBjwPXmex9mcgtuH2-SUtZEpGWV0_HdtJQelVt5K69NulJBUqNju5GNjHgQibXsIo4NeWpTOj4ai85jCRjMHOtwtkqshzxFvZPUSjXZNq6=s320

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 606

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

Trope: Allergic To Evil
Current Event: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/20/satan_dinosaur_chickens_hell/

Andre Xavier Xavier, a Bryshwyn of Bryshwyns, the turban on his head release more than its usual curl of very pale, very curly hair. The curls sprang out all around.

As well, a line of monks striding in loose exercise uniforms keeping cadence happened by at that moment. Andre used a vulgar word that made even Raven Zoe Jefferson, a Nobody of Nobodys blush in embarrassment. The lead monk called a different cadence and they set off at a faster pace. Zoe said, “If I’d shouted that, I’d be in the gym for the next forty hours.”

“That’s not true!” Andre exclaimed.

Fendwyri Alyn Wader, whose family enabled music to communicate in addition to entertaining, walked by and said, “Of course it is, Bryshwyn! If it wasn’t for our kind, the Vacancy would be permanently filled with evil.”

“I thought you were allergic to evil, Wader?” Andre shot at the older boy.

Fendwyri spun around, eyes narrowing to slits as he shot back, “Aren’t you late to meditation?”

“Aren’t you?” The musician opened his mouth to snarl a reply then turned and ran.

Andre muttered the first syllables of another enablement.

Zoe kicked him in the shin, turned and sprinted after Fendwyri, snapped, “No more!” She passed the older boy who, once he thought he was out of their reach had slowed down to a jog. Now he exclaimed and tried to speak an enablement over her, so she spun, swept his feet out from under him and sprinted into the Canis Abbey proper, barely out of breath. She skipped to a halt, then strode to the front, plopped down on the bench then lifted her eyes to contemplate the slowly turning obsidian sphere hanging from the Abbey’s vaulted ceiling. No one noticed her because as she sat, Andre and Fendwyri came in.

The whispers started at the back of the nave and swept forward. Zoe ignored them until the older boy abruptly appeared next to her. She didn’t know if he enabled the floor to carry him faster than he could walk, but it didn’t matter as, glaring down at her, he whispered, “That’s the last time...”

The air around them grew cold and squeezing her eyes tightly closed, she only assumed her breath exhaled in a white cloud. A booming voice said, “All students will be seated and silent during meditations.” It was a standard warning. The University surveillance system could easily have generated it. However, it would not have added, “Masters Wader and Xavier and Mister Jefferson will please report to the commissariat following meditations.”

There was a faint rustle – though with the building now all ears no one dared actually speak – as everyone moved at the same time. Zoe kept her eyes closed as someone passed in front of her and sat down and someone dropped down next to her on her other side. She opened her eyes, but focused on the sphere instead of trying to look left or right.
The knees on either side of her gave them away as the colors were obviously Wader Green and Xavier Sable. Her own colors were Poor Girl Whatever. Instead of fear though, anger welled inside of her. What right did these two boys have placing her in between their familial feud? What right did either of them presume that she would be on “their” side in an arguments. Fendwyri was nice enough to her when they were alone. She considered Andre a good friend.

Her real enemy lived up the hall from her in the women’s dorm – Semolina Nyanchi Fieldthwaite. The girl with the amazing hair and the attitude to willingly flaunt it. The source of her control over enabling the growth of anything from snowflakes to Tower Trees, she was also a member of a family that had once shared the power of filling the Vacancy.

Now she just annoyed Raven and constantly made snide remarks. She tried focusing on the sphere again, finally and slowly calming her turbulent head games, when a cry went up from outside, “Syzhin devils!”

The assembly leaped to its feet as the land raid siren began its mournful wail, echoing even to the depths of the University; everyone rushing to defend the battlements against the scourge of the world.

