Matthew S. Williams's Blog, page 152

Sunshine Blogger Award!

Well, well, well… it’s blog award season again. Which means, time to nominate and be nominated for some new blogging award! My thanks to Jeff Whelan who did me the solid of nominating me, and my congratulations for those who will receive the nod from me, in just a moment…

First things first. To quote Jeff Whelan, who in turn quoted Rolando of Rolando’s weebly (who in turn quotes someone else, apparently) the purpose of this award is to recognize people who “positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere.” Wow, thanks! And I can think of several people I want to, just as soon as I answer the following questions:

What is your passion?   Just one? Well, I love the written word. And I don’t mean that woosy thing called reading. It’s good, but my passion is in the creation thereof. Every time I read something good, see something good, or play something good, it sends me to my computer to write something similarly inspired!
Favorite time of the year?   Summer, always. I love the heat, the feeling of nature reborn, the late evening, the backyard bbq and beer, and the fact that women walk around wearing less fabric.
Favorite book?   1984. No matter how much time passes or how many other great books I’ve read, I always come back to this one. Orwell was a genius and tackled so much that was relevant in his time and of the human condition. Nothing else I know rivals it.
Favorite movie?   Die Hard, or possibly Ong Bak. There’s something about a movie you can watch over and over, and which involves some serious, death-defying ass-kicking!
Favorite animal?   I love animals in general, but I am decidely a cat person. I grew up with cats, my family fosters cats, and my current animal is Jasper, a cat who suffers from an overdose of personality!
Favorite time of the day? Early evening. I love the energy of the time, between the workday and the night. It’s especially potent on Fridays, and I just like the feel of it for reasons I can’t fully describe.
Favorite Flower? The Rose. It reminds me of my Carla, who’s middle name just happens to be Rose!
Favorite nonalcoholic beverage?   I’m sorry, non-alcoholic?  Gee, I don’t know. I don’t do soft drinks and we aren’t allowed to have citrus-heavy drinks our house due to allergies. Give me… mineral water, please!
Favorite physical activity?   Taekwon-Do. Been my religion and my principal means of stress relief since the age of 10.
Favorite vacation?  Eurotrip or Mayan Riviera! Any opportunity to see ancient ruins and immerse myself in a foreign culture that is famous for warm weather, oceans, and hospitable people.

And now that that is done, onto the ten nominees who “positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere.” Here they are in no particular order:

Dangerously Daydreaming: the site of world adventurer, foodie, cultural enthusiast, west-coaster and humanitarian, Audrey Johnson. I still envy her travel dossier, and someday I mean to go places and rub her nose in it for a change!
Rami Ungar: the writer, student, and part-time activist who’s journey of learning, self-discovery, and activism for change inspires me all the time! I think this might by my third of fourth nomination of his site…
Ye Old Soapbox: the perennial political ranter, avid left-winger, and man who’s annoyance and disrespect for the stupidity of right-wing politicians, lobbyists and talking heads humbles my own!
Bucket List Publications: the website of Lesley Carter, a woman dedicated to living life to the fullest, and also travel, tourism, adventure and other such things!
Rendezvous with Renee: the sparkly, super lady who pretty much channels the spirit of Marlyn Monroe and Amelia Earhart, with just a little Oprah Winfrey thrown in for good measure!
35andupcynicismonhold: the home of the positive and impressive lady who goes by the alias of “Cynicism on Hold”, and writes about life, experience, and the travails of growing, all the while seeking to keep cynicism at bay.
abcofspirittalk: blogger, dancer, educator of humanity, spiritual medium, and spelunker of the collective unconscious; yeah, Carolyn pretty much does it all here!
Writerlious: the site dedicated to the blogger and aspiring writer, art and culture enthusiast, fantasy reader, wife, mother, and dog owner Erin Brady Pike.
idealisticrebel: the home of a social activist, counselor, former nurse, make-up artist, spiritualist, and (as the name suggest) idealistic rebel. As you can imagine, she inspires, and in more ways than one!
Rigzen Chomo: the name means Feminine Ocean Holding Great Knowledge, in Tibetan. And as the name suggest, a woman of who seeks to convey the virtues of great patience, deep contemplation and profound education to all mankind. Need I say more?

Congrats all! Here’s to another round of awards and mounting recognition And here’s to a hale, hearty, healthy, prosperous, and even (if it’s too much to ask) profitable 2013!

BSG: Blood & Chrome (Ep. 5-8)

And welcome back! Here we have another installment in the BSG: Blood & Chrome series. Last time out, the show introduced its basic plot concept, most of the principal characters, and left the audience on the verge of a big firefight. This time around, with episode 4 through 8, said action takes off, people live, people die, and then things slow down just enough for some character development, introductions, and revelations.

Episode 5-8:

The scene opens with Adama, Coker and Kelly flying with their escort down to Djerba. Meanwhile, the Osiris opens fire on the Cylon base ship, but is outmatched. After a desperate fight, the Commander orders her crew to ram the Cylon base ship and detonate their compliment of nukes, destroying both vessels and killing all hands aboard her. The Wild Weasel meanwhile flies into Djerba’s atmosphere and is pursued by Raiders. They lose their escorts, but managed to take out the pursuers, only to then crashland on the surface.

