Clarkesworld Podcast July 2010: Beach Blanket Spaceship(Sandra McDonald)

[james_davis_nicoll]

Beach Blanket Spaceship(Sandra McDonald)

An astronaut takes a holiday in a simulation of a 1950s beach film. It doesn't go exactly according to plan.

So, I was talking about ideas SF could lose now? I should have mentioned things like "Voyager 20", where some old probe program name is used with an implausibly large number tacked on. The final Voyager launch was almost 40 years ago. I am pretty sure the US isn't going to suddenly say "Hey, let's launch at least 18 more space probes named after ones from the Carter Administration."

(Not that another 18 Voyager class probes with modern space rated tech would be a bad idea)

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

That's not an implausible naming convention, just an obsolete one. The US had Mariner, Pioneer, etc. series that went on forever.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

(Not that another 18 Voyager class probes with modern space rated tech would be a bad idea)

Viewed in this light, New Horizons is Voyager 3, sort of. We could use seventeen more spacecraft more or less like this.

I've been thinking that I would like to be in Pasadena in July of 2015. Neptune was a lot of fun.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

The military has tended to stick with numbering schemes longer (fighters, bombers, X planes, nuclear warheads). Ship names have also been reused, although you don't see two ships in the same navy with the same name at any given time.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

That's not an implausible naming convention, just am obsolete one. The US had Mariner, Pioneer, etc. series that went on forever.