Posts belonging to Category Sci-Fi

Europa Report is a new movie about an international team of astronauts sent a mission to land on and explore the Jovian moon Europa. What makes Europa Report different is that it looks entirely realistic! In fact, the trailer looks like it could have come from an actual mission that might occur this decade — the rocket, the ship, the space suits, the capsule, the zero-g, the space walks… everything… it all looks completely scientifically accurate. Also, blogger/astronomer Phil Plait says as much.

Anyway, check it out!

Now that Disney has bought Lucas Film, what should we expect for then next Star Wars films? I think these guys have a pretty good idea (and it’s pretty well done, too).

But seriously, it looks like the new Star Wars films will be coming out in the summer of 2015, followed by a new film every summer until 2019 (so 5 new films). For more information on that, checkout the article at the Telegraph.

Was the tragic destruction of the Imperial Death Star at the hands of the Rebel Alliance an inside job? You decide.

Well, this is certainly interesting. The National Intelligence Council, one of those enigmatic-sounding-yet-mostly-harmless-(well-probably) US government agencies,  has recently released a report called Global Trends 2030. This is interesting because it projects 4 plausible scenarios, or “Alternative Worlds”,  for the future state of the world in the year 2030, covering the subjects of politics, populations, science, technology, economics, and global conflicts. The various projected game changers, black swans, and potential breakthroughs all come together to create the 4 hypothetical worlds: some good and some not-so good.

For writers of science fiction (at least science fiction taking place within in the next 20 years or so), this could be most enlightening indeed.

You can get the full PDF of the Global Trends 2030 report here.

The White House has just rejected a modest proposal to secure resources and funding to begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.  White House science and technology adviser Paul Shawcross shot down the idea sighting the $850 quadrillion dollar price tag, plus pointing out that the Death Star has a “fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship.” I suppose that is a pretty good point.

The petition and official White House response can be found here, and while humorous, it also points out many of the past and forthcoming accomplishments the US space program has made, as well as the new private initiatives on the horizon.

You can also read more at this Washington Post article.

Director of the Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson, has found Superman’s home star system of Krypton! Apparently, the star is a red dwarf designated LHS 2520 in the constellation Corvus, some 27.1 light years from Earth.

This was, of course, done for DC Comics, and Dr. Tyson himself can be seen along side Superman in the panels of Action Comic #14. Yey for science!

Holy mother of Vader, Disney has just acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion! Apparently, Disney is also going to make a 7th film for release in 2015, with more films to follow every 2 to 3 years.

Here’s a video interview:

I guess we’ll just wait and see where this is going…

Is warp drive possible? Dr. Harold White, Advanced Propulsion Lead for the NASA Engineering Directorate, thinks that it might be — and he’s not alone. The first plausible concept for a real warp drive was suggested in 1994 by physicist Miguel Alcubierre, for which the concept is also known as the Alcubierre drive, but such a drive would required absolutely astronomical amounts of energy (and by “astronomical” I mean an a matter/anti-matter reaction with a mass-energy requirement equal to Jupiter). Dr. Harold White’s concept only requires a few hundred kilos of mass-energy.

Discovery News has a great article, as well as a really neat slide show that you should certainly check out. You can also read Space.com’s article, or the one at Gizmodo.

Too lazy to read? No problem. Here’s a nice news video:

White’s team is going to attempt a very, very small scale experiment  at the Johnson Space Center to attempt to create some microscopic warp bubbles. If successfully, this could pave the way for future breakthroughs in advanced space propulsion. Here’s to their success — or as the Klingons would say, Qapla’!

As I previously posted, we’ve just returned from Dragon*Con 2012, and it was great! Most of my pictures turned out to be from the parade (since I skipped out on the costume contest), and while I have far more pictures than I can possibly post, I thought I would just post a few of the highlights of the Dragon*Con 2012 parade.

The many Doctors of Doctor Who.

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Well, we just returned from Dragon*Con 2012, and it was great! Dragon*Con is one of North America’s biggest sci-fi/fantasy conventions, and I think there were somewhere around 45,000 people there this year (though I swear it felt more like 45,008). I can’t even begin to name the guests who attend, but I’ll just throw out some names like Alice Cooper, Richard Dean Anderson, Adam Baldwin, Bruce Boxleitner, Joe Flanigan, Robert Picardo, Michael Dorn, Richard Hatch, Sylvester McCoy, John Rhys-Davies, Richard Garriott, Phil Plait, Kevin J. Anderson, Tracy Hickman… the list goes on and on and on.

Hobbit and Lord of the Rings cast – Sylvester McCoy, Craig Parker, Billy Boyd, and John Rhys-Davies

Stargate SG1 and Atlantis cast, with Richard Dean Anderson

Richard Garriott, with his Dell computer (and perhaps playing Ultima?)

I’ll be posting some pictures from the parade soon. Stay tuned!