SNATCHING SOIL SAMPLES FROM PHOBOS, MOON OF MARS

As planned, the Russian space mission Phobos-Grunt* will blast off from Earth this October. It should take some 10 months to reach Mars space, aiming to land on Phobos, the bigger of the two Martian moons, though ‘bigger’ is relative here - the boulder-like Phobos (pictured) is less than 27 km (17 miles) long.

The probe will land very gently, for the gravity of Phobos is very slight, and leaving the little moon later will require a liftoff speed no more than about 35 km/h (22 mph). Compare this with our far more massive Earth, where the 1G gravity means that an escape velocity of some 40,000 km/h (25,000 mph) is needed.

If successful, Phobos-Grunt will collect soil samples, then return them to Earth for study. Bringing back samples from a moon is not something that’s been achieved since 1976, when Russia’s Luna 24 brought back samples from our own Moon.

Phobos-Grunt will also bring back the US-based Planetary Society’s LIFE capsule, with its cargo of hardy micro-organisms that have been transported all the way from Earth, to see if they can survive a long period while exposed to the space environment. To avoid possible contamination on their return, the LIFE capsule can withstand a 4000G crunch without breaking apart - making the capsule strong enough to withstand a disastrous crash-landing.

The video gives a good idea of the mission, including a fascinating look at the complex celestial trajectories needed to reach Phobos and back. If you like a musical background - Ravel’s Bolero - then crank up your speakers!

* The Russian word for soil is Фобос-Грунт, pronounced ‘grunt’.

APOLLO 15 CREW DRIVE THE FIRST MOON BUGGY

That was the headline today on July 30, 1971 when David Scott and James Irwin landed safely on the Apollo 15 mission, and unpacked the Moon Buggy, or Lunar Roving vehicle (LRV) that was strapped to the side of the Lunar Lander (top picture).

The LRV was an amazing piece of technology, a two-seater with electric power to all four wire-mesh wheels, and developed in just 17 months by Boeing, with Delco as main subcontractor. The Mission Commander driver sat in the left-hand seat, but a central t-bar control meant that the LRV could be driven from either side if needed. LRVs rolled across the lunar terrain at a sprightly 13 km/h (8 mph), and were used on the last three Apollo missions, 15, 16 and 17.

New LRVs will be needed for any future Moon missions, but as yet no finished concept has been agreed. Ideally, it would have a pressurized shirt-sleeve environment, with access by airlock (bottom pictures). However, this would be heavier and cost more than a simple, open design - realistically, cost and weight will likely be the decision-makers when it’s time to build the new vehicle.

SHADOW-SHAPING TECHNOLOGY COULD MEAN SUPERSIZE ADVERTS ON THE MOON’S FACE

Starcruzer’s not sure whether to be impressed or depressed by Moon Publicity’s plan for taking the ad industry to our neighbour in space. MP’s concept is to use lunar rovers, equipped with grooving devices, to carve patterns in the lunar soil. But here’s the thing - they reckon they could make company logos or advertising headlines big enough to be seen all the way from Earth.

Yikes, that’s a tad depressing - billboards in rural areas here on the home planet are bad enough, without defacing the night skies as well. In practical terms we probably don’t need to worry - rovers move at crawl speeds, so it would take months or years for one to make a sign big enough to be visible. Even so, what a precedent, and amazingly, Moon Publicity actually opened bids for ad sites - starting price $46,000 USD - on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11.

Neil and Buzz, please go and give them a good seeing to.

Visit Moon Publicity here.

EAA AIRVENTURE 2009 - WHITEKNIGHT 2 FLIES IN

This week marks the annual fly-in jamboree for the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, US. The EAA AirVenture show is HUGE, with some 2500 aircraft usually attending, ranging from warbirds, classics and jets, to experimentals, homebuilts and helicopters. For anyone interested in aviation, it’s a gold-star event on the air show calendar.

And this year’s show has a top-interest appearance for space advocates, as the Virgin Galactic WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) Eve is on all-week ground display, after flying in yesterday (see video) to make its world-first public showing. The twin-fuselage carrier plane will be at the show before taking off on Saturday.

WK2 is the biggest all-composite aircraft yet built, and has been developed by Scaled Composites, the company founded by revered aircraft designer Burt Rutan, in partnership with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic spaceline. The Ansari X-Prize winning planes WhiteKnight and SpaceShipOne were on show at AirVenture four years ago, so the fly-in of WK2 marks the spectacular progress made by Rutan’s development team since then.