Names: ♀ Popular African American name, Australian Capital Territory, Common African American last name; ♂ Popular American name, Brazil
Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

Slice of PIE: “NEW OBSERVATION SHOWS CHRISTIANS BETTER PREPARED FOR ALIEN FIRST CONTACT THAN MATERIALIST SCIENTISTS!”

Now that I have your attention, let me continue in a slightly more serious vein and offer you some evidence for the statement above.

What sparked this was the song, “Be Still” by the band Storyside:B. Follow the link, listen to the Youtube and then come back here:

"Be Still" by Storyside:B (with lyrics) - YouTube

The chorus reiterates over and over that “we are not alone”.

*ninety degree turn*
World-class astronomer, space popularizer and the author of the book that became the movie, CONTACT, believed in his heart of hearts and “…spent [his life] trying to establish links between strange phenomena and the existence of life in outer space…Carl Sagan theorized that alien life such as bacteria exist not only in our planet but throughout the universe. He also insisted that it is impossible that no other intelligent life exists in the universe other than on Earth.” http://www.buzzle.com/articles/aliens-are-there-aliens.html (
I note that this statement is not a direct quote as I could not find out when or where it originated. Many websites repeat this statement.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan. Based on some 138 quotes attributed to Carl Sagan’s writings (http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/10538.Carl_Sagan), I think it is safe to say that he was a materialist. Materialism is a position that believes that all things that are real have a material or physical substance. It discounts any metaphysical reality. www.postmodernpsychology.com/Postmodernism_Dictionary.html

Yet it's clear that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that life exists off of Earth. Believe me when I say that I would be the first person in line to see incontrovertible evidence that "we are not alone." Really. I've been dreaming of aliens since I read THE SPACESHIP UNDER THE APPLE TREE by Louis Slobodkin in sixth grade.
Yet, many scientists do not hesitate to say that they “believe” that there is such life. You can get a degree in a completely IMAGINARY science called "Astrobiology" from places like Pennsylvania State University and Harvard -- both of which are "Ivy League Colleges", which typically don't grant degrees in imaginary disciplines. Why is it imaginary? Because for your typical astrobiologist -- there is NOTHING TO STUDY (except countless theories and speculation that "those things in Martian Meteorite AH 84001" -- which currently half of the scientists believe are fossilized signs of life; the other half believing that they are the fossilized remains of a chemical reaction...)
 (I submit that based on their previous track record of non-belief in the unseeable and an inability to accept anything that does not have physical substance, that scientific materialists are intellectually, culturally, and spiritually UNPREPARED to believe in alien life and will be poor choices for First Contact.

People of faith, on the other hand, have plenty of experience with the belief that Humans are NOT alone in the universe. I cannot speak with authority for any faith other than Christian, but I've learned that Hebrews 12:1 says: “...we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us…” Romans 8:38 also hints at the belief that we are not alone in the universe: “For I am convinced that neither…angels, nor principalities…nor powers…will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

People of deep faith KNOW that they are not alone in the universe. We have contemplated it, believed it, lived it, prayed it and for us, “others out there” is a matter not only of faith, but of incontrovertible, EVERY DAY fact.

Materialist scientists can only IMAGINE really, really hard that there is life in the universe -- whether single cells someplace other than on Earth; and hope really hard that there is intelligent life in the universe and hope that it’s possible that their imagination is factual.

Who would you rather have talking to the Klingons the first time – someone who has always known that that they were not alone and spoken regularly and intelligently with some "Other" who is not Human?
Or would you like someone who just found out that their imagination wasn’t anywhere near weird enough and are now tongue-tied or babbling incoherently as the Other is suddenly standing in front of them?

image: https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1362550341/photo/alien-and-man-meet-and-handshake-on-planet.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=is&k=20&c=ww-nweT_wvRGzJKNWNIBGUZVIRXiFXiG1uFSHLYJjT4=

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 605

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

SF Trope: sanitation in the future is non-existent in cities…
Current Event: http://www.smh.com.au/world/mexico-city-fails-to-solve-its-garbage-crisis-20120127-1qlr2.html, http://fryingpannews.org/2012/02/09/big-step-taken-to-resolve-las-trash-crisis/

Trey Jackson and his family live in rural Nebraska – but the city of Omaha is a big part of their lives.

