RIP David Prowse, 1935-2020

 David Prowse is one of those actors whom everyone has seen...sort of...but few people know.

A bodybuilder and weightlifter, the 6'6 actor was most famous for being the physical presence of Darth Vader. In England he was also known as the Green Crossing Man for starring in a series of PSAs designed to teach little kids to wait for the light when crossing the road.

Prowse is often forgotten. His face was hidden by a mask and his voice was replaced (without telling him at the time) by James Earl Jones. But his incredible physicality and control defined the intimidating body language. He was, in fact, given a choice when he auditioned...in an alternate reality he was Chewbacca, but he didn't want to deal with the fursuit. I don't entirely blame him, they didn't have cooling vests back then! Also, "Everyone remembers the villain, George."

(But I'd watch that alternate Star Wars).

Of course, everyone also remembers Chewbacca. And we remember Darth by his voice...although in the end, Prowse apparently agreed with that decision. Despite this there was a feud between him and Lucas that resulted in him being banned from official events. (He turned round and engaged with a fan community often neglected by Lucas and, due to the fact that he was already in disgrace, was involved in a number of fan films).

Oh, and as well as being an actor he played a behind-the-scenes role that is often forgotten: He trained actors who needed to bulk up quickly for a role, including Christopher Reeve.

I'm envisioning the Vader hand twist, which I suspect was all Prowse. He will be missed by a fan community that was in the end more welcoming to him than the official world of Star Wars.

Friday Updates

No actual news just yet, so I'm just going to toss up a reminder.

Books make great holiday gifts. I'm always open to giving recommendations if you give me a solid idea of what the person is looking for! 

Uh oh...

 ...the sun's popped a pimple. There's a huge sunspot on the sun right now.

Thankfully, it doesn't appear to be setting off a solar flare, which might disrupt everyone's Thanksgiving plans...at least those of the sane people who are doing it over the internet.

(Please, please celebrate at home. Please).

So, I Have To Wonder...

 ...why exactly it is that British tabloids are obsessed with Yellowstone exploding and killing us all.

Normally it's the Daily Mail saying we're all going to die, this time it's the Express. Sigh. In fact, the entire first page of Yellowstone supervolcano in a news search except for one article from the Columbus Dispatch (which informs us we are not all going to die) is the Daily Express telling us we're all going to die.

(The second page has an idiot who got arrested after trying to cook a chicken in the hot springs).

So, are we all going to die? In fact, the Yellowstone hotspot is what's dying; it's becoming less powerful and eruptions are becoming less common...and by less common we mean it's gone from about every 500,000 years to about every 1.5 million years.

By that measure the most likely time for the next eruption is, oh, about 900,000 years in the future.

So, tabloids, what is with the supervolcano obsession?

It's Full of Stars!

 So, wildlife officers counting bighorn sheep found something they didn't expect.

A monolith.

Yes.

Uh.

A three meter tall, shiny metal monolith.

It's not actually full of stars, but nobody has any idea how it got there and nobody seems to be willing to admit to having put it there.

There are three likely theories:

1. Aliens. Which we all know it isn't.

2. It's art. Somebody thought it would be neat. If it is art, then it is similar to the work of an artist named John McCracken, who died in 2011. But he didn't live in Utah. A copycat?

3. Somebody was filming a movie without permission and could afford to get this massive prop out there...and then ran out of money and couldn't get it back. Movie makers are notorious for leaving unusual litter.

I like #3, think it's most likely #2, but...

...it could be aliens.

(Note that the park service have asked people not to go hunting for it because they're worried people will, ya know, die).

Philcon Roundup

 So, I'd much rather have been in Cherry Hill, but Philcon still went very well.

The highlight was the Mars colonization panel, where the panelist played a colonization game. I'm now trying to work out whether it would be more effective to run a cable car up Olympus Mons in a tube or whether to pressurize individual cars.

Decisions, decisions.

Every panel I was on or attended went smoothly and unlike Capclave people were finding the con suite.