Burt Rutan reckons the EAA fly-in encouraged him to develop sub-orbital spacecraft. He said: “To get the kind of feedback we get here at Oshkosh was one of the ingredients that was important for me in making the decision that maybe I can build a spaceship... my interface with Oshkosh dating back to 1971 was real important for me in having the courage to say, 'Listen, I can do this, and I'm going to go for it.”

If all continues to plan, it looks like we really will get a chance to fly to the edge of space soon; meantime you can visit the EAA AirVenture here.

Thanks to AVWeb for the video.

DOCTOR WHO THE MOST POPULAR SCI-FI SERIES EVER?

The Guinness Book of World Records has just voted the good Doctor as the most successful sci-fi series ever, based on a combo of ratings, book and DVD sales and iTunes visits. Illegal downloads also went into the scoring pot, as did longevity - the very first Doctor Who was aired on BBC TV as long ago as November 23, 1963.

However, good as Doctor Who is, longevity is hardly a ‘real’ record as it has not been continuous - on that basis Stargate SG-1 should take a bow, as it completed an entire decade non-stop. In fact, the Doctor Who franchise only really became an international mega-success with its reinvention in the skilled hands of Russell T Davies. And of course Torchwood has arrived as a sub-brand, which for many viewers (including the Starcruzer crew) makes for better, and more adult-orientated, viewing.

Still, we’re not really arguing - good luck Doctor Who. We’re looking forward to seeing more of you for many years to come. The video shows the trailer for the recently released episode Planet of the Dead.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SYNCOM 2

On July 26, 1963 NASA fired a Delta B rocket from Cape Canaveral, carrying Syncom 2 (Syncom 1 had been lost after its electronics failed) to become the world’s first geosynchronous communications satellite (comsat).

Syncom 2’s successful performance in space became a harbinger for today’s satellite-linked world. In Syncom 2’s first year in orbit, there were hundreds of communication tests, including the first satellite telephone call between heads of state - US President John F Kennedy and the Prime Minister of Nigeria.

Syncom 2 also tested successfully tested video and TV links in September 1963. The satellite is still orbiting the Earth, 46 years after launch.

STEPHANE HALLEUX - STEAMPUNK SCULPTURAL VISIONS

Since his 1995 graduation in illustration at Saint Luc Liege, Belgium, French artist Stephane Halleux has gone on to create splendid objects that give sculpture an entirely original slant.

Much of his work falls into a steampunk-deco zone, with a dash of Belgian-cartoonist flavour (Tintin was created by the Belgian Georges Remi, better known as Herge) added to the pot. Stephane uses materials such as sewn leather and machine parts to make objects with a ‘nevertech’ look, and very handsome they are too.

Stephane has shown his work in a series of prestigious galleries, and now his creations command attention on the international art market. It’s good to see that fantasy-style art can command respectable prices in this fashion-driven sales arena.

The trio of Halleux robots shown above are just a small taste of his work, though whether the portly robodog could ever compete onscreen with Doctor Who’s faithful metal hound K-9 (bottom), we’ll leave you to decide.

Visit Stephane Halleux here.

BACK TO THE 1980S WITH ‘TRON LEGACY’,

For movie-goers of 1982, Tron came as a landmark visual feast of ideas that looked great and were way ahead of their time. The story - combat and power plays within a digital computer zone - has since been reprised in movies such as the Matrix trilogy, which of course had massively superior special effects, with help from a pretty reasonable storyline and excellent cast.

And now Tron is returning to the screen in a remake that features Jeff Bridges again, and - ta-daaa! - the landmark light cycles that have been every bike-lover’s dream since. They were created by the revered visual futurist Syd Mead, who will be the subject of an article here on Starcruzer very soon.

The Art of Tron book by Michael Bonifer (pictures above) was published at the same time as the original movie, and is now quite collectible, with recent asking prices ranging between £45-137 GBP ($75-225 USD). Starcruzer has a copy, but it’s not for sale!

Tron Legacy is being made in Vancouver, Canada, and is presently scheduled for release in 2011.

APOLLO 11 - SAFE SPLASHDOWN 40 YEARS AGO

Dateline: 24 July 1969. Apollo 1 astronauts splash down safely after their epoch-making Moon mission.

The Command Module landed in the Pacific Ocean, with recovery by helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. From start to finish the mission lasted 8 days 3 hours 18 minutes 35 seconds.

