“We're here to see the astronauts.”

“Space is our future - Canada is a spacefaring nation.”

-    Dr. Dafydd Williams

Having spent an evening watching the Doctor decide the fate of the Daleks, it seemed appropriate to balance things out by spending some time the following week looking at the more realistic aspects of space research.

Back at the start of May my friend Chris, who is a graduate from McGill University in Montreal, had invited me to join him for an alumni event in June at the exclusive Vancouver Club.  The topic for the evening:  Is McGill ready to take space discovery to new heights? I'm always interested in opportunities like this, so I cheerfully accepted his invitation.

At this point, some of you may be wondering, “Why McGill?” Apparently McGill might as well be called "Space U": since Canada started its astronaut program in 1983, five out of the 14 successful candidates have been McGill graduates.  It’s also home to the McGill Space Institute, which opened in October of 2015. The Institute's 2017 Annual Report lists a range of research that would make the gang on The Big Bang Theory salivate: Muon Hunting, Galaxy and Supermassive Black Hole Co-Evolution, Merging Neutron Stars in X-rays and Gravitational Waves, A Possible Dark Origin of Matter - you know you have a good lineup of research when all your topics sound like the titles of science fiction novels from the 1950s.

The room at the Vancouver Club had seating for 110 people, and it appeared to be an almost full house of interested alumni and friends (plus one infant, presumably  supplied by the same organization that ensures that every airplane has at least one screaming baby on board.)

As the evening began, we were presented with a prestigious trio of speakers, starting with Professor Victoria Kaspi, who is the Lorne Trottier Chair in Astrophysics and Cosmology, the Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics and the Director of the aforementioned McGill Space Institute.

Joining Professor Kaspi were former Canadian Space Agency astronauts Dr. Robert Thirsk and Dr. Dafydd Williams. Dr. Thirsk was selected in December 1983 for the Canadian Astronaut Program, flew on the 1996 STS-78 Columbia space shuttle mission , and was part of the 2009 ISS long duration mission , during which he spent 188 days on the station.

Dr. Williams, who started astronaut training in June of 1992, also flew on Columbia, in 1998, and and went to the ISS in August of 2007, where he set the Canadian record for time spent outside the station on spacewalks: 17 hours and 47 minutes.*

In fact, it was such a prestigious lineup that it led me to think that the room must have contained some very heavy hitters in terms of McGill donations to have elicited this sort of representation – let’s face it, they didn’t fly two astronauts and a prominent astrophysicist in from the other side of the country just because Chris and I chipped in fifteen bucks each.

Okay - Bob, Vicky, Dave, let's talk space.

After a couple of forgettable speeches by university administrators, the main event started, presenting us with a fascinating and wide ranging discussion that managed to almost entirely ignore the original topic of McGill's readiness to raise the bar for space research.

The evening began with a very fundamental question from the moderator:  when and how did the panelists become interested in space?  Victoria Kaspi admitted that she was a big Star Trek fan, and had always been fascinated by the night sky.

Astronauts were Bob Thirsk's heroes in the 60s, and Dave Williams described how his original interest in being an astronaut dated back to 1961, when at the age of seven he watched the television broadcast of Alan Shepard lifting off to become the first American in space.

The next day, he announced to his grade school teacher, “That’s what I want to do!”, only to be told by his teacher that he couldn't.

“Why not?”

“You're a Canadian.” **

Fortunately times have changed since then: as mentioned above, there have been 14 Canadian astronauts since 1983, 11 of whom have flow into space.  In fact, when asked about the qualifications for being an astronaut, Bob Thirsk pointed out that, outside of the scholastic requirements, they were very Canadian in nature: politeness, understanding, acceptance of others, and the sense of adventure historically possessed by Canadians.

He went on to add that one of the best things about the current state of space exploration was its international nature, the manner in which former enemies were now working together, and how Canada occupies an undeniably important role in that exploration.

They all agreed that the next exciting frontier for space travel is Mars, although Dave Williams felt that someone currently in the space program might walk on the Moon again, "a profoundly transformation experience". Bob Thirsk hoped that within a couple of generations we would be living on Mars, commenting that, "...somewhere in this room is a person who could walk on Mars - they just don't know yet."