Coker suggests they repair the Raptor and attempt to break atmo, but Kelly insists they continue with their mission. Adama agrees with her, and after another heated argument, they agree their best bet for getting home is to rendezvous with the spec ops team as ordered. But of course, when they reach the rendezvous inside a cave, all they find is bodies. The cave then suffers a cave in and the three of them find themselves in a hole, where a large snake-like creature begins attacking them. They are narrowly saved by the last member of the spec ops team – named Toth – who takes out the snake and pulls them back up to the surface.

Toth then explains that he was the team’s engineer, and that he was out doing reconnaissance when the snakes attacked and killed his team. As hybrid creatures, the snakes are a Cylon attempt at merging organic and synthetic tissue, and are used as defensive mechanisms. He tells them that they cannot complete their mission at the moment since a massive storm has rolled in, and convinces them to come with him back to his compound to wait it out. As it turns out, he has made a home inside an abandoned ski resort and has surrounded it with mines and trip wires.

Adama, Coker and Kelly make themselves at home inside the resort while Coker takes first watch. Adama and Kelly room together and she explains that her husband was not actually a war hero, but in fact was the victim of friendly fire. For the sake of the war effort, the public was told this lie in order to bolster morale and boost recruitment. Adama and Kelly have sex in front of their fireplace and Adama later wakes up to find Coker playing the piano in the lobby. He joins Coker, who quickly realizes he has slept with Kelly and chastises him for it. Their discussion is ended when one of the perimeter mines goes off and Cylons begin rushing the resort.

Adama and Coker begin searching for Kelly while Toth chooses to make a stand in the lobby. He manages to take out two Cylons, but is quickly shot up, and two more make their way into the interior to find the others. One of them pursues Kelly into what appears to be a meat locker, where Kelly finds numerous bodies that appear to have been cut up or filled with cables and tubes.

Adama comes upon the second one in the corridor and loses his weapon after getting a shot off, but manages to find a metal pole and beats the thing to death. He and Coker then come upon the Cylon that has the Doctor cornered, and is attempting to read her dog tags, and shoot it dead. In the process, they notice the Cylon is making noises, which Kelly claims is “screaming”. They finish it off and go off to find Toth.

Summary:Unlike the first installment, I actually found a few things that I didn’t like about these episodes. For starters, the number of technical malfunctions that take place is beginning to get repetitive. It seems that in every fight since the series began, the good guys suffer a malfunction and have to do things manually. This happens twice in episode five, first with the Osiris’ nukes, and then with the Wild Weasel. And the result is pretty predictable: the Osiris has to sacrifice itself to take out the base star, and the Wild Weasel has to crash land on the surface.

Second, there was the fact that the Osiris is alone in orbit at the beginning of episode 5 before the battle, and then it doesn’t even bother to call in the other ships when they realize there’s a Basestar in the area. What happened to the rest of the “ghost fleet”? Was it being used for some other mission, or did they plan to call it in but failed to? Not made clear and I’m left wondering why all the other ships were reported lost if they weren’t even going to be used.

And then there was one continuity error I noticed in episode five during the battle scene. After losing control of their nuke launchers, the Commander orders her crew to set course of the Basestar so they can trigger them manually. The first time around, the helmsman complies, but the second time she says it, he objects because and says its suicide. This made no sense. It was obvious the first time she said it that it was a suicide run. You can’t launch them, so setting them off will mean you die. And the only reason to get closer to the Basestar was so they would die too. Why did he only realize this the second time around?

Also, the fact that the special ops team would be dead seemed pretty predictable as well. Somehow, it just seemed obvious that the mission would all come down to the three of them – Adama, Coker and Kelly. It was good that another character became involved, and Toth’s high-strung, PTSD antics proved to be a good addition to the mix. Basically, he was well-paired with Coker’s war-weary character and Adama’s gung-ho attitude. And while they are forced to rely on him, none of them are sure he’s even sane.

But then, he is killed off quite quickly, which kind of sucked. Shouldn’t this hardened survivor man know how to keep his head down during a fight? Instead, he is shot within seconds of the Cylons entering and is dead. And, I should mention, the “sex scene” between Adama and Kelly is never shown, we just know from the way the camera fades out and from him admitting it to Coker that it took place. Considering the obvious tension between the two from the beginning, I don’t see why we couldn’t even see them kiss.

And as a final flaw, Adama and Coker have a surprisingly easy time taking out the two Cylons. The Centurions who enter the resort looking to kill them were very well rendered and detailed, the kind of stuff you expect to see from the Terminator franchise. But then, Adama manages to kills one with a small pole while Coker kills the other with a few well-placed rounds from his gun. For all their intimidating appearance, their armor is basically shit!

And remember the original series, where a bunch of the new models board the Galactica? They explained that their regular weapons were useless and the only way to take one down was with explosive rounds. So why then do these two fall apart the second they are winged with an iron rod or a small arms bullet? I know, budgets and time constraints meant they had to do this part quick, but talk about unrealistic!