WELCOME TO TOM SWIFT, NEW STYLE

We featured the 99-year old Tom Swift series recently, and now we're looking at the most recent update. Keeping a franchise like Tom Swift looking fresh after almost a century is a task that covers all aspects of book production.

Topics need to be up to the minute - for example, 30 years ago a big eco-doom worry was whether we were about to plunge into another ice age. Today, global warming is the thing to fret about. Tomorrow, who knows? So, whatever the plot, it needs to be an ‘of the moment’ pressing issue.

It’s the same with Tom’s inventions, which also need to keep abreast of latest findings. So recent titles have featured starships, black holes, and a host of other leading-edge science ideas.

Presentation is vital, as a book’s jacket is the primary sales tool, and the cover art needs to reflect the insides in an attractive way. So it’s interesting to see that Aladdin Books has given its Tom Swift Young Inventor series a fashionable anime-style graphic novel look (top pictures). Today’s Tom is envisioned as a streetwise lad wearing a back-to-front cap, though we’re not so sure about the cool-factor of that particular style, Aladdin.

Still, Aladdin’s Tom Swift book jackets look fresh and inviting, and that’s the thing. They also remind us (in a good way) of Jean Giraud ‘Moebius’, the great French bande dessinée artist, and visual genius behind several sci-fi movies. Starcruzer will be looking at the work of Moebius soon; meantime the picture (bottom) provides a snapshot of his imagery.

You can buy the new Tom Swift books at Amazon, here.

APOLLO 11 - INFO-PACKED HAYNES MANUAL

Here are 160 pages of info-porn for those who really like to snout up the detail. Haynes, better known for its car workshop manuals, has used a similar treatment to look at the evolution and design of the Apollo system including the Saturn V, Command and Service Modules, and the Lunar Module. The manual describes the space suits, life support systems, and how the mission was flown, from launch to Moon and back.

It’s written by Dr Christopher Riley and Phil Dolling. Riley has won the Sir Arthur C Clarke award for the BBC TV series Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets. His film In the Shadow of the Moon won the World Cinema Audience Award in 2007.

Now the excitement of the Apollo 11 40th anniversary is dying away, the book is on offer in stores and online. Amazon has a good deal, including free delivery, here.

DISTRICT 9 MOVIE - ALIENS ARE AMONG US

District 9 looks like it’s going to be a box-office winner, not least because here we have a sci-fi movie that’s set somewhere other than anytown, USA. In this case, South African-born director Neill Blomkamp takes us to his homeland, where aliens have been among us for decades. And now nasty things are happening...

The video clip here is of a 2005 Blomkamp short, which served as the starter seed for District 9, and it employs typical Blomkamp imagery, with documentary-style hand-held shots, coupled with unobtrusive cgi effects. Blomkamp has quite a track record - he’s directed three shorts set in the XBox Halo universe, and was hired to direct the full-length feature, presently on hold. Let’s hope the movie goes on full-burn very soon; meantime his Halo commercials won awards at Cannes last year, and deservedly so.

Neill is hugely talented - he’s produced many commercials (including Citroen’s excellent transforming C4) and original visions to illustrate the future of aviation and of the automobile. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

APOLLO 11 - GOOGLE MOON TAKES YOUR COMPUTER OFF-PLANET

So far as Planet Earth is concerned, Google is, as the marketing suits say, completely ubiquitous. And now Google Moon takes you into space, all the way to the surface of the Moon, with an endlessly fascinating look at where we and our various robotic machines have explored.

Google Moon’s zoom, pan and scan features hit Starcruzer’s sweet spot - using a baseline of stitched panoramic images, you can inspect all sorts of places, including the Apollo 11 and other landing sites. There are info panels, voice-overs, videos - the list of goodies is a long one, and maybe with updates to come, virtually endless.

If you don’t already have Google Earth (of which Moon is a part) then you can download the program for free.

Visit Google Moon here.

APOLLO 11 - ONE SMALL STEP...

Here we go, footage of the first humans on another world. And for those of us old enough, a moment to remember...

My friend Jules watched Neil Armstrong’s first steps in a London pub with friends. It stayed open all night so people could see the TV footage being broadcast around the world, and as Armstrong’s ghostly figure went down the ladder, a hush fell across the beery watchers, and all were aware that history was being made.

As for me, I watched it all on my parents’ black-and-white TV, while they slept soundly in the bedroom above. I took lots of transparency slides of the TV images, which I still have in storage - they’ve gone a little blue with age, but still record ‘that moment’. I do remember more than a twinge of disappointment though, when that lunar horizon didn’t suddenly come alive with strange alien lifeforms.