Especially the smell.

The city has been nearly buried under its own waste since, in 2029, the state legislature banned Omaha from dumping outside of a 20 mile radius. While few people in the CITY agreed to the law, legislators from outside the urban areas voted them down.

In 2041, Omaha has been walled in and in order to deal with the trash situation, they have moved their garbage to the edge of the city and hire companies to come in and search through the trash to find reusable, recyclable and useful things. Because the US economy slid into The Really Great Depression after an unprecedented eight Democratic Party dominated legislatures from 2008 through 2040, few people work – but everyone continues to produce garbage.

Trey and his family are part of a garbage caravan heading into Omaha to collect and distribute the trash West. When they arrive, they make camp in their covered wagons in Collector’s City and file for a permit to dig through the trash of a particular dump Trey’s dad and mom have researched. His twelve little brothers and sisters wait for their permit to clear.

In the meantime, Trey’s parents allow him to take the older of the siblings to the Collector’s Carnival. There he meets the amazing Francine La Flesche, descendant of the Indigenous people for who the city is named. She’s not supposed to be there, though.

In fact, she’s missing from her parent’s home – and they are powerful lawyers deep in the center of Omaha, living among the city’s wealthy elite. On the Ferris wheel ride, as it stops so that they are at the top and can see the Core City, she tells him she’s run away to see the world and was wondering if she can go with his family…

Names: ♀ France ; ♂ LatinImage: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg/220px-Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Alien Humor? "Foipiargnaaadi"

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog – and NO, I’M NOT DONE BLOGGING!!! – I’d just hit the half-century mark, and I had nine professional publications. My son was 20, my daughter 16; and my wife and I had celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary two months earlier.
Today, August 31, 2023, sixteen years later, I am revising and doing some different things with my blog. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, the oldest of which just became a teenager. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other publications as a slushpile reader, and sometime essay contributor to Stupefying Stories (https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/). These days, I write whenever I want to and I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I’m working on my writing, reading constantly, and because I discovered that was writing longer and longer pieces, I thought I might focus on saying what I need to say in fewer words. I also discovered that I CAN’T write humor, even though I can TALK humor (several people will attest to that; the biggest proof is that I can make most of a room of 30 middle-schoolers laugh at something I’ve intentionally set up.

My GOAL is to learn to write short humor. To that end, I’ve been both reading about humor and trying my hand at writing short humor pieces. So, I’ll be posting both musings on humor and experiments in writing science fiction humor here from time to time. Today is one of those times.

I think our sense of humor makes us Human…and that ALL OF US play with language in order to make ourselves laugh. Take for example the silly words we create.

HOBBIT: The vast majority of those of you reading this know that this word is a pronoun denoting a very specific imaginary being as depicted in JRR Tolkien’s LORD OF THE RINGS novels. He invented the word.

NARNIA: A large number of you know that this is a proper noun attached to an imaginary land found in the works of English author, C. S. Lewis. He invented the word.

PERN: Many of you know that this is an acronym from an interplanetary survey done by a future Humanity imagined by Anne McCaffrey. It stands for Parallel Earth Resources Negligible. For some of us, that abbreviation explodes into memories of a world colonized by Humans seeking a simpler, agrarian existence on an alien world inhabited by nothing that seemed capable of harming us. Fate of course constantly surprises – and Pern was a cyclical victim of an alien plague that jumped from an eccentrically orbiting moon. Humans had to bioengineer a creature to combat these “threads”. From tiny, harmless flying lizards who could also teleport themselves when face with grave danger; Humans gengineered telepathic dragons…

FOIPIARGNAAADI: None of you will recognize this as a word meaning something like “the humorous power of made up words”. That’s because myself, my wife and four young adults (two of them related to us, two of them not) invented it one night playing an impromptu game of SCRABBLE®. We even invented a grammar: the triple “a” pluralizes the word and the suffix “di” feminizes the noun. Why did we do this then conclude the game with gales of laughter?

