The crew of the VSS* Unity, just returned from its inaugural space voyage. And honestly, could these people look any more like the bridge crew from a Star Trek spinoff?
- Sid
*Virgin Space Ship, I assume. No, seriously, I didn't make that up, I'm quoting an article on the Guardian web site.
Space has given us all the chance to dream: Of beauty and wonder. Of great adventures. Of being part of something bigger than ourselves. And now…
You’ll be one of the first people to live that dream on a Virgin Galactic spaceflight!
Let that soak in for a minute. You’re. Going. To. Space.
You and your guest will board a Virgin Galactic spaceship where you’ll take off smoothly, just like an airplane, and watch as the colors outside your window change from blue to indigo to midnight black...
Hovering above Earth, nothing can prepare you for the breathtaking views of our bright planet and surrounding galaxy. Or hearing “you are now free to float about the cabin.”
Cameras throughout the cabin will record every moment in HD. With 17 circular windows for viewing, every seat is a window seat. And there’s even a mirror to watch yourself floating through space.
Following a smooth glide descent, you’ll return back to Earth safely, but forever transformed. You’re an astronaut now.
Sir Richard Branson*, Omaze Contest Page
Today I purchased 250 chances at space for a mere $32 CAD on the Omaze contest site - I could easily have bought more than that, but I'm a bit of a believer in fate: if I'm meant to win, all I really need is one.
I have no real expectation of winning – unfortunately, I have a terrible track record for anything involving luck – but it’s certainly an awe-inspiring opportunity. Whatever my misgivings about the substance of Virgin Galactic’s successful first flight, if I won I would eagerly take my seat aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo in anticipation of experiencing zero gravity and seeing the Earth from orbit.
The prize draw will take place at the end of September, just a few days after my birthday. If any of the Fates are listening, it would certainly be one hell of a 60th birthday gift.
- Sid
* More likely Sir Richard's PR department, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt.
Today at 8:40 AM, Virgin Galactic finally conducted its first fully crewed suborbital space mission. Sir Richard Branson, three other passengers, and two flight crew successfully ascended to 86 kilometers above the Earth's surface, and safely returned to the Virgin Galactic spaceport.
Whether or not this was prompted by the possibility of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos beating him to the punch with his own flight on July 20th, Branson has undeniably accomplished his goal of launching the first passenger spaceship, and plans to restart ticket sales, which have been on hold since 2014's fatal test flight incident, which took the life of co-pilot Michael Alsbury.
How do we feel about Virgin Galactic's long-awaited first flight?
Logic says that there is no such thing as bad space travel – everything that broadens the boundaries of our ability to leave the planet is good. Emotion says that Sir Richard is a dilettante, who has essentially created an expensive amusement park ride for his own entertainment and that of fellow billionaires.
But, to be fair, the nature of exploration is such that for every Charlies Lindburgh who flies across the Atlantic solo, there will be countless people who desire to make the trip on less challenging terms.
Perhaps more appropriately, for every Commander Hadfield who endures a 5-G takeoff on their way to the International Space Station, there will be hundreds or perhaps thousands of people who want a more accessible opportunity to see Earth from orbit, to live their dream, to take one of the small steps that makes up the giant leap.
To call those thousands of dreamers space tourists seems unfair, it somehow diminishes the experience, but that approach may well be the method through which commercial space travel actually becomes a practical prospect. For all the talk about how exploitation of natural resources on other planets will be controlled, we’re a long way from mining the Moon or shipping minerals from Mars, whereas Virgin Galactic has actually demonstrated proof of concept for repeatable passenger travel to space.
As of today, Sir Richard Branson has made space travel accessible to everyone - admittedly, right now to a very small definition of everyone, that being the number of people who can afford a $450,000 USD ticket, but that's how it starts, with a limited expensive service that eventually becomes affordable to the general public. It may be one small step, but it's a small step that everyone will eventually be able to take.
- Sid
(Minor spoilers for The Tomorrow War follow.)
Over the course of the last two days I watched The Tomorrow War, starring Chris Pratt and a cast of thousands. I've often said that the two things I look for in a movie are aliens and explosions, and whatever other flaws this film may have, there's no denying that it delivers on those two criteria.
The plot is simplicity itself: thirty years in the future, humanity is losing a war with alien invaders that are somewhere between the aliens from Alien and the monsters from A Quiet Place.* In their desperation, they travel back in time to recruit soldiers from 2022, including ex-soldier, biologist and high school teacher Dan Forester, as played by Mr. Pratt.
The recruits are essentially cannon fodder, warm bodies to throw into a losing war, shown how to pull the trigger and then dropped (literally) into apparently futile combat. However, there's a chance that a biological agent designed to kill the aliens can turn the tide and save the world, and Forester finds himself part of the future team attempting to create an appropriate compound. But the clock is ticking, in more ways than one...