It was a weird moment for reflection too, as at that time the news media were usually headlining the latest battles in the Vietnam War. Yet here was the US, deeply involved in the Asian combat zone, but also capable of magnificent adventure on another world. And Neil and Buzz went in peace, for all mankind. It may have been the US flag up there, but we felt it stood for the rest of the world, too.

One last thought - Apollo mastermind Wernher von Braun and his team seriously reckoned we could land on Mars by 1986, and had the pencil designs to show that it was possible. But here we are 40 years later, wondering if we ‘might’ get to the red planet by 2030. And that really is just a bit sad.

UFO vs CAR SHORT MOVIE

Here’s a cute little movie from director-writer Andrea Ricca that’ll while away a minute or two of your time.

It leaves us wishing that Andrea’s UFOnauts were real and... please can we have a prize too?

It earns a Starcruzer ‘smile' award on this very wet and gloomy morning. Enjoy.

THE MOON WAS MY HOME FOR THREE DAYS

"I called the Moon my home for three days of my life, and I'm here to tell you about it... that's science fiction".

These words are from one of the very best Apollo movies you can see. Ron Howard's In the Shadow of the Moon released in 2007, picked up a galaxy of awards, and rightly so. Not only is it well made from beginning to end, but it's a feel-good movie that'll have you glued to your seat.

Starcruzer says: "It's time to go back".

YOU’VE GOT ONE WEEK TO MAKE A WINNER!

Here’s a good idea to commemorate the Apollo 40-year anniversary - a ‘Going to the Moon’ model contest, from the website Starship Modeler. SM proposes three categories, Kit-builds, Scratch-builds, and Dioramas, but you’ve only got until 27 July to make your entry, and upload at least six pictures.

Make sure you take pictures on a well-lit workbench, with focus that's laser-sharp to be in with a decent chance of a win.

The competition is one in which other modelers take part, as votes for the winners are by on-line poll. You get only the one vote, but you can change your mind. There are three ‘Popular Vote’ awards in each category, as well as an Editor’s Award.

There’s a $5.00 USD entry fee that goes toward the cost of mounting the contest and winners’ plaques.

Read the full rules at Starship Modeler, here.

APOLLO 11 - 40 YEARS AGO WE CAME IN PEACE

Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon, while Michael Collins orbited high above in the Apollo Command Module. All three are now in their late 70s, and two of them have strong opinions about where we should be going in space.

Speaking at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, Neil Armstrong (who has never gone for the publicity spotlight) simply looked back on the history of the space race. Michael Collins challenged us to look after the Earth better, and made a strong call for the human race needing to move off-planet and on the Mars, a cause that we strongly support here at Starcruzer.

Buzz Aldrin envisaged a wide range of future explorations, and had these words to say about the next steps to take: “Four decades have passed since Neil, Mike and I passed across the blackness of space to win a race. This time instead of a Moon race we can try to make the Moon a true stepping-stone to more exciting and habitable destinations….if we persevere, we can reach Mars itself before 2035. Isn’t it time that we continued our journey outwards, past the Moon?”

Good for Buzz, and best wishes for his excellent website too. Here at Starcruzer we have a handsome memento of Aldrin the Moonwalker in the form of a Dragon Models scale figure, complete with spacesuit and accessories (see pictures above). These models are no longer made, and have become prized collectible that sometimes come up for sale on eBay and other auction sites.

You can visit the Buzz Aldrin site here.

TRANSFORMERS GAME COMPETITION

For keen video game players, the London Daily Telegraph has a competition that could net the winner one of five Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen games, complete with an XBox 360 to play it on.

It’s nice and easy - all you need to do is supply the name of the Autobots’ leader.

Visit the competition here.

‘MOON’ MOVIE A MUST-SEE, SO HERE’S A FEATURETTE

Starcruzer featured a trailer for Moon back on May 15, and now it’s on limited release, the movie is reaping acclaim from all corners. With a downbeat look at space along the lines of minor classics like Outlander and Silent Running, Moon makes a fresh alternative to the cgi-fest that is normal sci-fi fare today. So here’s an interesting featurette backgrounder that should tempt you into a visit.

Unusually for a current production, many of Moon’s effects rely on traditional model-making skills, and anyone who has seen Space 1999, a 48-episode series made from 1975-77 by Gerry Anderson, of Thunderbirds fame, will be familiar with the look and feel of model moon trucks crawling across a dusty high-contrast simulated lunar surface.