I think it’s because on Earth, language (and the humor it creates) is innate and perhaps even unique to Humans. Don’t get me wrong. Every living thing communicates. There are levels of communication as well. Few people would question that flax plants and flatworms communicate differently than orcas and octopi.

There is good evidence that certain animals have a sense of humor: Dogs, meerkats and rats laugh…chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans do, too. Chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest relatives, have the most human-like laughter. The Dogs of Spokane laugh, as do ravens and dolphins – at least provisionally. However, I think I’m safe in saying that two adult chimpanzees with four young adult chimpanzees in a safe environment at a Primate Research Center somewhere; would be unlikely to make up a word, create a simple grammar then find the whole thing amusing.

I contend that it is the “spark of the divine” (aka God) in us that gives Humans the ability to use language of extreme complexity. In the Bible, Numbers 22 tells the tale of a man who was beating his donkey who had refused to walk past an angel because it recognized that the angel was about to kill the man. The man’s name was Balaam. In the end, the angel granted the donkey the ability to speak to the man. Even the rankest “animals-are-the-same-as-humans” activist and those who believe that animals deserve all the protection granted humans under law, would find it hard to credit this story as fact. At best, I could muster up enough BELIEF to grant that it might be possible. Even so, when talking about having a sense of humor, there are more complex ways to communicate and simpler ways to communicate.

Humor is communication at its most complex and least understood. “What makes us special is the range and amount of laughter we seek and produce, which in large part stems from our unique evolution, as well as our culture. Indeed, as Martin writes: ‘…being able to enjoy humor and express it through laughter seems to be an essential part of what it means to be human.’” (SURVIVAL OF THE FUNNIEST)

It is the complexity of humor that separates us from the animals. While it’s been said that “a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.” (The Infinite Monkey Theorem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem ), the same article goes on to explain that the obvious meaning isn’t the significant meaning of this statement. Monkeys aren’t going to write “Much Ado About Nothing” because monkeys aren’t Human. I suppose, though that it might be that monkeys would write a MONKEY equivalent of “Much Ado About Nothing” – but would a Human find it funny?

If or when we meet sapient aliens, will we be able to share a sense of Humor? I suppose that the family of STAR TREK aliens might be able to. Supposedly Humans, Cardassians, and Klingons – and at the end of the episode, Romulans, implying that Vulcans, Ferengi, Bajorans, Tellarites, Andorians, and all other Humanoids in and near the Federation are descended from a single race of sapient aliens who “seeded our” part of the galaxy with their DNA. It makes sense that Klingons and Humans can laugh together; certainly that Cardassians and Humans can forge relationships based on humor, and while Vulcans and Humans don’t “laugh together” per se, they can certainly share a sense of humor.

All this to say that we play with language in order to make ourselves laugh. It MAY be possible, but unlikely that Humans and aliens can EVER share a laugh, though I suppose they MAY share some sort of alcoholic (or its metabolic equivalent) beverage that would ease relationship tensions.

I am working at being able to WRITE funny for my fellow Humans – whose to say that an alien wouldn’t find my writing funny!