This led to the question of whether the future of space exploration would be private or public.  Bob Thirsk gave the example of the ship in Alien, which was a commercial mining vessel, and mentioned that the driving force behind the exploration of Canada was development for commercial reasons. His expectation was that private corporations would take over low Earth orbit development, but that exploration would still be the purview of governments.

Perhaps the most interesting topic was the panel's thoughts on the search for extra-terrestrial life.  Bob Thirsk expressed his conviction that in our lifetime we will discover other life in our galaxy, a discovery which will be the most significant event of the 21st century - unless it finds us first. Vicky Kaspi observed that there was a need for sophisticated technology in order to conduct the search for bio signatures.  She also thoughtfully mentioned her curiousity about what's going on under the ice on Europa, Jupiter's sixth moon.

Bob Thirsk concluded the evening by speaking passionately about the need to give the young people of Canada an audacious challenge like Mars.  He went on to add that he was concerned that Canadians were losing their sense of adventure, and that there should be more experiential hands-on learning.  "Yes, get a degree, but climb a mountain too, live under water for a week, do things, get out there!!"

If there were two aspects of the event that stood out for me, the first would be the complete confidence with which the trio discussed the future of scientific advancement and space exploration: developing advanced technologies, pushing the frontiers of science, living on Mars, and finding life on exoplanets or elsewhere in our own Solar System – not as “what ifs” but as “whens”.

The second was the equally complete conviction that Canadians, as individuals and a nation, will be part of that future. 

- Sid

* Surprisingly, this isn't even in the top 30 - the international record is an astonishing 82 hours and 22 minutes by Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solevyev, spread out over 16 missions for an average of 5 and a quarter hours in space per mission.

** Coincidentally, when David applied for the astronaut program in 1992, the Canadian government received over 600 applications from children under ten.

#Curiosity #Marslife

Honestly, millenials...

- Sid

P.S.  As always, the question is,"Yeah, but who's holding the phone?"  In this case, it's a composite shot that's been digitally assembled to remove Curiosity's remote arm.  Full credit to both Curiosity and digital artist Seán Doran for the resulting image.  A ridiculously high resolution version of the entire panoramic shot can be found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmgill/29011748758/

"The Space Force, Separate but Equal".

 

"When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space...We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal." 

 - POTUS Donald J. Trump

And now, a breaking news story:  as of today, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States and defender of American dominance everywhere, has formally directed the Department of Defense to establish another branch of the armed forces dedicated to combat in space:  the Space Force.

First, this is the most 1950s pulp magazine announcement that I've ever heard in my life, and it breaks my heart a little that Robert A. Heinlein, author of Starship Troopers, was not alive to hear it.  Second, when you look past the Planet Stories feel of the whole thing, it's actually kind of intriguing.  Realistically, a demand for a near-Earth military presence would lead to all kinds of research and development for which there previously just hasn't been funding.  For example, to date there's been no real reason for the development of vehicles with complex vacuum manoeuvring capabilities, but a Space Force would certainly need the equivalent of fighters, bombers, helicopters, troop carriers and so on, which could easily be adapted for civilian needs.  And, I'm sorry to admit this, but given that my other hobby is military history, I'd be interested to see how the United States military would adapt to the challenges of zero-gee vacuum combat.

However, I do see one problem.  President Trump has also announced his plans to privatize the ISS by 2025 - where will the Space Force and its, ah, forces be based?  Maybe the Space Force could construct its own orbital facility, perhaps a large globular battle station of some sort.  My co-worker David agrees completely with this, and suggests that it could be called something really cool like "the Death Star".  My personal vote is for Starkiller Base, but I think that either one would be suitable to be the new home of the Space Force.

- Sid

Playing this week: Doctor Who

"I hope that you enjoy the following presentation, and if you don't, I shall be terribly disappointed."

-Tom Baker, introduction to Genesis of the Daleks

It's Doctor Who movie night:  I change into my TARDIS t-shirt and leave work to head out to the Park Theatre on Cambie Street.

I get some popcorn and a drink, then head into the theatre to evaluate options for seating.  I settle on the sixth row, which turns out to be just about perfect for me:  I feel pleasantly close to the action without having to tilt my head back too far.

