As seen in email: a Mars One Way scheme

Mars One plans to establish the first human settlement on Mars by April 2023. The first crew of four astronauts emigrate to their new planet from Earth, a journey that takes seven months. A new team will join the settlement every two years. By 2033 there will be over twenty people living, working and flourishing on Mars, their new home.

Emily Lakdawalla's What's Up in the Solar System in June 2012

Welcome to my monthly roundup of the activities of our intrepid robotic emissaries across the solar system! Probably the most anticipated celestial event of the month is not happening on a spacecraft; it's the June 5/6 transit of Venus, which I think I may watch from the Griffith Observatory. On Mars, Opportunity is finally covering new ground again, as Curiosity is barelling toward its August 5 landing. At Saturn, Cassini is getting its first good views of Saturn's rings for two and a half years, and will have good imaging encounters with Mimas and Tethys as well as RADAR observations of Titan this month. GRAIL has completed its prime mission and is beginning to set up for its extended mission, while Dawn's climbing to a higher altitude above Vesta. For other missions, it's business as usual, exploring alien worlds.

( Read more... )

Lloyd Cole's cover of Chelsea Hotel

Lyrics nsfw

A thought

Still working my way through X Minus One episodes. I wonder how John W. Campbell reacted when X Minus One stopped drawing on Astounding for the basis of X Minus One's radio plays and began using rival SF magazine Galaxy as a source instead?

Republican War on Women steps up a notch

Jay Townsend, a campaign spokesman for Republican Rep. Nan Hayworth (NY-19) has ignited a controversy after he said, "Let's hurl some acid" at female Democratic senators.

Seen in this month's Ansible

Steven Moffat received a special BAFTA Award for Doctor Who: 'Blimey! A Special Award! I didn't even know I was ill!' [MPJ] But he complained about certain reactions to Who and Sherlock: 'There's been a weird backlash among, I presume, fairly stupid people about the fact the shows are complicated and clever ...'

Living in the Future

Pohl himself, in an afterword to [Age of the Pussyfoot], made the following statement about the world he foresaw:

"I do not really think it will be that long. Not five centuries. Perhaps not even five decades."

Forty years after the publication of the novel, most people of 2005 will recognise the functions of the Joymaker in the cellphone, laptop computer, and personal digital assistant. Only the medical capabilities are missing from devices carried by people in industrialized nations in the early 21st century. These devices, however usually have far more computing power than the Joymaker as conceived, and more even than the 1960s mainframe computers that provided the inspiration. Some of the actual social effects of portable communication and computing parallel those predicted in the novel.

Age of the Pussyfoot can be found in this bundle of books.

Dear Baen

' does not mean "LOOK OUT! HERE COMES AN ESS!