Sources: https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-07-29/do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor-this-scientist-has-been-tickling-rats-for-years-to-prove-it.html, https://exploringyourmind.com/do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor-science-says-yes/, https://www.smallanimalplanet.com/the-science-behind-animal-laughter-do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor/, Survival of the Funniest: A review of Rod Martin, Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/147470490800600111 Image: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/qWigLxdUzjXa6hmKdQGGuY.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Alien Language? "Foipiargnaaadi"

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog – and NO, I’M NOT DONE BLOGGING!!! – I’d just hit the half-century mark, and I had nine professional publications. My son was 20, my daughter 16; and my wife and I had celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary two months earlier.
Today, August 31, 2023, sixteen years later, I am revising and doing some different things with my blog. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, the oldest of which just became a teenager. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other publications as a slushpile reader, and sometime essay contributor to Stupefying Stories (https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/). These days, I write whenever I want to and I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I’m working on my writing, reading constantly, and because I discovered that was writing longer and longer pieces, I thought I might focus on saying what I need to say in fewer words. I also discovered that I CAN’T write humor, even though I can TALK humor (several people will attest to that; the biggest proof is that I can make most of a room of 30 middle-schoolers laugh at something I’ve intentionally set up.

My GOAL is to learn to write short humor. To that end, I’ve been both reading about humor and trying my hand at writing short humor pieces. So, I’ll be posting both musings on humor and experiments in writing science fiction humor here from time to time. Today is one of those times.

I think our sense of humor makes us Human…and that ALL OF US play with language in order to make ourselves laugh. Take for example the silly words we create.

HOBBIT: The vast majority of those of you reading this know that this word is a pronoun denoting a very specific imaginary being as depicted in JRR Tolkien’s LORD OF THE RINGS novels. He invented the word.

NARNIA: A large number of you know that this is a proper noun attached to an imaginary land found in the works of English author, C. S. Lewis. He invented the word.

PERN: Many of you know that this is an acronym from an interplanetary survey done by a future Humanity imagined by Anne McCaffrey. It stands for Parallel Earth Resources Negligible. For some of us, that abbreviation explodes into memories of a world colonized by Humans seeking a simpler, agrarian existence on an alien world inhabited by nothing that seemed capable of harming us. Fate of course constantly surprises – and Pern was a cyclical victim of an alien plague that jumped from an eccentrically orbiting moon. Humans had to bioengineer a creature to combat these “threads”. From tiny, harmless flying lizards who could also teleport themselves when face with grave danger; Humans gengineered telepathic dragons…

FOIPIARGNAAADI: None of you will recognize this as a word meaning something like “the humorous power of made up words”. That’s because myself, my wife and four young adults (two of them related to us, two of them not) invented it one night playing an impromptu game of SCRABBLE®. We even invented a grammar: the triple “a” pluralizes the word and the suffix “di” feminizes the noun. Why did we do this then conclude the game with gales of laughter?

I think it’s because on Earth, language (and the humor it creates) is innate and perhaps even unique to Humans. Don’t get me wrong. Every living thing communicates. There are levels of communication as well. Few people would question that flax plants and flatworms communicate differently than orcas and octopi.

There is good evidence that certain animals have a sense of humor: Dogs, meerkats and rats laugh…chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans do, too. Chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest relatives, have the most human-like laughter. The Dogs of Spokane laugh, as do ravens and dolphins – at least provisionally. However, I think I’m safe in saying that two adult chimpanzees with four young adult chimpanzees in a safe environment at a Primate Research Center somewhere; would be unlikely to make up a word, create a simple grammar then find the whole thing amusing.

I contend that it is the “spark of the divine” (aka God) in us that gives Humans the ability to use language of extreme complexity. In the Bible, Numbers 22 tells the tale of a man who was beating his donkey who had refused to walk past an angel because it recognized that the angel was about to kill the man. The man’s name was Balaam. In the end, the angel granted the donkey the ability to speak to the man. Even the rankest “animals-are-the-same-as-humans” activist and those who believe that animals deserve all the protection granted humans under law, would find it hard to credit this story as fact. At best, I could muster up enough BELIEF to grant that it might be possible. Even so, when talking about having a sense of humor, there are more complex ways to communicate and simpler ways to communicate.