And Space 1999 had a familiar flavour for viewers of the time, for Gerry Anderson’s special-effects director, Brian Johnson, had worked on the seminal movie made by Stanley Kubrick, 2001 A Space Odyssey, which did the whole Moonbase thing in a way that’s still unequalled.

EMERGENCY ESCAPE SYSTEM

While the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 catches the headlines, work continues on other NASA projects, and that includes the Constellation back-to-the-Moon program. Whether it proceeds unscathed from present reviews is unlikely, but for the moment interesting things are happening there, including tests on the rocket-powered Launch Abort System (LAS).

The LAS is another ‘shades of Apollo’ item, which means a powerful system that will literally pull the Command Module, now called the Orion Crew Vehicle (OCV), up and away from the Ares launch rocket. Once free, the OCV will float down to safety under three massive parachutes. Development testing is an absolute essential, and among the vital components are the LAS rockets, which have just been tested, while strapped upside-down on a fixed test rig (video, top above).

NASA has also released a cgi video (bottom) which shows the whole emergency abort sequence, from lift-off to an airbag-cushioned landing. It’s a fascinating thing to watch, and when you see the complex sequence of events needed for the LAS to work properly, it demonstrates just how staggeringly intricate aerospace design is, and why development budgets are so huge.

WE CHOOSE THE MOON WEBSITE

Definitely a must-visit is the We Choose the Moon site, designed to give us all a moment-by-moment rerun of the Apollo 11 flight, using today's multimedia tools.

It's highly recommended, but there's lots of Flash animation, so be prepared to wait if you're on a slow connection.

Visit We Choose the Moon here.

THE MAN BEHIND THE MEN IN BLACK

The Starcruzer crew were enjoying a Blu-ray version of Men in Black the other night - and yes, Blu-ray really is better than anything else out there, though it's fair to say even the sharpest picture is won’t improve a bad movie. But that's no prob with MiB which is excellent at all resolutions.

But seeing MiB got us thinking about where the words came from, and then we saw an obituary for the man who coined it, the US UFOlogist and paranormal investigator, John Keel, who died aged 79, earlier this month.

He first mentioned MiB in a 1967 issue of Saga magazine, in which he described sinister figures of “gaunt, evil aspect, often with Hispanic or Oriental features”. Keel claimed to have seen such entities on TV, while he watched Richard Nixon’s presidential inauguration ceremony; yet later, when he studied photographs of the event, the MiB seemed to have completely disappeared.

Keel certainly had an excellent track record in weirdness reports and studies of strange phenomena, as well as adding new terms to the language. In 1971 he coined the word ‘ultraterrestrial’ to describe UFOnauts, and earlier had written The Mothman Prophecies, reporting on a huge winged creature called the Mothman, thought to appear before disasters, or even cause them. This was made into a tolerable 2002 movie, starring Richard Gere and Alan Bates.

In the end, Keel doubted that UFO astronauts actually exist, instead concluding that there might an advanced civilization living here on Earth in another dimension, parallel with, but not part of our own existence. As for the MiB, we’ll take those excellent movie heroes Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones any day!

A word about the ‘Powers of Ten’ outro on the video above: it just has to be one of the best movie sign-offs - ever.

APOLLO 11 - 40 YEARS AGO IT LEFT EARTH, TARGET MOON

Lift-off for the Saturn V, and Apollo 11 was on its way to the Moon, on this day 40 years ago. Taken from the ground, the top picture shows a condensation cloud around the rocket as it thrusts through the sultry Florida air. And just minutes later the next pic was taken in mid-air, from a Boeing EC-135 tracking plane that supplied information to NASA flight controllers down below.

The Saturn was huge, far bigger than any rocket launcher used today. Fully stacked with three stages, plus the Command and Service modules and Lunar Module, Saturn V topped out at a height of 110.6 m (363 ft). Fuelled up for launch, the mighty launcher weighed some 3350 tonnes.

WHY ARE YOU GLOWING, DOC?

Here’s an interesting video featuring the Watchmen technical advisor-whiz giving some backstory to Doctor Manhattan, the glowing blue character in the movie. Watchmen author Alan Moore’s original graphic novel creation was a ‘quantum superhero’ that perceives time in a non-linear way, giving him a different outlook to us mud-crawling highly linear birth-until-death humans. To add an exotic note, the supremely talented illustrator Dave Gibbons gave Doctor Manhattan glowing blue skin - and the Cherenkov radiation effect is one of the best translations from the printed page to movie screen.

