Author: w.steve.wilson

Over the past year, we’ve shared several topics related to the arts and science fiction –

We’ve looked at SF Art and hopefully come away with an appreciation of some extraordinary talents.

I hope my piece on Astrophotography inspired you to look up and admire the cosmos.

We’ve shared some Thespian arts and robot actors, including a reprise of the Boston Dynamics robots.

Most recently, I shared my choices for an SF Playlist, which I can report is now in the overplayed category; I’m enjoying every selection, every time.

It’s time now to close out the year with SF Poetry. A recent session of the St. Charles Writers Group (sponsored by the St. Charles Public Library, St. Charles, IL) considered the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe. Along with reading and discussing his poetry, we were challenged to compose a poem of our own in his style. So, of course, I elected to try an SF Poem and came up with The Case of a Mounting Sorrow.

That effort got me thinking about what SF Poetry might be out there. I, of course, fired up the Google machine and checked it out. I was surprised to find there the usual “best of” type lists but not an extensive catalog of SF Poems. Not sure of their “search engine optimization” efforts, but here are three lists that popped right up:

              Poetry for Science Fiction Fans

              Five Pieces of Poetry Science Fiction Fans Will Love

              Crabmonsters and Sentient Darkness: Ten Great SciFi Poems [sic]

The topics covered ranged from space travel to monsters, dragons, and interplanetary colonization, which is pretty much what Science Fiction covers. A few poems were on multiple lists—David Bowie’s Space Oddity, for example.

As varied as the topics are the forms. The list includes song lyrics, epic poems, haiku, and unique structures. Even if you’re not an SF fan but enjoy poetry as art, I would commend the verses to your attention.

I have to admit the Edgar Allan Poe exercise was not my first attempt at SF Poetry. For a limerick exercise, I composed Lunar Gravity: A Limerick in Three Parts (inspired by my yet-to-be-published novel). In celebration of National Poetry Month, I penned a short epic, The Voyage of the Argo. Add to that the Poe piece, The Case of a Mounting Sorrow, and it’s time for a poetry section.

That brings us to a new feature at www.wstevewilson.com – SF in Verse. Check it out and watch for the holiday entry, Santa to the Rescue, dropping next month in time for Christmas.

So, what do you think? Do you have some favorites? Do you like science fiction poems, or are they not your thing?

Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks for stopping by.

From the beginning of the space age, fans have been agog at the pictures sent back from probes or captured by space-based telescopes. Some may remember December 1973, when Pioneer 10 sent back pictures of its flyby, released by NASA in this montage, celebrating the 40^th anniversary, with Jupiter growing ever larger and then shrinking in the frame.[Credit: https://www.space.com/23833-jupiter-closeup-photo-pioneer-10.html]

Following up on Pioneer, the first probe to leave the Solar System, Voyager 1, sent back remarkable pictures of the outer planets. Saturn deserves special mention in this compilation of the planet and several of its moons, courtesy of NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. [Credit: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images-voyager-took/saturn/]

Or maybe the pictures of the cosmos from Hubble are what astound us, epitomized by the image of The Pillars of Creation. And with the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope due to be revealed in the next few days, there is much to be impressed with. [Credit: https://esahubble.org/images/archive/top100/]

So, you’re maybe asking, “That’s great, Steve. Nothing new. What’s your point?”

The phenomenal community of ground-based Astro-photographers, that’s the point. Around the world, there are amateur astronomers (although I believe there are pros in the group), are using modern, sophisticated telescopes and cameras, coupled with image processing software to produce some incredible images. I came across them on Twitter and look forward every day (and all day) to see what they’ll produce next. Some even are chasing an image that will exceed what Hubble can do—all the best of luck.

 If you use Twitter, I suggest starting by following Grant Petersen @GP_O11. As you discover other artists, follow them. You will not be disappointed.

So, let’s explore some of the remarkable work that this community produces.

To the right is Saturn imaged during the day. I just love the bluish tinge and am impressed with the technology that goes into this image. [Credit: Grant Peterson @GP_O11]

To the left is an image of The Pillars of Creation within the Eagle Nebula. How does it stack up against the Hubble image above? [Credit: @AJamesMcCarthy]

Finally, some dramatic images from around the Solar System:

Remarkable how different the big ones are in infrared [Credit: Dr. James O’Donoghue @physicsJ]

And closer to home, our own Moon. [Credit: James Willingham @JamesWillinghan]

I hope you join in and search out these remarkably talented Astro-photographers. They will amaze and astound you.

Leave a comment and let me know if you’ve discovered anyone you’d recommend.

Thanks for stopping by.

[Disclaimer: I’ve referenced several Twitter users. My purpose is only to highlight their Astro-photography. Any other opinions or tweets are their own and are not endorsed by wstevewilso.com]

Some of you will find I’m a bit late with this post. After all, the Super Bowl was over a month ago, and The Book of Boba Fett might be old news to avid fans. But I just got my Disney+ subscription, so I’ll use that as my excuse.