Humor is communication at its most complex and least understood. “What makes us special is the range and amount of laughter we seek and produce, which in large part stems from our unique evolution, as well as our culture. Indeed, as Martin writes: ‘…being able to enjoy humor and express it through laughter seems to be an essential part of what it means to be human.’” (SURVIVAL OF THE FUNNIEST)

It is the complexity of humor that separates us from the animals. While it’s been said that “a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.” (The Infinite Monkey Theorem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem ), the same article goes on to explain that the obvious meaning isn’t the significant meaning of this statement. Monkeys aren’t going to write “Much Ado About Nothing” because monkeys aren’t Human. I suppose, though that it might be that monkeys would write a MONKEY equivalent of “Much Ado About Nothing” – but would a Human find it funny?

If or when we meet sapient aliens, will we be able to share a sense of Humor? I suppose that the family of STAR TREK aliens might be able to. Supposedly Humans, Cardassians, and Klingons – and at the end of the episode, Romulans, implying that Vulcans, Ferengi, Bajorans, Tellarites, Andorians, and all other Humanoids in and near the Federation are descended from a single race of sapient aliens who “seeded our” part of the galaxy with their DNA. It makes sense that Klingons and Humans can laugh together; certainly that Cardassians and Humans can forge relationships based on humor, and while Vulcans and Humans don’t “laugh together” per se, they can certainly share a sense of humor.

All this to say that we play with language in order to make ourselves laugh. It MAY be possible, but unlikely that Humans and aliens can EVER share a laugh, though I suppose they MAY share some sort of alcoholic (or its metabolic equivalent) beverage that would ease relationship tensions.

I am working at being able to WRITE funny for my fellow Humans – whose to say that an alien wouldn’t find my writing funny!

Sources: https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-07-29/do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor-this-scientist-has-been-tickling-rats-for-years-to-prove-it.html, https://exploringyourmind.com/do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor-science-says-yes/, https://www.smallanimalplanet.com/the-science-behind-animal-laughter-do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor/, Survival of the Funniest: A review of Rod Martin, Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/147470490800600111 Image: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/qWigLxdUzjXa6hmKdQGGuY.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 30: Fermi’s Paradox, Alien Nations and the Past, Present and Future of Humanity

Five decades ago, I started my college career with the intent of becoming a marine biologist. I found out I had to get a BS in biology before I could even begin work on MARINE biology; especially because there WEREN'T any marine biology programs in Minnesota.

Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS in biology and a fascination with genetics, I started to use more science in my fiction.

After reading hard SF for the past 50 years, and writing hard SF successfully for the past 20, I've started to dig deeper into what it takes to create realistic alien life forms. In the following series, I'll be sharing some of what I've learned. I've had some of those stories published, some not...I teach a class to GT young people every summer called ALIEN WORLDS. I've learned a lot preparing for that class for the past 25 years...so...I have the opportunity to share with you what I've learned thus far. Take what you can use, leave the rest. Let me know what YOU'VE learned. Without further ado...

Fermi’s Paradox: “the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations…”

One of my favorite movies was DISTRICT 9. The immediacy, intensity and the sheer audacity of aliens picking a nation to hover over that WASN’T a super power made it one of my favorites.

But my all-time favorite in the category of Aliens Who “Crash Land” On Earth And Have To Be Integrated Into Human Society movie is ALIEN NATION. For me, both the movie and TV show were revolutionary in concept and fascinating in execution.

D9 and AN dealt with very similar issues from utterly different points of view. With arguably different intent, the two movies illustrate the same sad-but-true perception of Humanity: given aliens in need, we’ll accept them with open arms then tie them up in red tape until they have no choice but to become us (ALIEN NATION) or revolt and break free of the tape (DISTRICT 9).

And how is this any different from the rest of Human history? During World War II, it’s what Americans did to anyone who was even remotely suspect of having Japanese heritage following The Day That Will Live In Infamy? Even if they were second generation, born and bred Americans, they were suspected of being Japanese sympathizers and needed to be locked away.

