60 Years of Star Trek and Counting

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Image by Adam Evertsson from Pixabay.

This week we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Star Trek, a simple science fiction story from 1966 that was first broadcast in Canada and barely lasted for three seasons. But from that tepid beginning arose an idea that led to multiple spin-off television series, movies, books, and more.

And it has been a hopeful show that took the dark edge off of science fiction. As creator Gene Roddenberry said back in 1985:

I believe in humanity. We are an incredible species. We’re still just a child creature, we’re still being nasty to each other. And all children go through those phases. We’re growing up, we’re moving into adolescence now. When we grow up – man, we’re going to be something!

Today we still have plenty of people attacking Star Trek for being too liberal or “woke” as they say using the word of the week, but the show was always that way.

Discussing battles with TV executives about women on the USS Enterprise, Mr. Roddenberry noted:

I had insisted on half women on board [the Enterprise]. The network came to me and said, ‘You can’t have half women. Our people say it will make it look like a ship with all sorts of mad sexual things going on — half men and half women.’ So we argued about it like a poker game and they finally said, ‘Okay. We’ll settle for one-third women.’ I figured one-third women could take care of the males anyway.

Star Trek moved forward before the rest of the country, but it saw a future that was slowly realized over time. And even if it seems we are going backwards at times, he understood that as well when he said:

I have nothing but admiration for this silly race of ours. Even with the Hitlers in it and so on. Sometimes it goes into ugliness, but, in all though, it is a beauty. It’s like a rose, which also has thorns. We’re something.

So let’s not get too depressed just because we seem to have a Ferengi in the White House. Think long term like Mr. Roddenberry, and move past the thorns.

Television: Blade Runner 2099

Posted on by onespaceman2000

If you are not in the mood this weekend to see The Dog Stars, the latest Ridley Scott film, remember we still have another Ridley Scott show coming later this year.

Blade Runner 2099, a new 8-episode series, premieres on Amazon Prime this November 25th. While Mr. Scott was not involved with this production, his view of the future continues to amaze and haunt us.

Set in Los Angeles 50 years after the last film, the new series includes plenty of humans and Replicants, but this time it is the Replicants who are on top. It is quite a twist in the story at a time when AI is everywhere and AI-related unemployment is a continual worry.

This trailer on Youtube shows you what to expect from the new series.

Unfortunately, Harrison Ford will not be returning for this new series, but it still boasts a good number of well known talent, including Michelle Yeoh (Star Trek: Discovery), Hunter Schafer (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon), Maurizio Lombardi (Ripley), and others.

I want to walk into the future with my eyes wide open, so I am eager to watch the new series.

Update: As far as the role of AI in books, movies and television, I recommend a YouTube video by The Art of Storytelling titled “Sci-Fi Was Right About AI.” It touches on Blade Runner and Dune, as well as Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix, and many earlier works as well.

Survey Results: Americans and UFOs

Posted on by onespaceman2000

Americans are skeptical about their government for many reasons beyond the Epstein Files. In the case of UFOs, they continue to believe that Uncle Sam is withholding the truth. As shown in the figure above, this skepticism has grown over the years.

The results from a recent Gallup poll, outlined in Americans Still Skeptical That UFOs Are Aliens, have even more to say about how American feel, including:

  • 37% believe at least some UFOs have been alien spacecraft;
  • Individuals between age 30 to 49 are more likely to believe UFOs have been alien spacecraft; and
  • 17% of Americans say they have personally seen something they thought was a UFO.

Steven Spielberg, creator of this summer’s blockbuster movie Disclosure Day, is probably not all that surprised by these results. He has been telling this same story about encounters with aliens since 1977 with his movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

I think it is also reasonable to be skeptical about the existence of UFOs at this point. As Carl Sagan stated in his book Other Worlds:

UFOs: The reliable cases are uninteresting and in the interesting cases are unreliable.

Hence, it might be reasonable to be skeptical on both fronts – we cannot trust our government to properly share what it knows about UFOs, yet what it knows about UFOs is of no real value.

Sci-Fi Stories: Dune & Duncan, The Sixth Nik, and Foundational Theories

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

Here are a few sci-fi stories of interest.

—Den of Geek: “Dune 3 Trailer Just Revealed the Most Important Character in the Franchise“

It’s not really about Paul Atreides. Paul may be Lisan al-Gaib, he may be the Kwisatz Haderach, but Paul is not actually the main character of the Dune franchise. Instead, that honor goes to the character introduced in the latest trailer for Dune: Part Three, the character you knew as Duncan Idaho. The latest trailer shows the internal fractures in Paul’s (Timothée Chalamet) life as he continues the Fremen jihad launched after he dethroned Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken) at the end of the previous movie. His partner Chani (Zendaya) feels betrayed by his actions and his legal wife, Shaddam IV’s daughter Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) joins the plot that the Face Dancer Scytale (Robert Pattinson) launches against him. Central to this conspiracy is the introduction of the man we first met as Duncan Idaho, played by Jason Momoa. Despite what he appears to be, this man is actually called Hayt, and he is the most important character in Frank Herbert‘s Dune novels.