What’s this got to do with Robots? We’ve seen robots in movies as far back as the silent screen. Check out Metropolis someday.

(Image Credit: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58aabe1e9f74561f4dc712dd/1507906542732-XP7ZCJR35GW0PQIMRWR5/metropolis-film.jpg?format=2500w).

Bring that forward to Robby in Forbidden Planet

(Image Credit: https://amzn.to/3esCKrk).

And lest I get pilloried as fallen away by my fellow Star Wars fans, we can’t forget C-3PO, R2-D2, and BB-8.

(Image Credit: https://media.comicbook.com/2015/11/c3po-r2d2-bb8-160206.jpg )

So why a post on robots in the movies? Who knows how many movie robots there are? They’ve been around for a long time. They’ve become pop culture icons and have found their way into our hearts and homes. (Confession: I have an R2-D2 kitchen measuring spoon kit in my home office!)

I was watching the Super Bowl and loved the Sam Adams commercial, why you might ask. Because of the Boston Dynamics robots that were clearly the stars. They almost looked human and should maybe earn their creators a Clio.

Any other time that just would have been fun—but moving on …

Then I watched the first episode of The Book of Boba Fett. And what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a small flock of Boston Dynamics robots being herded down a dusty street on Tatooine. What? Sure enough, I scrolled back there they were: a flock of robots. (I’ve heard some chatter about fans objecting since the robots aren’t of the Star Wars universe. But read on.)

Watching Episode 1 prompted me to consider the difference between a robot created for a movie that may have a human actor inside (C-3PO, R2-D2, at times) or not (BB-8, Robby The Robot) and a robot cast in a movie to play a role. This was the case in The Book of Boba Fett. This raises the question, did The Book “violate” the unwritten Star Wars droid rule, or did the filmmakers cast the Boston Dynamics robots to play a part, as they would any role? Hard to say since IMDb does not list them in the cast credits but does mention them in the trivia section.

Can robots be actors? Should they get screen credit? What about those sought-after Screen Actors Guild cards? And, what about an Oscar? Wouldn’t that be something— “I’d like to thank the sheet metal crew, the programming staff, …”

Please leave a note and let me know what you think.

Thanks for stopping by.

[Disclaimer: Please accept my apologies for any ads that pop up before the linked videos. They do not reflect my position, nor do I endorse any of the products—it’s just a YouTube thing I can’t get around.]

[*Thanks to Robert Thomas / Itaal Shur for a great first couple of lines to Smooth (Video is 4 minutes)]

It was a remarkable year in space last year, getting off to a great start with Perseverance/Ingenuity in February and ending with James Webb in December. Both missions continue to astound, pushing the boundaries of science and technology and sending new knowledge to us Earthlings. Check out my last post from 2021 (From Perseverance & Ingenuity to James Webb: Bookends to a Remarkable Year).

[Graphics Credit: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2016/09/Artist_representation_of_the_JWST]

But it’s confession time—I completely missed posting about the Parker Solar Probe and its incredible trip through the Sun’s corona. Time to rectify that oversight.

NASA’s launch service partner, ULA (United Launch Alliance), launched the Parker Solar Probe (3-minute video) on August 12, 2018, aboard a Delta IV rocket. For the first time, NASA will try to sample the Sun’s corona and get within 4.3 million miles of the Sun’s surface. By comparison, the Earth is about 93 million miles from the Sun.

[Image Credit: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/R6B3mLDNuiAerSpArXjvKE-1024-80.jpg.webp, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory]

The engineering and materials science needed to protect the probe had to address not just the heat of the Sun, but hypervelocity dust particles, hard radiation, intense magnetic fields, etc. Mission scientists expect to sample the Sun’s corona and measure the boundary known as the Alfvén critical surface, which marks the end of the solar atmosphere and the beginning of the solar wind. Earth is generally protected from the solar wind, but it has weathered the Moon’s surface and studies suggest it stripped the atmosphere from Mars.

But we enjoy its effects as the Northern Lights.

If you are interested in learning more about the Parker Solar Probe, I would suggest:

Wikipedia (that ubiquitous source)

Space.com

NASA/Parker Solar Probe

One last topic for this post—speed! The mission scientists expect the probe to reach speeds of over 430,000 mph. Fast, you say? Sure—to the Moon and back in an hour and ten minutes. At its closest, to Mars in a little over 4 days. Of course, you’d need a way to slow down.

The point is, the Parker Solar Probe is the fastest man-made object in the Solar System at the moment. Its speed is fast enough to express in a small, but not trivial, percentage of the speed of light, .064% in fact. At that speed, and its close approach to the gravity of the Sun, the probe will appear to us to slow down time about .7 seconds in 1000 hours. Imagine, NASA has sent a probe that will travel fast enough to experience an effect theorized by Einstein over 100 years ago and which Science Fiction writers have been using ever since.