Two other blue-skin characters spring to mind - Dave Gibbons’ own Rogue Trooper, and Frank Hampson’s Dan Dare, who was treated to a special ray bath in an early adventure, so that he could blend in with Venusian tribespeople called Atlantines.

Quite how ‘real’ the explanation on the video is probably depends on how credulous you are, but - much like articles and books on the science of Star Trek - it sounds ‘sort of’ convincing, and is great fun into the bargain.

FALCON-1 BLASTS INTO ORBIT CARRYING RAZAKSAT FOR MALAYSIA

Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal (top picture) is at last seeing the benefits of his investment in SpaceX, the space technology company he formed in 2002. After early failures - par for the course in the complex and high-risk space business - SpaceX successfully launched a second Falcon 1 rocket on July 13, hauling Malaysia’s RazakSAT Earth survey satellite safely into space.

The video (middle) shows the launch, from countdown to orbit. It’s fascinating to watch, with many items to spot, such as passing through the clouds after launch, the stage separation, glowing rocket nozzle and much else.

The next big milestone for SpaceX will be a successful flight for the Falcon 9 rocket later this year. This is the SpaceX heavy-lifter, designed to tote the company’s reusable Dragon cargo capsule into orbit. SpaceX already has NASA contracts for 12 missions, as far out as 2015. They will resupply the International Space Station (ISS), taking the job on after the Space Shuttle stops flying.

Following the Dragon cargo capsule will be the Dragon seven-seater crewed spacecraft (bottom). And this item is really interesting - if all goes according to plan, Dragon will form a private spaceflight answer to the ‘big government’ approach to new human space projects. Whether Dragon and Falcon 9 will compete with NASA’s troubled Constellation program, with its Aries boosters, Orion capsule and Altair lunar lander, is anyone’s guess at the moment - a big review of the scheme is underway right now.

Thanks to ‘hantonr’ for the video.


Visit SpaceX here.

IT’S SHUDDER-TIME - 'THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON' IS COMING

For anyone addicted to creature movies, then Creature from the Black Lagoon has to come near the top of the list (top picture). It was a seminal 1950s B-movie that didn’t really frighten anyone, and yet still had the power to fill the aisles.

Well, the Creature is coming back, with a Universal movie planned for 2011 release. Meantime, the Universal Theme Park in Los Angeles is giving the new movie pre-release publicity with a show that has ‘guests thrilled to the gills’ (middle picture).

And that’s not the only Universal release in the works - it’s bought the rights for a movie based on Atari’s 1979 Asteroids video game that was played everywhere, from pubs and bars to the proto home computers that lived in many a teen’s bedroom. Asteroids (screenshot bottom pic) was also available on a mini console player called the Vectrex - and yes, Starcruzer has one of these collectible gems, and it’ll feature online soon.

Visit Universal Studios here.

CONAN IN SPACE

Cosmonaut Conan is going on a return-trip to Phobos, potato-shaped moon of the red planet, Mars. However, this Conan is not the mighty warrior of Robert E Howard fame (see the 1934 Weird Tales jacket above, which featured an early Conan the Barbarian story), instead, it’s a tiny microbe, nicknamed Conan the bacterium.

Conan won’t be alone on the trip; also on board the Russian-Chinese spacecraft will be other samples, including yeast and cress, all packed inside a packed in a small titanium biocontainer (see diagram). These micronauts are part of the Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment (LIFE) supplied by the US Planetary Society, to see if organisms like this can survive space conditions over a five-year period. If they are returned to Earth alive and kicking, they will supply useful information that may boost the Transpermia theory. This proposes that simple forms of life can be carried across space from planet to planet, and indeed that life on Earth may have originated with such life forms, splashed off Mars billennia ago, in a mighty cosmic meteor collision.

The idea of surviving in space seems unlikely, yet simple life forms on Earth manage to live in seemingly deadly environments - boiling water, acid springs, nuclear reactors, deep water vents are just a few such places. Whether microbes can survive half a decade in space is another question; with luck we’ll have an answer if the probe returns safely. As planned, Conan and his micronaut team, plus samples of Phobos soil, will be returned to Earth in 2012.

Visit the Planetary Society here, and Conan products at Amazon, here.