The seats begin to fill up until the theatre is about a quarter full.  I'm surprised by the age range in the audience, which ranges from old school fans like myself (and some a little older) down to eight or nine year olds.  There are solo acts like myself scattered around the room, but more commonly people seem to have come in groups.

Behind me, a group of six discusses the merits of the various doctors, and the potential of the new one.  They all regret the premature departure of Christopher Eccleston, and are sufficiently savvy to know the behind-the-scenes reasons.  One of them has a staunch dislike of Colin Baker, who played the sixth Doctor, and he's a bit worried that Jodie Whittaker's costume as seen in promo material harkens a bit too much back to his look.  They briefly discuss Ms. Whittaker's potential, but everyone agrees that it's too early to make any decisions based on the single word of dialogue that she spoke at the end of last year's Christmas episode - wait and see is the consensus.

The lights dim, and the show begins with an introduction by Tom Baker, followed by the edited movie version of Genesis of the Daleks.  I had thought that the composite cut was specially created for the promotional showings, but apparently it was originally shown in December of 1975.  I'm used to seeing the classic Doctor Who episodes in slightly blurry DVD transfers, but the quality of the restored version is excellent and bodes well for the Blu-ray collection.

Genesis of the Daleks clearly falls squarely into the cardboard and bubble wrap era of Doctor Who special effects, but the Daleks themselves stand the test of time surprisingly well.  Originally designed in 1963 by BBC designer Raymond Cusick for the second Doctor Who serial in the series, they're a unique looking take on the idea of warrior cyborgs.

 

As the title suggests, the story deals with the origins of the Daleks, the Doctor's most persistent adversaries.  The Doctor is dispatched by his fellow Time Lords to Skaro, the Dalek's original home planet, at the time of their creation.  He is charged with either reducing their aggression or discovering some flaw that can be exploited in future battles.  More disturbingly, there is also the option of eliminating the Daleks entirely by intervening at their creation so that they will never exist.

Some of the movie's elements come across as a bit camp in the modern era - for example, the TOTAL DESTRUCT button that will eliminate the Dalek production facilities gets a chuckle from the audience, and the fight scenes are not even slightly convincing.   But the performances are good, and the Doctor's moral struggle with the destruction of any species, no matter how evil, is gripping.

The movie is followed by an interview with Tom Baker, who at 84 years of age has managed to retain the rich tones in his voice that made him such a distinctive performer.  He reiterates the well-known anecdote about being taken straight from working on a road maintenance crew into the role of the Doctor.  He also speaks a bit wistfully about the passing of time and the awareness of the end being near for him.

The interview ends, the lights come up, and we file out of the cinema.

Overall, I enjoyed the evening - it was a fun way to revisit a classic episode, and I'd be happy to attend another cinema showing if the opportunity allowed.  And, really, if they release ALL the original episodes on Blu-ray season by season, that would be 26 movie presentations - how cool would that be?

I'm in - BBC, let's do this.

- Sid

"I'm afraid."

HAL: I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it... I'm a...fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.

Dave Bowman: Yes, I'd like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.

HAL: It's called "Daisy."

HAL: Daisy...Daisy....give me your answer ... do. I'm ... half crazy all for the love of you... It won't be a stylish marriage... I can't ... afford ... a carriage. But you'll ... look sweet ... upon the ... seat ... of ... a ... bicycle ... built ... for ... two...

- 2001:  A Space Odyssey

Opportunity, NASA's long running Martian rover, is in deadly peril. A gigantic Martian dust storm*, spanning a quarter of the planet, has enveloped the solar-powered explorer and forced it into low-power mode, which shuts down all of its systems except for a mission clock that will periodically check on power levels to see if they're sufficient to resume operations.

 

Should the current situation last too long, Opportunity could cease to function permanently due to damage caused by lack of power to the heaters that keep its circuitry functioning in the frigid Martian environment, or simply by no longer having enough battery power to restart.

But, it's not over 'til it's over, and Opportunity has been beating the odds for almost fifteen years now. After its landing on Mars on January 25th in 2004, it was only intended to remain active for 90 Martian days, a timeline which it has exceeded by over 14 years, carefully traversing 28 miles of the Martian surface and sending back almost 225,000 photos. And this isn't the first time that Opportunity has been in trouble and survived. It was stuck in a sand dune in April of 2005 but was eventually able to escape, and in 2007, a similar dust storm drove the rover into low-power hibernation for several weeks, but it finally returned to operation.