[Image Credit: https://nasa.tumblr.com/post/626435108717608960/bend-your-mind-with-special-relativity]

What an amazing accomplishment. Let me know what you think.

I know I’m looking forward to an exciting 2022.

Thanks for stopping by. Happy New Year.

[Disclaimer: Please accept my apologies for any ads that pop up before the linked videos. They do not reflect my position, nor do I endorse any of the products—it’s just a YouTube thing I can’t get around.]

It has been a remarkable year—no matter what the arena: politics, medicine, rocket science, exploration of the universe, and the list goes on.

We began this inaugural year of the CE 2021 Blog with remarkable engineering feats (Obliterate The Box: Three Spectacular Feats Of Rocket Science) including the landing of Perseverance on Mars. Several weeks later, we had the thrill of watching Ingenuity take off (Ingenuity Takes Flight and Fires the Imagination), establishing the first flight of an aircraft on another planet. Ingenuity has flown seventeen more times (as of today, December 30, 2021) and established new capabilities—terrain mapping, scouting for the rover, going where Perseverance could not. If you’d like to keep up with Ingenuity, check out the blog site or the flight log.

Perseverance has established firsts of its own: collecting core samples and exploring and analyzing the floor of the Jezero crater, most notably the Séítah region, characterized by sanding ripples. (For some fun, check out the Flash Series: Mars vs. The Invaders in which the Séítah region figures prominently.) Along the way, Perseverance photographed a sunset for the first time. Follow Perseverance at the mission blog site and stay up to date. Catch the weather report at https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/weather/.

[Ref: https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/26365/mastcam-zs-first-martian-sunset/ ]

And let’s not forget about Curiosity, which has been diligently pursuing its mission since it landed on August 6, 2012 (EDT). Load this link to your smartphone and you can get regular weather reports [https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/weather/]. Check out other links on the site to learn what Curiosity has been up to.

In the year we covered a Chinese Mars mission (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianwen-1), electric race cars, hyper-loops, rockets, and lunar and Martian habitats. Based on responses from readers, the most popular post was the Dancing Robots (Tripping the Light Fantastic: Take a Robot as Your Partner).

This brings us to the year-end’s remarkable achievement—launching the James Webb Space Telescope on December 25, 2021. The telescope will look back to the earliest times of the birth of the universe. The launch was exciting to watch, but the progress of the mission until the telescope is on station will be a nail-biter. I’m tense, and I’m just watching. I can’t imagine how the mission team sleeps at night. But my guess is they are tense but have confidence in the engineering (and testing) that went into this remarkable accomplishment. If you’d like to stay up to date on the mission, save https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html to your smartphone home screen and check in every so often. My current obsession is checking in every five minutes, it seems. But then again, at its current velocity, it’s traveled over 150 miles in those five minutes—who knows what can happen.

[Graphics Credit: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2016/09/Artist_representation_of_the_JWST ]

Leave a comment and let me know what you think. What was your favorite post of the year? Will you be following the progress of the Mars mission and be watching anxiously for the new telescope to get into position and begin sending back pictures and data?

I know I’m looking forward to an exciting 2022.

Thanks for stopping by. Happy Holidays.

[Disclaimer: Please accept my apologies for any ads that pop up before the linked videos. They do not reflect my position, nor do I endorse any of the products—it’s just a YouTube thing I can’t get around.]

Christmas. It’s a time of year we can embrace with joy or dread, for a simple reason—will we ever resolve the question: Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

This year it got just a little more complicated. As this question started popping up on Twitter (and I’m sure other forums and in real life), the SyFy channel offered up a Die Hard marathon under their Christmas Movie branding. One might think the question of Die Hard as a Christmas movie was settled if you subscribe to SyFy as the arbiter. But no, it just complicated things—is Die Hard a science fiction movie? After all, the SyFy channel might think so.

Let’s consider which Science Fiction movies are unequivocally Christmas movies. That’s where I started my “research” for this post. And you know what I found? Not much. There are lists of movies that came out around Christmas and movies that take place around Christmas. One such list includes such offerings as:

Brazil

Prometheus

Gremlins

Children of Men

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale [The list makers confess this is more horror than Sci Fi]

Santa Clause Conquers the Martians

But there is a real lack of movies about Christmas that are also science fiction. No android Santa’s or robot reindeer. No rocket-powered sleighs or time-stopping machines. No transporter beams for families without chimneys. And certainly, no aliens co-opting Christmas for their nefarious schemes. The closest we get is the last one on the list.

So, I’m going to go with Santa Clause Conquers the Martians. It’s tuned right into my B-movie obsession, and what’s not to like: Santa, cute kids, Martians, weird 60s Sci-Fi costumes, cheesy sets—the list goes on.

