RIP: Actor Tom Skerritt

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Tom Skerritt and Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. (Warner Bros.)

Actor Tom Skerritt passed away last week at the age of 93 from natural causes. While he will be remembered for his many roles in movies and television, his role as Arthur Koblenz Dallas, the captain of the Nostromo in the 1979 film Alien, as well as role as David Drumlin in the 1997 movie Contact, based on the 1985 Carl Sagan novel, is how many sci-fi fans will remember him.

In both films his character did not make it to the end of the show, but he was memorable nonetheless. In Contact, he represented an overbearing and skeptical government that is dragged into the reality of SETI. Even today, the federal government refuses to directly fund SETI.

I still remember this line from his character when he is talking to Jodie Foster’s character Dr. Ellie Arroway in Contact:

I know you must think this is all very unfair. Maybe that’s an understatement. What you don’t know is I agree. I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line, where the kind of idealism you showed at the hearing was rewarded, not taken advantage of. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world.

But it is Arroway’s reply that stays with me:

Funny, I’ve always believed that the world is what we make of it.

Mr. Skerritt did a lot with his talents to make the world a more interesting place. He will be missed.

You can read more on Mr. Skerritt’s life and career at these sites:

The Hollywood Reporter
Rolling Stone
The New York Times

Rest in peace.

Video: Pale Blue Dot Update

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): View of the Moon-lit Earth taken by astronauts on the Artemis II mission. (NASA)

If you are looking for something soothing and hopeful at the end of the day, I recommend this video from Aeon magazine. It is all about the image you see above from the Artemis II mission, and it provides some helpful context to better understand our position in this universe of ours.

I think Carl Sagan would like the narrative as well.

Another Take on NASA’s Ability to Maneuver an Asteroid

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Random House

While everyone is pretty excited about NASA’s ability to nudge a distant asteroid via its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, there is more than one way to look at this event. While many see this as a new tool to protect the Earth from approaching peril, Carl Sagan saw this it more as a double-edged sword.

In his 1994 book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, Dr. Sagan wrote:

Can we humans be trusted with civilization-threatening technologies? If the chance is almost one in a thousand that much of the human population will be killed by an impact in the next century, isn’t it more likely that asteroid deflection technology will get into the wrong hands in another century—some misanthropic sociopath like a Hitler or a Stalin eager to kill everybody, a megalomaniac lusting after “greatness” and “glory,” a victim of ethnic violence bent on revenge, someone in the grip of unusually severe testosterone poisoning, some religious fanatic hastening the Day of Judgment, or just technicians incompetent or insufficiently vigilant in handling the controls and safeguards? Such people exist. The risks seem far worse than the benefits, the cure worse than the disease.

You might also remember the stealth asteroids directed at Earth by terrorists in the fifth season of the television series The Expanse. Yes, it is science fiction, but so wasn’t the idea of landing humans on the Moon until it was a fact.

As we watch the Middle East burn again, it is not hard to imagine a battle involving sociopaths, ethnic violence victims, leaders with severe testosterone poisoning, religious fanatics, or even incompetent individuals without guardrails making more of a mess of the Earth and its surroundings.

It’s just a thought.

AI is Impersonating Carl Sagan and Others

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Dr. Carl Sagan poses with a model of the Viking lander in Death Valley, California. (NASA)

AI can do a number of things well, including astronomy-related tasks, but it also has a tendency to step on toes and steal other peoples creations. This was certainly the case with the editing program Grammarly, which wanted to go beyond simple grammar-related corrections. Instead, it started bragging about how it could edit like various famous writers and other well known individuals via a service called Expert Review.

Would you like Carl Sagan to edit your work? Well, Expert Review can help. How about Neil deGrasse Tyson? Sure, why not?

The problem is that Grammarly never obtained permission to mimic these parties, so now it faced a multi-million dollar lawsuit. The Guardian newspaper cites an company official who stated that Expert Review has already been taken down for redesign. That sounds a lot like a “rapid disassembly” of the service.

Many would like the equivalent of a Carl Sagan to be only a click away for advice and input, but this is not the way to do it.

We can only hope that AI services, currently backed by billions in investment funds, can one of these days figure out a way to (1) seek permission beforehand for data use and (2) share the wealth with true creators.

Until then, AI should stick to the raw AI astronomy data and stop impersonating the astronomers.

A Day in Astronomy: The Last Word from Pioneer 10

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The visual message on the Pioneer 10 and 11 plaques. (NASA Ames)

On this day in 2003, NASA heard its last message from Pioneer 10, the Jupiter space probe. Launched in 1972, it was the first spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter on its way to the outer planets. It is also one of only five spacecraft to leave our solar system.

Both Pioneer 10 and 11 carried specially designed metal plaques that explained the position of the Earth as well as the nature of human beings. Carl Sagan helped with the design of these unique plaques.

If all goes well, in about 2 million years the Pioneer 10 spacecraft will encounter the star Aldebaran. Maybe some civilization in that solar system will be arguing about this object floating through the neighborhood the way we have argued about the origins of the interstellar object we call 3I/ATLAS.

Image (Credit): Mission patch for Pioneer 10 and 11. (NASA)