Things are a bit different this time. The current storm is the size of North America, and it's twice as opaque as the 2007 storm. As far as Opportunity is concerned, an unending night has fallen, and all NASA can do now is wait and see.

This is probably one of the best reasons I've seen to date for not using artificial intelligence in space exploration. The news coverage for Opportunity's current situation uses all kinds of emotionally loaded terminology like "battling", "fighting for its life", "heroically", and so on. Sorry, no, let's be frank for a moment: Opportunity is just a collection of hardware and software that neither knows nor cares that this storm could be its swan song. The situation reached a certain point, and its programming shut it down, just like powering off your desktop computer, that's all.

But now imagine if Opportunity actually was self-aware. How could it not be heartbreaking to listen to an AI-enabled rover bravely reporting on its worsening situation, fully aware that it was completely lost to any kind of help, then finally sending a last message before falling tragically silent as lack of power forced it into sleep, a sleep from which it might never awaken?

So perhaps it's just as well that Opportunity is just a piece of technology. Regardless, good luck, Opportunity - it may be silly to think of you as alive, but you've been trundling along for quite a while on our behalf, and it seems wrong not to feel some sense of responsibility for you. Who knows, it may be comforting to future robotic explorers to  know that we worried about you, even if you couldn't appreciate it.

- Sid

* Coincidentally, the same thing happens to Mark Watney in the book version of The Martian.

Well that's not a good sign (no pun intended).

Actually, my first thought was, "How strange that a science fiction and fantasy bookstore would have a Current Events section!"

- Sid

And now for something completely different.

Tonight I'm doing something a little bit different: I have a ticket for a big screen showing of Genesis of the Daleks, a classic 1975 Doctor Who episode from the Tom Baker era.  Written by Terry Nation, this episode was originally presented as six 25-minute episodes, and now it's been remastered as a 90-minute director's cut being shown for one night only to promote the upcoming Blu-ray release of the 12th season of Doctor Who - Tom Baker's first year in the role of the Doctor.

The episode will be followed by a 30-minute interview with Baker, now 84 years old. To a lot of people, Tom Baker has always been the best of the Doctors, and based on the reaction to his cameo in the series' 50th anniversary special, a lot of people would still enjoy seeing him return to the helm of the TARDIS.

Not surprisingly, I've already seen the episode (it's a classic episode in more than one way) but that's sort of irrelevant.  I think it's just a great opportunity for a unique fan experience - a 3-D version of the 50th anniversary episode was shown in theatres around the world, and I never even knew that was an option until well after the event.

But this time, I'm all set:  I have my ticket, and I've packed my souvenir BBC Doctor Who Experience TARDIS t-shirt to change into after work.  (I was going to wear my THE ANGELS HAVE THE PHONE BOX shirt, but I decided that it would be more diplomatic to wear something a little less obviously post-reboot.)  Let's hope that the evening matches my expectations!

- Sid

Gnomic Statement XVI.

I was disappointed to discover that there apparently isn't a station.

- Sid

New Orleans 4: "It's a fez, I wear a fez now."

Fezzes are cool.

No, I didn't buy it, but it was a near thing, let me tell you.

- Sid

(For those of you out of the loop on this one, it's a Doctor Who joke.)

New Orleans 3: "We are so much more than a book shop!"

We're a safe, progressive, accepting community center for nerds, geeks, freaks, and the like.

 - tubbyandcoos.com

As always when I travel to a foreign city, I did a quick search for science fiction and fantasy bookstores a couple of days before Karli and I left for New Orleans.  Tubby & Coo's Mid-City Book Shop was at the top of the results, but it appeared to be well to the north of our hotel, and I didn't want to spend too much of our limited time there sorting out the transit system.  As such, I shrugged and regretfully resigned myself to not having a chance to meet Tubby and Coo, whoever they might be.*

However, Karli suggested that a trip to the New Orleans City Park might make a nice change from the downtown, and completely by chance I noticed Tubby & Coo's signage from the streetcar window as we rattled along North Carrollton Avenue.  We had an enjoyable if overly warm walk around the park, and then paid Tubby and Coo a visit on our way back to the hotel.