What about the red-headed Irish refugees fleeing the Potato Famine of 1845-1852: “One honest immigrant wrote home at the height of the potato famine exodus, ‘My master is a great tyrant, he treats me as badly as if I was a common Irishman.’ The writer further added, ‘Our position in America is one of shame and poverty.’ No group was considered lower than an Irishman in America during the 1850s.” (http://www.kinsella.org/history/histira.htm).

It's what happened to African slaves when they were brutally captured or bought from other African tribes who had captured them during intertribal conflict. They were put away on plantations and legislated out of Humanity and into the realm of tractors and land – possessions to be bartered with as the “owner” saw fit.

Virtually every society has oppressed women at some time or another, freed them then oppressed them again. Islam is NOT unusual in this on-again-off-again granting of women’s rights: India, Europe, Iran, Britain, the United States, Mexico, Sweden, Japan, Arabia, and Germany have all extended then retracted rights at some time or another.

Then there’re those Greeks and Romans, “The Paragons And Inventors Of Freedom And Democracy”…

During the reign of Greece, “Thucydides recalls that 7,000 inhabitants of Hycarra in Sicily were taken prisoner by Nicias and sold for 120 talents in the neighboring village of Catania. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Greece);

“The institution of slavery in ancient Rome reduced those held to a condition of less than persons under their legal system. Stripped of many rights, including the ability to marry, slaves were the property of their owners.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Rome)

The thing is, is that it isn’t any different from the rest of Human history. What is frightening is that we in the 21st Century believe that First Contact will be a happy event and SHOULD happen and that POOF! the aliens will be welcomed with open arms and a new Golden Age will ensue as we solve all our problems because we know that we are no longer alone.

What might happen though is that our Visitors will be tied up in red tape so thick they won’t know what hit them. Hopefully they won’t have seen the ENTERPRISE episodes that take place in the Mirror Universe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkp-MI5hxVw&feature=related). We often bemoan the Fate of those alien civilizations – in face scientists no less great than Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and science fiction writer David Brin, have expressed real doubt about whether contact with alien civilizations will lead to anything but disaster for Humanity: “"One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this," Hawking says in the documentary, referring to a potentially habitable alien world known as Gliese 832c. "But we should be wary of answering back. Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn't turn out so well." (https://www.space.com/34184-stephen-hawking-afraid-alien-civilizations.html

But what about the OPPOSITE point of view – I’ve honestly never read a story or article or seen a movie or TV series pondering what WE would do to “THEM” if aliens were to land on Earth. Would we lure them in with sweet words and deals, then turn on them, enslave them, and steal their technology.

Where are the stories in which HUMANS enslave the ALIENS? Maybe we’d be such perfect predators and slave masters – as indicated by our history of enslaving each other given half a chance…

Then again, if They have read our history, seen our TV shows and watched our movies – maybe Fermi’s Paradox isn’t a paradox. Maybe aliens are afraid of us…

Sources: https://theconversation.com/blasting-out-earths-location-with-the-hope-of-reaching-aliens-is-a-controversial-idea-two-teams-of-scientists-are-doing-it-anyway-182036 Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

Mining The Asteroids: Psyche -- Understanding the Solar System, OR NASA STAKES ITS CLAIM?

Psyche (nasa.gov); https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UUysrgQekqQ/YJOqxHr5ciI/AAAAAAAADhE/mYeA-Xbn6AMBnrmYooYUACNGb36xSnEEwCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png

NASA's PSYCHE MISSION

Event by NASA - National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationPublic  · Anyone on or off FacebookNASA’s Psyche mission is preparing to launch on October 5 to embark on a 2.2-billion-mile journey to a unique metal-rich asteroid that could help us understand the early formation of rocky planets in our solar system, like Earth. Join mission experts Wednesday, August 23, at 3:30 p.m. ET for an opportunity to learn more about Psyche. Submit your questions using #askNASA for a chance to have them answered live during the show. See lessOnlineLive Video