(Although MaltCon is no fun virtually. Let's hope for next year...)

Friday Updates

 The Philcon discord is open! Go to philcon.org and head over.

There's no overall registration for the con, but you do need to register for specific sections (for attendance tracking).

All sessions will be in Zoom except for the moderated media discussion, which will be on Discord. Like Balticon, Philcon is using Zoom webinar, so everything should be straightforward at this point.

I wish I was in Cherry Hill, but this will do as a substitute! Join me at 7pm tonight in the Discord for a moderated Star Wars discussion.

Arecibo to be Decommissioned and Demolished

 And in sad news, assessment of the damage to Arecibo has led to three independent firms recommending the demolition of the dish.

The structure has become so unstable that the risk to human life of trying to repair it is unacceptably high.

The rest of the observatory will stay in use, primarily for educational purposes.

This is very sad news, but not at all unexpected.

Is There Life on Venus?

 First there was phosphine on Venus. Then there wasn't. Now there is again, because science.

The real answer seems to be yes, but not as much as we first thought. Now, if they're wrong, that doesn't mean there isn't life there, just that we still haven't found evidence.

It's all just part of the scientific process. To be sure, we are going to need to send some robots there and do some closer up analysis. The Indian Space Research Organization has a mission in planning stages and could probably be talked into carrying the needed instruments. In 2025...

Philcon!

 So, this is last minute notice, but Philcon is virtual this weekend and I got roped into participating.

The con is free but they're asking for donations to cover the Zoom account and other costs. Registration is not needed. Go to Philcon's website for details and sign up for their discount.

Here's my schedule.

Friday, 7pm: Discord #Media Discussion : Star Wars (I'll be moderating and keeping things moving).

Saturday, 11:30am: What We Owe Each Other: Philosophy in SF&F Media (Moderator)

Saturday, 1pm: Writing for Aliens: Cities Without Stairs?

Saturday, 4pm: Creating More Inclusive Games

Sunday, 2:30pm: Writing Branching Narratives for Game Play (Moderator).

There's also some really interesting science programming to check out this year! For those who have never made it to the world's oldest science fiction con, here's an opportunity to find out what it's all about.

A Boring Space Launch

 The word "boring" is not one we generally associate with manned spaceflight launches; especially those of us old enough to remember Challenger.

(Most of us will never forget).

But it was a good adjective to describe the stunningly routine yet historic launch of Crew Dragon to the ISS on its first official crew rotation mission.

Four astronauts are now in orbit on their way to the ISS, with docking planned at 11pm ET tonight. They are Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi. Hopkins was mission commander.

All four are looking forward to a six-month rotation. Glover will be the first Black astronaut to do a full rotation on the ISS.

When space launches become "boring" then we start to enter the next era of exploration.

Friday Updates

 Just got edits back for a story that is going to appear in the very first Other Worlds Ink anthology, Fix The World.

The anthology won't be released for a while yet, but it's looking pretty good. And very queer ;).

Other than that, no real news. Hoping that the world will start to improve now.

(Oh and Apple, did you have to move all the buttons in Mail).

Get Out Your Telescope

 This is a good week for planet gazing. If you have a decent scope you can even see Pluto.

Jupiter and Saturn are hanging out in the southwestern sky in the evenings. Venus and Mercury are up just before dawn, close to the sun. And Mars is in conjunction with Uranus and Neptune.

Def. time to get the telescope and the kids. (Just be careful with that predawn viewing).

The Era of Commercial Space Flight is Official

 NASA has put its stamp of approval on SpaceX's crew Dragon system.

This means Dragon is now the first NASA-certified system since the space shuttle and the first to be managed entirely by a private company.

The next manned Dragon flight is scheduled, weather permitting, for November 14.

Glow in the Dark...Moons?

 I have a glow in the dark shirt. In fact, I'm wearing it right now (although it's getting kind of worn).

It depicts three wolves howling at the moon, but the real moon of course doesn't glow in the dark.