Okay, good points now. As usual, the special effects were pretty top notch. It may even be the result of the production value being so high that I began to get so critical this time around, as I forgot that it was a web series and not a full-blown cable show. The appearance of the Centurions and the attention to detail alone would be well worth the price of admission. The scene were the one had Dr. Kelly cornered and is surveying her was pretty awesome, the Cylon staring at her menacingly while tiny tentacle-like spikes on its mouth bristle. Naturally, some of this was designed to hint at their partially-organic nature.

And of course, there were some rather interesting hints embedded in the plot as to what the nature of mission. The hybrid snakes lent the impression that the Cylons could be working on organic-synthetic beings, which as we know from the original series was a technology they eventually perfected. The appearance of the mangled bodies in the meat locker was another hint, even though that was a little confusing*. And of course, the way the Cylon was screaming in pain after being shot and Dr. Kelly claims that “they feel pain now”. And of course this all helped to preview how the Cylons evolved from the “toasters” of the first war to the hybrid, organic machines they were in the second.

*Wasn’t the resort Toth’s hideout? What were a bunch of Cylon experiments doing in there? Had they been using it before he showed up and he didn’t even know? Or did he realize the Cylons were once there and figured he could hide there and rig it in case they chose to come back? Not explained…

All in all, the show has been progressing quite nicely, albeit with a few bumps along the way, and I am looking forward to the dramatic conclusion! Stay tuned!

White House Petition: Build the USS Enterprise!

Earlier this year, an engineer who goes by the alias BTE Dan claimed that a working model of the USS Enterprise could be built with existing technology and completed within 20 years. And this was a full-scale Enterprise, complete with a lower hull, upper saucer section, artificial gravity, ion engines, nuclear power, and a 100 kilowatt laser.

Well it seems that Dan wasn’t finished just yet. To follow up on this move, he stated a White House petition to do a feasibility study and conceptual design of the USS Enterprise interplanetary spaceship. This, he sees as a viable step towards ensuring that a segment of scientists and engineers in the space industry take an active interest and help move the concept forward.

As it stands, the concept still has numerous technical flaws, Dan admits, but that is precisely why he is seeking professionals help. As he put it, “There is a lot of waste heat to get rid of, today’s ion propulsions engines need major advances, and perhaps stability problems will be found with the gravity wheel.” And that’s just for starters…

What’s more, his initial visit with NASA space engineers and space contractors did not go so well. As he put it, “I am an outsider poking around in their sandbox, and human nature is that people don’t like that.” However, since the story first broke earlier this year, Dan’s website has crashed because of the massive increase in traffic.

Mainly, people are impressed with the depth and detail of his planning, which not only includes conceptual designs and designs specs, but also comes complete with a funding schedule and accounting for just about every detail of the ship’s construction. But mainly, I’m thinking people are intrigued by the possibility that such a project could actually be feasible, and are impressed with Dan’s passion and commitment to seeing it happen by the 2030′s.

As of this evening, the petition has collected 19,804 signatures, and needs only 5,196 more to reach the minimum required for consideration. Personally, I recommend we get on it. It’s just a feasibility study, after all, and I for one am interested to see if it could really be done. To read and/or sign the White House petition, click here. And be sure to check out the video below of some of the proposed star craft’s inner workings:

Source: Universe Today.com, Build the enterprise.org

Best Roger Clip Ever: Nazi Walrus!

I’m a big fan of the show American Dad, in part because of the hilarious and often sociopathic exploits of the alien Roger Smith. In this clip from the season six premier (100 A.D. Part One), we see Roger and Steve in their “Wheels and the Legman” roles while out looking for Hailey. Unfortunately, Roger gets high on some Turkish amphetamines he scored in a men’s bathroom and promptly goes nuts, right after he made a speech about the virtues of moderation!

Pure roger, and quite hilarious! Hope this clip finds you all in good spirits and relatively stress free as we go into the New Year and return to the grindstone.

More Top Stories of 2012

With 2012 now officially behind us, and more and more stories trickling into this humble bloggers account about what was accomplished therein, it seems that the time is ripe for another list of breakthroughs, first, and achievements that made the news during the previous year!

Last time, I listed what I saw as the top 12, only to find that there were several others, some of which I actually wrote about, that didn’t make the cut. How foolish of me! And so, to remedy this and possibly cover stories that I neglected to cover the first time around, I have produced another list of the top stories from 2012.

And much like last time, I have listed them according to alphabetical order, since I couldn’t possibly assign them numbers based on importance.

Abortion Study:

Abortion has always been a contentious issue, with one side arguing for the rights of the unborn while the other argues in favor of women’s right to control her own body and reproduction. And as it happens, 2012 saw the publication of the first longitudinal study of what happens to women who are denied this right.

The UC San Francisco research team, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), studied nearly 1,000 women from diverse backgrounds across the U.S. over several years. All of these subjects were women had sought out abortions but been denied access for one reason or another. What they discovered was that these women were more likely to slip below the poverty line, be unemployed, remain in abusive relationships, and suffer from hyper stress. What this ongoing study demonstrates is that abortion is an economic issue for women, with dire consequences for those denied them.