The Tomorrow War paints with such a large brush that it's almost a roller, and I'm very curious as to how this movie would have performed at the box office in an alternate timeline where there was no pandemic. (It was originally intended to debut in movie theatres last Christmas, but following the continued theatrical lockdown it was sold to Amazon™ for streaming on Prime instead.)
It certainly rings the summer blockbuster bell in terms of shootouts and clever dialogue, but overall it feels a bit derivative, overly simplistic, and conveniently scripted**, and I'm sorry to say that I never completely accepted Chris Pratt as the right person to anchor this particular plotline.
But, all other considerations aside, I have to give The Tomorrow War full credit for two things.
First, the cast commits entirely. Not since 1998's Armageddon have I seen a group of actors treat a dubious if not somewhat ridiculous premise with such utter and complete seriousness - not a wink, not a nod, not a smirk, everyone delivers their performances with a degree of gravitas suitable for Citizen Kane or Schindler's List. (Well, okay, Chris Pratt maybe makes one joke too many, but you can make a case for it in context.)
Second, as a long time science fiction fan, never have I seen a group of people - or a script - so indifferent to the possible consequences of time travel.
All the soldiers from the future are under the age of 30 so as to avoid co-existence with their past selves, and the recruits from the past are being chosen for one grim qualification: they've died sometime in the 30 years before the war begins. Which is all well and good, but given that the recruits serve a week and then return to 2022***, WHY WOULD YOU TELL THEM THAT THEY'RE GOING TO BE DEAD? AND HOW THEY DIE?
And if they die in combat instead - as some 70% do, apparently - wouldn't that have some kind of serious repercussions for the future timeline?
Or why did they not jump back to six months before the aliens first appeared and bomb that first appearance into ash if they're willing to risk changes to the past for their effect on the future?
Nope, nothing, not a word about the space-time continuum, the Butterfly Effect, the Grandfather Paradox, or even wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, no one seems to give it a moment's thought.
Perhaps watching a few carefully chosen episodes of Doctor Who would have been useful research for the writers - or maybe just Looper, it's hard to think of a better example of how to use the past to change the future, and vice versa.
- Sid
** You know, convenient - like when they need to get to Russia in a hurry and the Department of Defense won't help, and it's already been established that Dan's estranged father has access to a C130 transport plane.
*** As explained: "At the end of your tour of duty, if the jump band attached to your arm determines that you are still clinically alive, you will automatically be jumped back and your tour of duty will be over."
Clinically alive - or, as my old office mate Bill used to say, able to fog a mirror. One feels that the sets the bar a bit on the low side in terms of the degree of damage that someone could suffer and still be "clinically" acceptable.
And that was the expression that I was wearing this morning - sans cigarette - when I randomly switched on the TV and discovered that, once again, CTV's Sci-Fi Channel was showing Jaws.
Based on blog postings, Space and its inheritor Sci-Fi have been sneaking Mr. Spielberg's masterpiece into the broadcasting lineup for a decade now, and I'm baffled as to the reason why.
And, to be honest, this time I almost want to give it to them: the movie lineup for the day is Jaws, Deep Blue Sea (which is a legitimate science fiction shark), Deep Blue Sea 2, and The Meg, which may not be great science fiction, but at least it IS science fiction - broadly speaking. It's a logical playlist and a reasonable concept for a different channel (or Channel) but still, in the words of Sesame Street, one of these things is not like the others.
Some very small part of me wonders if someone who has been working there for the last ten years actually reads this blog and is programming Jaws just to troll me, but my ego doesn't extend to an archenemy in the broadcasting profession. However, if that is the case, however unlikely it may seem - hello. If you're reading this, please, leave a comment, send me an e-mail, get in touch, do something, surely after all this time we can work this out before it ends badly. Face it, sooner or later someone in charge is going to demand an explanation as to why you keep showing this damn shark movie - is this really worth your job?
- Sid
In the time since I've purchased my Quest 2, I've been very impressed by the degree to which Oculus works on maintaining and developing the customer connection for its VR headsets. Virtual reality is a relatively small part of the entertainment marketplace*, and whereas Oculus seems to have found a solid niche position, they obviously recognize the need to encourage their user base to invest - literally - in VR usage by sending out periodic discounts on games.
Fortuitously, their most recent 30% discount perfectly coincided with my decision to buy Eternal Starlight, a real time tactical space combat game - the discount actually arrived in my e-mail as I was putting on my headset to log in and purchase the game.