A 99-YEAR SALUTE TO TOM SWIFT, THE AMAZING INVENTOR

When Apple Computer whiz Steve Wozniak was young, one of his fiction heroes was Tom Swift, the young hero of dozens of children’s sci-fi adventure stories. And Wozniak wasn’t alone - more than 20 million Tom Swifts have been sold since the first book series kicked off with Tom Swift and his Motorcycle in 1910. All Tom Swift books have been authored by ‘Victor Appleton’, and at least one title by ‘Victor Appleton II’; actually this is a collective pseudonym - many ghostwriters have been hauled in over the years, to produce 100-plus titles and spin-offs.

For science fiction fans the ‘real’ Tom Swift probably began with the super-science featured in a second series, published from 1954-1971. In these books, in which Tom Swift Jr stars as ‘son’ of the first Tom, amazing inventions were the undisputed stars. Don’t for a moment think that the inventions were real (though they were claimed to be ‘based on scientific fact and probability’) but for young readers they were at least as good as the cosmos-crashing space operas dreamt up by Lensman-author Edward E ‘Doc’ Smith for an earlier audience.

Tom Swift and His Flying Lab introduced the Sky Queen, a mega-machine on a par with today’s Airbus A380, but with a supersonic speed capacity, and able to take off and land vertically, like a Harrier jumpjet. Great stuff, gimme!

After 1971 came further series, and a new speedster, the Excedra, a faster-than-light (FTL) starship reverse-engineered from alien technology. Rumours of a Tom Swift movie surface from time to time - with state-of-the-art cgi and a decent plot, this could make highly watchable entertainment for popcorn munchers. Here’s hoping.

Visit this fact-filled Tom Swift AP site here.

MOON BASE - HOW FAR HAVE WE COME SINCE DAN DARE'S ADVENTURES?

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) took ultra-sharp pictures that spark off some tantalizing thoughts for the Moon bases we might build one day. But when you look seriously at recent portrayals of lunar outposts, the idea doesn't seem to have advanced much in half a century, if at all.

Back in the days of the British Eagle comic, Frank Hampson, the hugely-talented artist who created and drew the sci-fi strip Dan Dare was drawing a future world many of us would like to see today. Hampson’s vision of a Moon base (top picture) included all the classic features that have been reinvented since - a lunar jeep, bubble domes, monorail transit system and sealed double-airlock doors. In the distance you can even spot a hydroponics dome for producing fresh fruit and vegetables. And the prescient Frank Hampson drew all this in - wait for it - 1958!

The concepts produced since (lower pictures) may be more realistic, at least in the spacesuit designs, but in the main, they have hardly run ahead with the visionary ball. Perhaps the confirmation of Helium 3 in commercial quantities would be a key to moving ahead with Moon colonization - in times to come, it may prove a valuable fuel for fusion power plants.

Meantime, we’ll just have to marvel at Frank Hampson’s artwork.

LOOKING AT THE END FOR THE SPACE SHUTTLE

The Space Shuttle has had a history of triumph and tragedy. From launching the Hubble Space Telescope to two tragic spacecraft disasters, it’s been a long road to the next few launches, which mark the rapidly approaching end of the winged spaceplane. After the current STS-127 mission, with Endeavour due to lift off shortly, we are nearing the final STS-133 mission, currently slated for May 31, 2010. After that, NASA astronauts will once again be fare-paying passengers aboard Russian spacecraft. Whether the follow-on Aries rockets will fly in their presently planned form is anyone’s guess until the system review is published after the summer.

Conceived as an Earth-orbit space-truck, the Space Shuttle followed on from the triumphs of Apollo. Whatever happened, its missions were unlikely to match those spectaculars and, let’s face it, orbital missions are not exactly planet-conquering right stuff. Still, disasters excepted, the Shuttle has basically done the jobs intended for it, though as a far more expensive and labour-intensive launch system than planned - but of course that’s hardly surprising, as politics and budget cuts played as big a part in its design as the technical aspects.

Perhaps the most significant thing about post-Shuttle crewed spacecraft is that all designs - US, Russian, Chinese, European - have gone back to basics and ended up with Apollo-style capsules. Winged spacecraft have the look of science fiction (which makes them intrinsically more wowser to look at!), but for much of a mission, those wings are largely deadweight to be expensively hauled into orbit. Whether we’ll ever see a lookalike ‘son of Shuttle’ is a moot point. At best guess, such a spacecraft will require a quantum leap in materials and propulsion technology to make it possible - so don’t lay any bets for such a machine this side of 2050.

Visit NASA Space Shuttle Mission Control here.