Autism Reversed:

2012 was an especially significant year in medical advances thanks to a team at McGill University in Montreal announced that they’ve successfully reversed the symptoms of autism in mice. Using mice with autism-like symptoms caused by a genetic mutation, the researchers figured out how to administer a protein that reversed the symptoms.

Naturally, this development is a step in the long process of understanding a disorder which remains largely misunderstood. In addition, it may, in time, lead to the development of a gene therapy that will prevent autism from being triggered in children and even weed it out of parent’s genetic code, ensuring that their children will be immune.

Commercial Space Travel:

It has long been the dream of financiers, captains of industry and enthusiasts to create commercial space travel; a means for the average person to go into space, the moon, and even beyond. And all at a reasonable price! This dream is still the subject of speculation and fantasy, but 2012 was a year of firsts that made it seem that much closer.

For starters, Virgin Galactic, the brain-child of Richard Branson, began flight tests on SpaceShipTwo, the rocket ship that will take people into orbit. Then came Reaction Engines Limited with the proposed design for the hypersonic aerospace engine. And finally, there was the creation of Golden Spike, a company made up largely of former astronauts, who want to make commercial flight to the moon a go by 2020.

Electricity-Creating Virus:

A breakthrough virus named M13 made news in 2012 for being the first ever virus that could turn physical activity into electricity. The key is what is known as the “piezoelectric effect,” which happens when certain materials like crystals (or viruses) emit a small amount of power when squeezed. Created by a  team of scientists at the Berkeley Lab, this genetically engineered M13 viruses was able to emit enough electricity to power a small LED screen, but poses no threat to humans. One day, all devices could be powered through the simple act of typing or walking, and buildings could be powered by absorbing people’s activity.

Encyclopedia of DNA (ENCODE):

The publication of the human genome back in the late 90′s was a major breakthrough for genetics and medical science. And in 2012, another breakthrough was achieved by researchers at USC with the publication of ENCODE – The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Project. Unlike the previous project, these researchers were able not only to catalog the human genome’s various parts, but what those components actually do.

Among the initiative’s many findings was that so-called “junk DNA” – outlier DNA sequences that do not encode for protein sequences – are not junk at all, and are in fact responsible for such things as gene regulation, disease onset, and even human height. These findings will go a long way towards developing gene therapy, biotechnology that seeks to create artificial DNA and self-assembling structures, and even cloning.

Face Transplant:

2012 was also the year that the first full-face transplant was ever conducted. The recipient in question was a man named Richard Norris, a man who lost significant portions of his face from a gunshot accident back in 1997. And after years of attempted reconstructive surgeries, doctors working out of the University of Maryland Medical Center performed a procedure that gave Mr. Norris a has face, teeth, tongue, and a completely new set of jaws.

Not only that, but within days of the surgery, Norris was able to move his facial muscle and jaw. Combined with the nature of the surgery itself, this is not short of unprecedented, and could mean a new age in which severe accident victims and veterans are able to recover fully from physical traumas and live perfectly normal, happy lives.

The Higgs Boson Discovered:

I can’t believe I didn’t include this story last time, as it is possibly the biggest story of 2012, and perhaps one of the biggest stories since the millennium! 2012 will forever go down in history as the year that the Higgs Boson was discovered. After some 40 years of ongoing research, and fears that it would never be discovered, the last missing piece of The Standard Model of particle physics was found.

Not only does the existence of the Higgs Boson confirm that the Standard Model is valid, it also helps explain how other elementary particles get their mass. This will herald a new step in the advance of particle and the quantum physics, and could lead to the development of quantum computing, quantum generators, and a greater understand of the universe itself.

High-Tech Condom:

Using a revolutionary nano-fabrication process known as electrospinning, researchers at the University of Washington have produced the world’s first female condom that not only prevents pregnancy and protects against HIV, but also evaporates after use. In addition, the manufacturing method used is a step in the direction of viable nanotechnology. Score one for safe sex, public health, and a waste free future permeated by tiny machines and smart materials! That’s a big score card…

Infinite Capacity Wireless:

2012 was also the year that it was proven that it could be possible to boost the capacity of wireless communication infinitely. The discovery was first made by Bo Thide of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics and some Italian colleagues in Venice, and then confirmed by a team of American and Israeli researchers who used the technique to transmit data at a rate of 2.5 terabytes a second.

Conventional radio signals are transmitted on a flat plane, but Thide twisted the transmitting and receiving antennae into the shape of corkscrew. By adding another dimension to the mix, the technique added a lot of extra bandwidth. As a result, the problem of bandwidth crunches might be a thing of the past, not to mention problems of slow download/upload.

Google Neural Net:

Another first and definitely one of the biggest headlines of 2012, far as I was concerned. So why I forgot to include it last time is beyond me! For generations scientists have contemplating the idea of AI and wondered how and where the first leap might be made from basic computing towards true machine intelligence. And as it turns out, Google X Labs, the same place where Project Glass was conceived, seems to have accomplished just that.