—Chicago Review of Books: “Body Horror At Its Best: Daniel Kraus’s “The Sixth Nik”“

Imagine a future Earth where bodily and mental modifications are the standard. The internet, riddled with rogue AI, has become a sequestered and dangerous pseudo-entity known as the Snarl. Humanity has expanded beyond Earth to settle on other planets. The forefront of technology includes spaceships made from synthetic organic materials resembling internal human organs. In central focus of this society of the future, and in focus of the novel to be discussed today, are a collection of six metallic coin-shaped technologies called niks. Niks are implanted in the brains of a lineage of children, giving them incredible powers of intuition—and lifespans that end at the onset of puberty. When one child dies, the niks are removed from their head, and the next child is chosen. This initial description can hardly begin to cover the scope and depths of The Sixth Nik, a new science fiction novel from the accomplished Daniel Kraus.

—Movieweb: “5 ‘Foundation’ Theories That Will Change the Way You Watch Season 4“

Foundation Season 4 still has no official release date, but it is expected to arrive in 2027. The explosive Season 3 finale set up some great storylines that both extend what’s already been adapted from the Isaac Asimov novels and other subplots that are original to the Apple TV project. Like many familiar with the source material, I was caught massively off-guard by the writers changing the true identity of the Mule at the end of last season. It was one of the biggest twists in the novels, and the adaptation was bold enough to include a huge bait-and-switch. As such, I think it’s fair to say that reading the books doesn’t guarantee knowledge of what’s to come in Foundation Season 4.

Note: Do not forget to watch the third official trailer for the upcoming Dune: Part Three movie.

Summer Reading: Three Books Discussed by the Planetary Society

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: McNally Editions

Now that we are past Memorial Day, it is time to start thinking about that beach vacation.

To help with your reading selections, below I have highlighted episodes from Planetary Radio’s Book Club Edition that discussed three different books. I have included a link to the podcast as well as a quick summary from each book jacket.

Diane Ackerman and “The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral”

First published in 1973, The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral introduced not only a splendid new poet but a whole new adventure in poetry. With bravura style, unbridled imagination, and a connoisseur’s eye for precise scientific detail, Diane Ackerman’s debut brought us an unforgettable ode to each planet in our solar system, not to mention the moon, the comet Kohoutek, and the asteroid belt, as well as  strange voyages to the stars, the bottom of the sea, through the human body, and into the mind.

Diane Ackerman herself says: “I’ve always been baffled by people who write about nature only in terms of, say, junipers and cornfields, eschewing all things so-called ‘scientific,’ as if science were, per se, the spoil-sport of feeling. So wonderless a view of nature really doesn’t appeal to me.” The Planets is a rare fusion of art and science—one of the great poetic works of cosmic imagination.

Founder and CEO Peter Beck on “The Launch of Rocket Lab”

The Launch of Rocket Lab takes you behind the scenes of one of the most innovative aerospace companies in the world. From humble beginnings in Auckland to launching rockets from the Mahia Peninsula and Virginia and listing on the Nasdaq, this is the remarkable story of Kiwi ingenuity on a global scale.

The book chronicles how Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck and his team challenged traditional aerospace giants to create a revolutionary approach to satellite launches, overcoming extraordinary technical and business challenges along the way.

Through exclusive interviews and unprecedented access, discover how Rocket Lab is redefining our approach to space with their Electron rocket, Photon satellite bus, ambitious interplanetary missions and the new Neutron Rocket. Featuring hundreds of beautiful high quality images from the archives and new graphics.

Caleb Scharf and “The Giant Leap: Why Space is the Next Frontier in the Evolution of Life”

The story of life has always been one of great transitions, of crossing new frontiers. The dawn of life itself is one; so, too, is the first time two cells stuck together rather than drifting apart. And perhaps most dramatic were the moves from the sea to land, land to air. Each transition has witnessed wild storms of innovation, opportunity, and hazard. It might seem that there are no more realms for life to venture. But there is one: space.  
 
In The Giant Leap, astrobiologist Caleb Scharf argues that our journey into space isn’t simply a giant leap for humankind—it’s life’s next great transition, an evolution of evolution itself. Humans and our technology are catalysts for an interplanetary transformation, marking a disruption in the story of life as fundamental as life’s movement from sea to land, and land to sky.   
 
Inspired by Darwin’s account of his journey on the Beagle, and packed with stories from the past, present, and future of space travel, The Giant Leap thrills at both life’s creativity and the marvels of technology that have propelled us into the cosmos. And it offers an awesome glimpse of the grander vistas that wait in the great beyond.  

Note: An earlier post on this site also discussed Mr. Scharf’s book.