Tubby & Coo's has a surprisingly small footprint.  It's located in four small rooms on two stories of a semi-detached house, as as such its inventory is relatively small.  However, as is often the case with small independent bookstores, the selection of books and merchandise has obviously been chosen very carefully, with more of an eye to quality and uniqueness than mass market interest.

 

The stairwell to the upstairs is a little homage to Harry Potter, complete with a room under the staircase, Hogswarts house posters, and the Sorting Hat on the newel post, and the walls are covered with invisible bookshelves.

 

The upstairs is split between two rooms, with a child's-perspective book section at the top of the stairs, and a gaming room in the front.  (And when I use the term "child's perspective" I only mean the trompe l'oeil wall painting for the space:  as you can see in the photo below, the selection includes Feminist Baby Finds Her Voice, Rad American Women A-Z and Ruth Bader Ginsberg: The Case of R.B.G. vs. Inequality - it's not exactly Mother Goose.)

Whenever I visit a bookstore when travelling, I like to find something a little bit unusual to make it a more memorable shopping experience.  In this case, Tubby & Coo's distinctive choice of offerings made it easy.  I picked out Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer - having seen the movie, I was curious about the book; a fascinatingly illustrated Neil Gaiman novel entitled Fortunately the Milk; The Dame, The Doctor and The Device, a collection of pulp-influenced stories; and, just for fun, Winterworld, by comic book writer Chuck Dixon, from the dollar box.  Because a dollar.**

 

Overall, I found Tubby & Coo's to be a quirky***, enjoyable little store, but I think that it's necessary to look deeper than that.  Their web site says that Tubby & Coo's is "way more than just a book shop.  We build community", and the signage on their front door emphasizes that they are a safe space for everyone.  The way things are in the world right now, that may be way more important than the fact that they sell books, too.

- Sid

* I was disappointed to discover that neither Tubby nor Coo are involved in the management of the store. Owner Candice Huber, who opened the store in 2014, named it after her grandparents, who lived in the same neighbourhood as the store's location.  

** Not as cheap as it sounds, that's something like ten bucks Canadian right now.

*** Credit to Karli for helping me find the right adjective.

New Orleans 2: "We don't get many steampunk fans in here."

"And at $400 a hat, you won't get many more."

- Sid

P.S. Does everyone know the joke about the bear who walks into a bar?

New Orleans 1: Curiosities.

“The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds - the cemeteries - and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres- palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay - ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here.

You could be dead for a long time.”

Bob Dylan

I've just returned from a visit to New Orleans:  if there's a city in North America that will make you believe in voodoo and vampires, this is it.  Much of the city is just like any other city, but that doesn't matter - the heart of New Orleans is really in places like the French Quarter and Garden City, where the modern era is a thin facade over the past.

The French Quarter in particular is one of the defining aspects of the Crescent City's mythology.  Its shuttered, silent houses, legacy of its European roots, lend it an air of brooding withdrawal, and its elaborate ironwork and distinctive architecture hark to a different time.

There's a faint underlying scent of mold and rot that permeates the Vieux Carré, an odour of degeneration and decay that belies the bright lights and cheap drinks of the Quarter at night.  The main thoroughfares are crowded and well lit, but the side streets are dark and empty - it's not hard to imagine that an unwary visitor might wander away from the light and have a terminal encounter with a nosferatu.

The other defining feature of New Orleans is its evocative cemeteries, filled with crumbling crypts and tombs, worn by time and weather.  You have to visit the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 - Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, is buried here. They say she never aged, that she could see the future, that she could be in more than one place at one time.  They've restored her tomb, but the triple-X markings of worshippers are still visible under the masking white paint, and people still manage to leave behind an offering or two in hopes of a boon from the Queen.

It used to be that anyone could go into the Cemetery No. 1, but there were too many problems, too much vandalism, too much violence.  Now admission to the Cemetery is only allowed for groups with licensed guides, people who have relatives buried there, and, who knows, perhaps for people who are already buried there themselves.

You could be dead for a long time...

- Sid