The accomplishment came when the labs created a neural network based on sixteen core processors and a connectome with a billion connections. The network accomplished its first task by studying millions of images on Youtube and then demonstrating the ability to differentiate between the faces of cats and humans. This act of independent reasoning that went beyond mere image recognition, and is a major step towards the achievement of a fully-functional artificial intelligence.

Stem cell mammal:

For the first time in history, researchers at Kyoto University created a mouse by using eggs derived from stem cells alone. The achievement once again shows the remarkable possibilities presented by regenerative technologies like stem cells, while raising pressing ethical questions about the potential for human births in which parents might not be required.

Water in the Solar System:

2012 was also the year that an unprecedented amount of discoveries were made in our solar system. In addition to all the interesting revelations made by the Curiosity Rover, a number of probes discovered water on Europa, Mercury, Titan, and other Saturnalian moons. Usually, this comes in the form of water saturated with hydrocarbons, as was evident on Titan, but the discoveries remain monumental.

In addition to Titan’s methane lakes and Nile-like river, ice and organic molecules were discovered near the poles of Mercury. Evidence of water was found on Mars, indicating the existence of rivers and oceans at one time, and the Cassini space probe confirmed that Enceladus has its own oceans. All of this bodes well for the future of space exploration and colonization, where domestic sources of water may be used for hydrogen cells, hydroponics and even drinking water.

World’s First Tractor Beam:

In another interesting first, NASA scientists demonstrated in 2012 that another staple technology from Star Trek may be realizable. Yes, in addition to the warp drive, scientists scientists David Ruffner and David Grier demonstrated that a tractor beam may also be realizable in the not-too-distant future. And given the 100 Year Starship Project and other desires to commit to space exploration, such a device could come in mighty handy!

Using a prototype optical beam to pull a small sphere of silica (30 micrometers) suspended in water, Grier and Ruffner pioneered the use of a Bessel beam, a long-established concept, to pull an object of discernible size and mass around. Naturally, NASA hopes to create a more high-powered version of the technology for use on space craft down the road.

*                    *                    *

Thank you once more for attending this symposium on technological breakthroughs during the year of 2012! It was a good year, wouldn’t you say? And barring the advent of killer robots sometime in the near future that unleash a nuclear holocaust on us and force us all to work as slaves, I think people will look back on these developments in a positive light.

Yes, assuming humanity can keep its wits about itself and ensure the ethical application of all we’ve accomplished, 2012 may be seen as a turning point, where incurable diseases became preventable, AI’s became realizable, and limitless communications, super-fast computations, paper-thin flexible devices, green technology, commercial spaceflight, and Solar planet colonization all became truly viable.

Source: extremetech.com, IO9.com

Gun Parts Purged from 3D Printing Database

Back in December, the 3D printing company MakerBot announced its decision to purge designs for AR15 components and other weapons from its 3D printing wesbsite, known as Thingiverse. Prior to this date, it was perfectly legal to download the components of an AR-15 assault weapon from the internet.

This weapon was not only one of the guns used in the recent Newton, Connecticut shooting, it is also the weapon that Distributed Defense – a Wiki Weapons group – claims to have successfully created using 3D printed parts. In a statement released to the public, Makerbot’s spokesperson cited Terms of Service and legal issues as the reason for the decision:

“Thingiverse’s Terms of Service state that users agree not to use Thingiverse “to collect, upload, transmit, display, or distribute any User Content (ii) that…promotes illegal activities or contributes to the creation of weapons, illegal materials or is otherwise objectionable.” If an item has been removed, it is because it violates the Thingiverse Terms of Service.”

To wit, these Terms of Service have not changed, but Makerbot’s enforcement of them certainly has. By law, the company has the right to pull any items from its file list that they feel could be used in the commission of  crime. And since one of the most heinous crimes imaginable was commissioned using parts that are freely available on their site, this change is hardly surprising.

Personally, the decision seems like a no-brainer. And simply saying they don’t want people using their website to construct guns and go on shootings sprees would have sufficed for me, no need to justify it by citing legal articles! However, said components and other firearm parts still remain available on several other open source internet websites. No telling if and when they will follow Makerbot’s lead, but I think we can expect them to endorse the ban while they can still do it willingly.

Given the pressure that has been placed on the White House to ban the sale of firearms of late, especially assault weapons, and the attention Defense Distributed got with their creation of an AR-15 rifle using certain “printable parts”, it quite likely that a gun control provision will be passed that makes it illegal to print any and all gun components.

Source: news.cnet.com

The Moon: The Next Hot Vacation Destination?

Back in 2006, a series of millionaires shelled out a hefty 20 million dollars for a round trip to the International Space Station. At the time, this was considered quite the privilege, seeing as how civilian personnel almost never get to go into space or spend time on the ISS. But as it turns out, this story may be on its way to becoming small potatoes, thanks in part to a new company that has announced plans to mount commercial voyages to the moon by 2020.

The company is called Golden Spike, a company made up largely of former astronauts and personnel who want to use existing and future technology to make private Lunar trips possible. Its current chairman is Gerry Griffin, Apollo flight director and former director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The president and CEO is planetary scientist Alan Stern, former head of all NASA science missions.