It's not a sophisticated game - at least not yet, there may well be upgrades in the game's future. The narrative elements cry out for actual audio and more realistic character illustrations, and the in-game graphics rely on polygons rather than smoothly rendering the shapes. None of this disappoints me, it's a $22 game** that screams indie developer, and any shortcomings pale in comparison to the game's outstanding interface, which is the first example I've experienced to date of anyone truly attempting to utilize the manipulative nature of the VR environment to its full capability.
There's a strong Tony Stark/Minority Report feel to the interface, where the player's interaction with the ships in their fleet is almost completely controlled through hand movements and gestures. Pulling your hands apart while holding down the HOLD buttons magnifies and rotates the map view, tapping on a ship with your hand reveals its stats, and grabbing a ship and dragging it to a new location sets in a course.
So far I've only done the tutorial, and I'll do it a few more times before I start the game in earnest, so that I can start to create some muscle memory for the game functions - the physical nature of the system makes it fairly intuitive, but when the survival of your fleet is on the line, you really don't want to be thinking to yourself, "Wait, is it the trigger button or the grip button to aim the beam cannon?"
- Sid
*Although, that being said, one of my co-workers also owns a Quest 2 - she's an outdoorsy 30-something training supervisor, which would indicate that Oculus has some horizontal spread in its appeal.
** Seventeen bucks and change after the discount.
This child is extremely gifted and has been blessed with rare properties that have the potential to bring order back to the galaxy.
Moff Gideon, The Mandalorian
Today I made one of my twice-weekly commutes to our company offices. Some of my co-workers haven't been in since the first stay-home order last year, but the physical aspects of my job have made it necessary to actually go in and load paper into my printer, roll up posters, laminate signage, and so forth.
This morning's trip was much like any of the others, until the bus pulled up at the corner of Granville and West Georgia, and a small child boarded the bus with his mother. Beaming up at the driver, he chirped, "Do you want to see my Baby Yoda? Mom, can I show him my Baby Yoda?" His mother shrugged and laughed, and said, "Okay, but hurry!"
He dug into his little Star Wars backpack and pulled out a small stuffed Baby Yoda from The Mandalorian for the driver's approval. "Isn't it great!?" he asked, and the driver agreed. Mother and child made their way to seats, and the bus continued on its route.
Normally I'm a bit obsessive about delays on my commute (too many years of constant professional deadline pressure have ruined me) but in this case, I did not begrudge a single second of the time lost to Baby Yoda and his joyful owner. Never lose that joy, my little fellow fan - and don't let them take it away from you, either.
- Sid
I was a bit surprised to see the above cartoon in my travels on the internet today - in an odd coincidence, I had randomly picked up a book* earlier today and read an optomistic little 1947 Murray Leinster short story called Propagandist, which is basically this cartoon spread over 24 pages.
Obviously, the story is a bit more complex than the four panel cartoon. Propagandist is a first contact story which takes place under the worst possibly circumstances: an unknown alien species has raided an Earth colony and slaughtered half a million human settlers, and a grimly determined Terran space fleet searches vengefully for the aliens responsible. The light cruiser Kennessee finds inhabited planets in the Masa Gamma system, and sends a scout ship to one of the planets in hopes of confirming that these are the aliens responsible for the barbaric attack on the colony.
Meanwhile, the Masans are struggling with the same problem. They've detected the Kennessee and are concerned that it heralds a new assault by raiders who devastated their civilization hundreds of years in the past. If it is a raider ship that presages a new attack, there is only one option: total war.
The unlikely diplomat who resolves the situation and leads to an alliance that defeats the actual raiders? Buck the dog, who is captured by the Masans when Holden, his owner, is forced to leave him behind after the unsuccessful scouting mission to Masa Four. As both sides prepare for battle, the Masans scan Buck's mind, and based on the results, decide to contact the Terran ship rather than destroying it outright - it's impossible that the beings in Buck's memories could be the monsters that they fear. The humans realize that the Masans have not killed Buck - they can't possibly be the brutal species that destroyed the colony.
After resolution of the war with the raiders, Holden and Buck visit Masan Four and the scientist who probed Buck's mind:
"Then we knew that men will always repay trust with loyalty." Then the Masan added, "That is, most men."
Holden said uncomfortably:
"Well - that's something that has worried the skipper. You people act as if all of us were as decent as our dogs think us. We aren't. You'll have to be...well...a little cagey, sometimes..."
"So," said the Masan, "we learned from Buck. But also we learned that there will always be men to trust."
It's a pleasant little morality tale, although it's probably a good thing that Holden went against the tradition of cats on ships and took a dog instead. Lord knows what would have happened if they'd read a cat's mind!
- Sid
P.S. The selection of "boof" for the dog's bark is a bit reminiscent of Clarus, the infamous Apple dogcow - who of course goes moof.
* For any bibliophiles in the reading audience, it was the 1969 paperback edition of Great Stories of Space Travel, edited by Groff Conklin.