NEW HORIZONS WAKES UP ON ITS WAY TO DISTANT PLUTO

At New Horizons mission control, systems operators have woken up the grand-piano shaped spaceprobe, for routine tests to make sure all systems are working well. The spacecraft has been in hibernation, with most electronics in sleep mode, since December 16, 2008. In the months since then, it has coasted around 320 million km (200 million miles) nearer the dwarf planet Pluto and its three moons, Charon, Nix and Hydra

Pluto is a hugely distant target - since launch New Horizons has travelled some 1.92 billion km (1.19 billion miles) from Earth, a distance which radio signals from Earth cover in 106 minutes to reach the spacecraft. As it stands, the spaceprobe is looking good; by late August all checks should have been completed and the craft will be put to sleep again for the next leg of its long journey.

Pluto itself was the outpost planet of the Solar System when New Horizons left Earth, on January 19, 2006. Since then, it has been demoted to ‘dwarf planet’ status - but that name-change does not affect the mission: it’s still the same mystery world that is ripe for exploration in a flyby that will last just a few hours. However, Pluto is so far away that the flyby is not due until July 14, 2015!

You can find out the current position of New Horizons here.

The flyby picture above is based on cgi art by Thierry Lombry

MARTIAN MENU YEAR 2030 - BURGERS OR NOODLES?

With NASA’s return-to-the-Moon program once again being delayed, and budgets on the Aries launch system ripe for slashing, what does this mean for ventures beyond the Moon - to the red planet Mars?

Cutbacks are an old story, going back to the Apollo days. In a democracy, there are always good reasons to cut expensive sci-tech, especially when spending on various down-home issues seems a better bet for winning the next election. The US went to the Moon largely because of competition with the Soviet Union. Once the race had been won, churning out Saturns on a production line became an unaffordable ‘luxury’.

It’s a huge pity for the US, both politically and culturally - had those Saturns kept flying, the Moon could have been the 51st state by now. Instead, it’s likely as not that other countries will beat the US back there, even when there’s a four-decade technical lead thrown in.

As for Mars, well at least one competitor has the long-term vision, coupled with the political drive to mount a crewed mission, and that’s China. The East’s rising star sees space as a primary tool, not only for underlining political leadership, but also for honing the tools of technical development, with China as trailblazer.

So, whose flag will be on that Mars base, come 2030? Starcruzer doesn’t normally take bets, but for the time being our money is placed on a rice and noodles menu in the Olympus Mons takeaway restaurant.

Mars base model by Mat Irvine

MOON IN CLOSE-UP - AMAZING DETAIL BUT SO FAR NO LITTLE GREEN MEN

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has sent back some super-sharp pictures of the lunar surface (pictured top) using cameras that were first triggered on 30 June. The first images were of highland areas south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds).

The pix are to 3-metre (10 ft) resolution, which ought to make revealing shots of Apollo landing areas possible in times to come, though they won’t be detailed enough to show actual items of equipment left on the surface. Even so, there are quite a few disputed oddities that LRO may be able to clear up, such as the ‘Castle’, ‘Shard’ and ‘Cube Tower’. However, the chances of these, or other anomalies, being anything other than optical tricks are near-zero, so we’re not waiting up nights for revelations.

Even so, at least one astronaut, Edgar Mitchell, thinks there are ETs out there. Mitchell was the sixth man to walk on the Moon, with the Apollo 14 mission, and has made public his belief in extraterrestrial entities, UFOs and more. In 2008 Kerrang radio hit the jackpot with an Edgar Mitchell interview (video above) in which he made several amazing claims. Starcruzer’s neutral on the subject, except... if they’re there, we just wish they’d land and say hello!

APOLLO 11 ‘MOONFIRE’ MEGABOOK FROM GERMAN PUBLISHER TASCHEN

We’re rapidly coming up to the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing, and lots of people are getting in on commercial opportunities, including the splendid German publisher, Taschen. This company has a history of producing droolmaking publications, and - whether you love the internet or not - there are few better things than curling up with a glass of wine and a great big coffee table book.

And Taschen has really pushed the boat (or spacecraft) out here, with a product for which they are asking $1000 USD (yes, one thousand US dollars). You get what you pay for, they say, and it seems that Taschen has really tried with Moonfire. The price is justified primarily by the occasion, its size (350 pages), and the author's name. Norman Mailer was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, who produced a galaxy of award-winning books, plays, essays and much else besides. He combined an easy style with literary merit, and this earned him the Pulitzer Prize twice over.

If you can’t step up to the Taschen asking price (join the club!) then Amazon has a discount on the book - they’re asking £570 GBP instead of the street price of £650.00 GBP.

You can buy Moonfire at Amazon here.