Given the cost, Golden Spike is mainly focused on offering its services to governments at the moment, much like how Russia has offering its services to governments looking to get to the ISS in the past few years. In that case and this one, these would be nations that would like to participate in space and planetary exploration but can’t afford a program of their own. But of course, should there be private citizens who want to book a ride and can afford it, they are not likely to be turned away!

Alpha Moon Base at http://www.smallartworks.ca

Granted, at one time, science fiction writers were predicting that humanity would have bases on the moon by the early 20th century. But those predictions were largely abandoned thanks to the scrapping of the Apollo program and the fact that the ISS was Earth’s only orbiting space station by the turn of the century. And of course, the only way to get there cost private citizens 20 million bucks!

But this announcement, which comes on the heels of several encouraging developments, may have reignited these hopes. First, there was Reaction Engines Ltd’s announcement of the concept for the Skylon hypersonic engine , followed shortly thereafter by Virgin Galactic’s successful deployment of SpaceShipTwo. Given the pace at which aerospace is evolving and progressing, commercial flight to the moon may be coming, though a little later than previously expected.

However, making it affordable remains a daunting task. As it stands, Golden Spike’s own estimates place the cost of a single trip to the Moon at roughly 1.5 billion dollars. Naturally, the company has also indicated that they intend to make the process more affordable so all people can make the trip. No telling how this will be achieved, but if history is any indication, time has a way of making technology cheaper and more commercially viable.

So… vacation on the moon anyone? Hell, I can envision an entire line of spas, time shares and getaways on the Lunar surface in the not-too-distant future. Sure, it may not be the Mediterranean or the Mayan Riviera, but I can think of plenty of fun activities for people to do, and the novelty factor alone ought to sell tickets. Rover tours, visits to the Apollo landing sites, low-g sports and anti-aging therapies. Oh, and if Alan Shepard and the Apollo 14 mission are any indication, you can even play golf there!

Check out this video of Golden Spike’s proposed tours to the Moon, or learn more about the company by visiting their website.

Pappa Zulu – Chapter 41

“War does not determine who is right – only who is left.”

-Bertrand Russell

He knelt low behind the tree at the edge of the property. His legs were aching and his chest was on fire, the result of the constant running his last encounter with the enemy. He could hear them in the distance, a troop truck moving and stopping at regular intervals, working their way forward towards their objective and harrying anyone that resembled their comrade’s killer.

But their final objective remained the same, and so he had made a beeline there to beat them to it. He still wasn’t sure why they sought to occupy the Veteran’s Hospital, nor could he be sure he wasn’t placing them in greater danger by coming here. But something demanded it, possibly a primitive sense of honor. Possibly the belief that the sick and the wounded needed protection from someone who was up, about, and armed.

And how ironic. Every time he had been in this place in the past, he couldn’t wait to get out. Even when he had woken up to find himself sick and suffering from flashbacks, the moment they passed he was fighting to leave. And now, he was fighting to get back in.

And to keep others out, he reminded himself. Where did that fit in this grand scheme of things? Was that ironic, symbolic, or just plain stupid? Who the hell cared? All he knew was, he had arrived ahead of the enemy platoon, and he intended to get inside while he still had some energy left.

He set one foot in front of the other and launched himself forward. His boots smacked against soil and concrete as he passed from the lawn, to the sidewalk and then to the asphalt of the front parking lot. He stopped when he saw helmets and the telltale pattern of cammo fatigues. His eyes quickly registered the stretchers and the bearers, men with weapons standing by.

He dropped to one knee and leveled his M4 at them, aiming down his sites. His ears began to pick up the sound of barked orders and the sounds of more boots slapping the asphalt. He couldn’t be sure, but some of the voices sounded familiar…

“Get him inside! We got multiple five-five-six wounds and shrapnel.”

“Get him prepped for surgery. He’s got internal bleeding and possible septic shock.”

The latter voice was especially familiar, striking a cord deep in his mind. He opened both eyes and raised himself to a crouch, looking closely at the people working the entrance. He spotted the fatigues, the shoulder patches, and the IV one of the bearers was holding aloft.

Rattlesnakes, he concluded with some relief. He also spotted the white smock of doc Andrews, and his relief grew by several magnitudes. Again, he was getting that ironic feeling. Most days, he couldn’t wait to rid himself of the doc’s incessant and insufferable presence. But now, in the midst of a crisis, he could think of few people he wanted to see more.

Raising his weapon to the side, he ran for the east entrance and prepared to identify himself. As expected, several of the riflemen trained their weapons as they saw him approach.

“Don’t shoot!” he yelled. “Sergeant Aaron Dezba, First squad, First platoon, Bravo.”

“Dezba?” one of the grunts said. Dezba recognized him as Corporal Watkins, an NCO with Charlie Company. At the moment, he looked like he might be acting CO of a squad, or maybe something higher.

“Hey, Charlie,” he said. “You look like shit.”

Watkins lowered his M16 and reached out to grab his hand. “Where ya been, Sarge?”

