Podcasts: Recommended Recent Episodes – Exomoons, Star Trek, and Mars

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: The MIT Press.

Here are a few recent podcast episodes you may want to check out.

First, I recommend the Star Talk episode “Rogue Planets & Exomoons with David Kipping.” This episode brings together two great promoters of astronomy who discuss a variety of topics, including not only planets without solar systems and the moons of exoplanets, but also the habitable zone of galaxies, civilizational monuments, and the idea that the inhabitants of a super-Earth may be trapped on the surface of their planet. It is a worthwhile tour of the galaxy.

Next, Planetary Radio had a fun episode celebrating the 60th anniversary of Star Trek. It is titled “Star Trek at 60: What do we value the most?” and it includes an interview with Robert Picardo, who you know from two Star Trek series as the Emergency Medical Hologram, yet he is also on the Board of Directors at The Planetary Society and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He discusses his more than 30 years with the Star Trek family, and discusses how Star Trek fans have a unique connection to the founding of The Planetary Society.

One more Planetary Radio podcast episode may be of interest as well. Last month in a Book Club Edition episode titled “Becoming Martian by Scott Solomon,” we heard from the author of Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds. Here is the quick summary from the book jacket:

We are on the cusp of a golden age of space travel in which, for the first time, it will be possible for large numbers of people to venture into space. Some intend to stay. But what happens—and will happen—to us in the extreme conditions of space? What should space tourists expect to happen to them during a journey to an orbiting space station, the Moon, or Mars? What would happen to children born on another planet? Would they evolve into a new species? In Becoming Martian, Scott Solomon explores the many ways in which humanity’s migration into space will change our bodies and our minds.

If you have a few minutes to listen in, you will not be disappointed.

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.

Movies: The End of the Mandalorian

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Anzellans and Grogu in The Mandalorian and Grogu. (Lucasfilm)

If you were awaiting last week’s streaming roll out The Mandalorian and Grogu on Disney+, you may have come away both happy and disappointed. I was happy that I did not pay $18 for a movie ticket to see the Mandalorian mess, but I was disappointed about every other part of the experience.

This film is more evidence, if you needed it, that multi-billion companies are capable of producing lousy products. I am now glad that Star Wars: Andor came to a respectable end and did not go through this big screen process.

Basically, the Mandalorian television series started as an adult show with some extras for the kids, while the movie was basically a kids show with little adult supervision. We started with a sole Mandalorian defeating three ATATs with his bare hands, and ended with a multi-day montage of Grogu feeding a comatose Mandaloria in the woods. How did we get here?

It reminded me of the earlier movie disaster Star Trek: Section 31, where all of the pieces were there, but they were put into a blender with nothing but gray goo coming out of the other end.

If the Star Wars franchise needed a kids show, they should have stuck with the one season and done series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. That was an okay series. But The Mandalorian started as something else – more of a western like the initial Star Wars (IV, not the I crap) – that also spoke to re-establishing earlier traditions and fighting for something in common. I saw none of that in the film. We only had a metallic superman with a stuffed animal fighting large slugs for some nebulous Republic that never seemed worth fighting for. It was like the Ewoks on steroids by the end of the movie.

So is the Mandalorian series dead? It would seem so, and those who saw this movie were given no reason to go back to the original material. Maybe without the movie some people would have stumbled onto the Disney+ series and given it a try, but now they have been scared away by a silly story set in a galaxy far, far away.

It that’s what the universe has in store for all of us, let’s dismantle the rockets now.

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.

Establishment of a US Space Academy

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: memory-alpha.fandom.com.

According to a new executive order signed earlier today (not the Lake Ontario one – that was yesterday), the White House is establishing a US Space Academy.

The executive order, titled Establishing the United States Space Academy, states:

Space is a critical domain for American national security, economic growth, scientific discovery, and technological innovation. American superiority in space depends on the strength, skill, and character of those who explore, secure, and build the industries critical to it. To continue to lead the world in space exploration and technology, while securing and defending our national interests in space, the Nation must prepare the next generation of astronauts, scientists, engineers, operators, entrepreneurs, civil servants, and warfighters and ensure that they are capable of advancing American interests in space. Achieving this goal requires us to recruit, train, and retain America’s best and brightest from across the Nation.

Did you notice that little military plug “warfighters”? Just like Star Trek’s Starfleet Academy, we need to make room for the Klingons.

This is the same president who gave us the US Space Force, so the militarization of space continues. At least the astronauts and scientists are named before the warfighters.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will serve as Chair of the Presidential Commission on the US Space Academy. The location of the academy itself was not provided, but we should be hearing more about all of the plans shortly.

As with the military academies, it is likely that foreign students will be allowed at some point. For example, the Naval Academy is allowed to enroll up to 60 foreign students. So it would seem Betazoids are a possibility.

Stay tuned.