There's a moon in the solar system, however, that might just do that.

And it is, surprise surprise, Europa.

Lab experiments have indicated that the heavy radiation from Jupiter likely interacts with the surface and thin atmosphere in a way that makes the moon, yes, glow in the dark.

This is actually important, as we might be able to analyze the glow and establish things about the surface composition before we hopefully send a probe to land on the icy moon.

The end of the Road for Arecibo?

Another major support cable failed at the Arecibo dish this week, setting back the timeline for repairs and making it even more likely that the storied facility will not, in fact, reopen.

The cable appears to have snapped because of the added strain from the earlier failure in August. Repairs were supposed to start tomorrow.

Hopefully, despite this setback, the observatory can be repaired as it's currently part of our planetary defense system, but looking towards a replacement for Arecibo may be even more critical.

Sorry, Guys, you Have No Taste in Trek

 It's no secret Voyager is my least favorite Trek series (to be fair, I haven't seen either Picard or Lower Decks yet).

But it's still very cool that physicists designing "microswimmers," a kind of nanobot that can swim on its own using chemical reactions, decided to do, well.

This.

Yeah. They could have made any shape they wanted...

...and they went with Voyager.

Come on, guys, why not the Enterprise?

Have FRBs Been Solved?

 Fast radio bursts have remained a mystery for a while, with some people even saying ALIENS.

We finally know what causes at least some of these rare phenomenon. FRB 200428 is the first fast radio burst source to be identified in the Milky Way, which means it's close enough to trace back to its source.

Turns out the culprit is a particular kind of dead star called a "magnetar." Magnetars form after the collapse of huge supergiant stars. They're a kind of neutron star which produces an intense magnetic field. FRB 200428 appears to come from the imminent location of SGR 1935+2154.

However, other magnetars have not been shown to create these bursts, so there's clearly another factor at play here. And not every astronomer is convinced it explains all FRBs.

The theory as to how magnetars create FRBs? Because of their field, they create bursts of X-Rays. If there happens to be a cloud of material of certain thickness, those X-rays might be converted to radio waves.

It's not aliens, sorry. (But repeating FRBs caused by magnetars might well be helpful to a star spanning civilization...as navigational beacons).

What Comes After the ISS?

 We just celebrated 20 years of continuous occupation of space...

...most of it in a station that was designed to last 15. The stubborn leak on the ISS is a symptom; the station is seriously showing its age. The ISS is still safe and might even last another 10 to 15 years, but building its replacement is becoming more urgent.

There's two roads being taken. The first is to Theseus' boat the ISS. The ISS has always been a modular station, and the idea is to add new modules and then remove old ones, or separate the new modules so they can orbit on their own. Axiom Space already has a contract for the first of these, which will apparently include a glass "Earth Observatory" from which astronauts will be able to watch their home world. Bigelow has already added an inflatable module which is used only for storage, and has now designed one that's not much smaller than my apartment...a lot of square footage for space, especially as in space you can use all the surface area.

Meanwhile, Blue Origin has decided to abandon the ISS altogether and simply start building their own station, eventually working towards full space habitats with spin gravity and the works.

Either way, the ultimate fate of the ISS is going to be a controlled deorbit with the station being intentionally burned up in the atmosphere.

Except for any bits that we choose to keep up there and eventually put in a museum.

VOTE!

If you haven't already, that is.

It's kind of surreal to be sitting at home on election day and not going out to vote, but I already took care of it a couple of weeks ago.

My brain is telling me there's something I'm supposed to be doing.

I hope the lines won't be too long for anyone out there. Wear a mask, get in and out quickly, but please vote.

And please sustain this effort, regardless of who wins. Our turnout has been shamefully low for years. Let's fix that.

Honey Badger Don't Give...

 ...apparently five million years ago there was a honey badger wandering around the African savannah and terrorizing everyone.

Up to and including lions.

It wasn't even as big as modern honey badgers.

What is it about honey badgers that's so scary?