“On leave,” he said, taking the hand offered. He noticed Watkins eyes looking at his other hand. His smile faded. Suddenly, no further explanations were needed.

Dezba looked next to Andrews. “Doc… how you doing?”

Andrews smiled curtly and looked back to the man on the stretcher before them. “Sergeant. Good to see you again. We’re a little busy right now, think you might help?”

Dezba was a little taken aback. The man’s usual, gentle nature had been replaced with something new, something stern and demanding. But of course, they were not in their usual environment, he the trauma patient and Andrews the rehabilitation specialist. At the moment, they were simply a blood-stained grunt and a blood-stained medic.

Dezba tossed his rifle off to the nearest grunt who looked free and grabbed a hold of one of the stretchers. One of Andrews underlings grabbed the other end and they scurried into the hospital entrance, coming to a gurneys where they began transferring the wounded and wheeling them off into the interior.

Andrews stepped aside to exchange some more clinical talk with another doctor, all heated from the sound of it. Dezba could understand about half of the words spoken – those that were in English, anyway – but he certainly picked up on the word “overloaded”, which was said about three times. In the interim, he waved Watkins over.

“What’s the situation, Corporal?”

“The situation?” Watkins echoed, a little incredulous. “Situation is, sir, we’re getting our butts handed to us. Enemy started dropping at dawn. No one saw em coming til it was too late. Then Warlock calls us up and tells us to dig in and await relief.” He paused a moment, apparently getting to the hard part. “ Our platoon got especially hard hit. Troops and LAVs start dropping in in our sector, we barely got time to mount a proper resistance.”

“What did you do?”

Watkins wiped his nose, nodded sideways. “We fell back to plaza and set up defenses. The LT had a plan to set up a fire shack, take out any armor that tried to cross the bridge. We could tell they wanted the west bank and figured we could slow them down. It worked too… for awhile.”

Dezba waited. He could tell what was coming next, though he couldn’t be sure of the details. From his vantage point, the entire fight prior to his taking out those three grunts was all noise on the horizon.

“Then, some of the bastards called in an airstrike on our position. Bunch of F/A-18′s dive bombed us and sent everybody sprawling. The LT was killed, our Squad leader suddenly got promoted and tried to take control. Only thing he could think to do was fall back a few blocks and ordered me to organize an evac of all our wounded.”

Dezba nodded. “So you brought them here.”

“Only one vehicle,” he said, nodding back to their Humvee in the lot. “Had to load it up heavy.” He paused again. More things were coming to mind. “Worst part was, we were doing okay so long as we figured you buds in Second would be showing up soon. But then, get this, we get a follow up communique telling us that there is no relief coming, and that our new orders are to find a place to hide and wait. We even got permission to surrender, if need be.”

Dezba frowned, looking equally incredulous. Sounded like more a series of fuck-ups, not orders. And the contradictory nature of them was also offensive on a much deeper level. In short, they made no sense, and not in the normal, SNAFU sense of the word.

“I don’t understand,” he said finally. “Where the hell was Second Battalion in all this? Weren’t they just outside of town?”

“Yeah, only fifty clicks. If word got to them the moment we got word to start mobilizing, they should have been right on our doorstep. But some fuckhead told them to back off just when they could have been the most help. It was like somebody lost their nerve and decided to send everybody packing before anybody else got killed.”

Dezba shook his head. ’That… doesn’t sound like the Mage.”

“Yeah, well… it came from Warlock, and that’s his baby. If someone else got weak in the knees, it must have been because someone else was in charge.”

Dezba was on the verge of pointing out the flaw in the argument, but then stopped when he realized what was really being said. Could it really be? Could the worst have really happened? Were things that bad? If so, then it was much worse than them just getting kicked in the pants. A kick in the pants one could recover from, albeit slowly. This was more like a stab through the heart. After something like that, there was just slow death.

But he couldn’t think about that now. At the moment, they had a more urgent matter developing right on their doorstep. He looked over at Andrews, saw that he was between heated statements, and called him over.

“Doc, we need to talk,” he said. Watkins was about to leave them, but Dezba held him there. “No, Corporal, you need to hear this too.” He took a deep breath, tried to think of the best way to start. “So… look, while I was out there, I overheard some troopers on their radios. They were ordered to report to this location and secure it. I managed to take out the three I overheard, but they were waiting on an entire platoon to back them up. I managed to evade them, but it sounds like they got a troop truck and are on their way here. I might have slowed them down a bit too, but they were pretty much on my heels. My being here means they can’t be far behind.”

Andrews looked more annoyed than fearful. Watkins seemed a little distracted as well.

“Gentlemen, did you hear me? We got anywhere between two dozen and fifty men on their way here. And when they get here, they’re not exactly going to be looking for coffee and cake. I can’t tell what they’re ROE is, but since they’re attacking us, I know we won’t have a lot of options.”

“Just… shut up for a second,” he said, waving his hand. Dezba was taken aback. This was definitely not the Andrews he knew. “Our resources are strained enough as it is. Our patients – wounded and traumatized people, all – are woken up this morning to the tune of explosions and gunfire. It took every member of our staff to keep them from tearing their stitches out and clawing their eyes out. Then I get this man coming here telling me we have to make room for his wounded.” He pointed to Watkins, then to Dezba. “Then you come here and tell me we can expect hostile soldiers here any second. Have I got all that right?”

Dezba and Watkins looked at each other and shared a moment of shared thought. It fell to Dezba to reply, being the latest bearer of bad news.

“Uh, yes. That’s about right.”

Andrews waved his hand, smiled bitterly. “That’s just great. Good to know where we stand. So what will you be needing from us then? How can we accommodate you?”

He was pointing at Dezba again. “Well… I need Watkins and his men to set up a defensive perimeter. Under the circumstances, it would be best if the patients were moved further inside, away from the outer walls and the entrance.”

Andrews huffed and his face went slightly red. “We’ve been moving patients all morning. Since the explosions went off and our patients started going nuts!” He paused. That characterization seemed a bit harsh, given the nature of his work and patients. “Ah, what I mean is, the patients are already safely within, a precaution to insulate them from the noise. Is there anything else?”

Dezba looked at Watkins again. He couldn’t think of anything else right no. “Not at the moment, no. But… you should probably expect some additional casualties. Once the shooting starts, people are going to be hurt.”

Andrews took a deep breath, his color lightening again. “Of course. We’ll certainly do what we can.”

There didn’t appear to be anything more to say. Andrews eventually nodded and turned to leave. Dezba was sure to wait until he was out of earshot before asking the obvious.

“Has he been like this all morning?”

“Hell yes!” Watkins replied. “You look like you guys know each other. Does he get better?”

Dezba looked at the nearest set of doors, the ones the Doctor had just disappeared into. “I’m not sure. That is not the man I know.”

Volcanoes on Venus?

In spite of the challenges posed in studying the planet Venus – see dense clouds of sulfuric acid and surface temperatures in excess of 480 degrees C – scientists have learned quite a bit in recent years from orbiting spacecraft about the planets atmosphere and surface.

For example, the European Space Agency’s Venus Express made an interesting discovery that made the news recently. In short, since its arrivals in 2006, it detected has a sharp decline in atmospheric sulfur dioxide (SO2) concentrations, which followed in the wake of a spike in SO2 concentrations.

The most plausible explanation for this, according to Emmanuel Marcq, is a volcanic eruption, caught in the act. Marcq is the lead author on the report detailing this occurrence, which appeared in a recent issue of Nature Geoscience. A volcano is not the only possibly, he admits. “We know that on Earth there are long-term atmospheric cycles,” he says. “So it could happen on Venus as well. We can’t dismiss this possibility at the moment.”

But of course, volcanoes are much more likely. Not only are they the a known source of SO2 (at least on Earth), the surface of Venus is also peppered with volcanoes and its surface is marked by extensive volcanic activity. Most of these are extinct, but evidence obtained over the past few decades have indicated that there may be some that are still active.

For example, back in the early 1980’s Pioneer Venus documented SO2 levels nearly 50 times higher than anyone expected, followed by a steady dramatic decline. Then in the early 1990’s, the Magellan spacecraft detected what appeared to be fresh lava. “It’s very similar to the one we’re observing now,” said Marcq.

Naturally, this sort of activity is one of the things that makes Venus such a rosy place to live! In addition to the runaway Greenhouse Effect that has turned its atmosphere into the carbon choked, acidic stuff of death, its surface is prone to recurring lava flows and hot magma. Naturally, it will be quite the feat to land a satellite on the surface to conduct research in the same way that we currently do Mars. And as for terraforming, which has also been proposed, that too will be quite the challenge!

Source: science.time.com

A Look at “Living Mars”

With the confirmation that Mars with once home to oceans and rivers, and with speculation that a terraformed Mars will once again, there are many who wonder what a “Blue Mars” would look like. As it happens, a software engineer named Kevin Gill took it upon himself to create a series of images showing what a “living Mars” might look like.

Relying on his own imagination and a series of combined source material, the Red Planet gets a makeover, with aesthetically pleasing results! In an interview via email, Gill said the following of his process:

“This was something that I did both out of curiosity of what it would look like and to improve the software I was rendering this in. I am a software engineer by trade and certainly no planetary scientist, so with the exception of any parts derived from actual data, most of it is assumptions I made based on simply comparing the Mars terrain to similar features here on Earth (e.g. elevation, proximity to bodies of water, physical features, geographical position, etc) and then using the corresponding textures from the Blue Marble images to paint the flat image layer in a graphics program.”

For example, the view above is of the western hemisphere of Mars, with Olympus Mons on the horizon beyond the Tharsis Montes volcanoes and the Valles Marineris canyons near the center. The placement of clouds and the atmosphere was mainly to achieve a sense of scale and grandeur, but the rest is in keeping with information obtained by NASA over the years.

And these are just some of the images Gill has made over the years. His Flickr is awash in visualizations, many of which are of Mars, the Moon, and of course Earth, all of which are rendered from orbit. He also makes 3D models of geographic features, which comes in handy when its time to construct large-scale models.

Source: Universe Today.com