Synopsis from IMDb: Worried that their children have become obsessed with television shows from Earth which extol the virtues of Santa Claus, Martians begin an expedition to Earth to kidnap the one and only Santa Claus. While on Earth, they kidnap two lively children that lead the group of Martians to the North Pole and Santa Claus. The Martians then take Santa Claus and the two children back to Mars with them. Voldar, a particularly grumpy Martian, attempts to do away with the children and Santa Claus before they get to Mars, but their leader Lord Kimar stops him. When they arrive on Mars, Santa Claus, with the help of the two Earth children and a rather simple-minded Martian lackey, overcomes the Martians by bringing fun, happiness, and Christmas cheer to the children of Mars.

[Ref: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058548/?ref_=vp_back]

But discovering Rare Exports and watching the trailer has me intrigued. I’ll need to check out where I can watch it and see what it’s all about.

Synopsis from IMDb: “On Christmas Eve in Finland, Santa Claus is unearthed in an archaeological dig. Soon after, children start disappearing, leading a boy and his father to capture Santa and with the help of fellow hunters, they look to sell him back to the corporation that sponsored the dig. And then there’s Santa’s elves, who are determined to free their leader…”

[Ref: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1401143/ ]

It doesn’t seem then that this post will resolve the question of Die Hard as a Christmas movie. If you apply the criteria from www.thelastthingisee.com (above), I would say Die Hard is. But you’ll never convince me it’s a Sci-Fi movie. The SyFy channel, I think, is stretching it. But I’ll keep watching.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks for stopping by. Happy Holidays.

[Disclaimer: Please accept my apologies for any ads that pop up before the linked videos. They do not reflect my position, nor do I endorse any of the products—it’s just a YouTube thing I can’t get around.]

The year is wrapping up. Only twenty-four days until it’s 2022, but we still have Christmas to look forward to, and celebrate if that is your tradition. In the two grand traditions of American TV, my final two posts in 2021 will be “the Christmas episode” and “a look back at the year.” Watch this space, as they say.

But today I thought we take yet another side-step into a topic that is science fiction related, but not overly academic—phrases that have crept into everyday use to a greater or lesser extent.

After a bit of brainstorming, here are a few that I think I use occasionally, except maybe #4 and #6. Not because I don’t like them, or their source material, the need just never seems to arise. I’m guessing others use them, or maybe not.

How many do you use? Do you recall where the phrase came from? Answers are at the end.

1. May the Force be with you. [Confess: you use this, don’t you?]
2. I’ll be back. [Won’t we all at some point?]
3. Live long and prosper. [The geek in me pulls this one out now and then.]
4. May the odds be ever in your favor. [Loved the movies. Haven’t read the books.]
5. Beam me up, Scotty. [I know, I know. He never actually says this.]
6. The truth is out there. [Maybe those UAF (Unexplained Aerial Phenomenon)?]
7. Danger, Will Robinson. [A throwback to the original.]
8. Make it so. [Wouldn’t we like to have that authority?]

A related topic is the generation of new words, or neologisms. In doing a bit of reading, it surprised me how many common terms we associate with science, came from science fiction. Ranging from spacesuit to graviton, science fiction has contributed some familiar words to our language of space and space exploration. I commend the following article to your attention.

Sci-fi is a fertile breeding ground for neologisms: some have entered everyday language and even scientific jargon

By Pisana Ferrari at https://www.capstan.be/sci-fi-is-a-fertile-breeding-ground-for-neologisms-some-have-entered-everyday-language-and-even-scientific-jargon/

Answers, but I’m sure they were easy:

1. Star Wars
2. Terminator
3. Star Trek
4. Hunger Games
5. Just a cool saying, sort of from Star Trek
6. The X-Files
7. Lost in Space
8. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Clearly, I’m a Star Trek/Star Wars guy. No apologies.

What do you think? Do you have some favorites? Any you’d add to the lists that you use? Any that just annoy you?

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks for stopping by.

[Disclaimer: Please accept my apologies for any ads that pop up before the linked videos. They do not reflect my position, nor do I endorse any of the products—it’s just a YouTube thing I can’t get around.]

At long last, Isaac Asimov’s galaxy-spanning epic comes to life as Foundation. I was excited to watch episode 1, The Emperor’s Peace. It was fantastic. Big effects, a plot against the empire, a massive space elevator, an entire planet as a city—I could go on. If you can, I would encourage you to watch it, especially if you’re a fan of the novels. I’m avoiding the temptation to binge-watch the rest of the episodes, but I need to pace myself and savor every hour.

Watching it got me thinking. A good number of the series are high drama, man against the evil empire (or corrupt corporations)—tense and engaging. Believe me, I’m a big fan of The Expanse, Dark Matter, and now, Foundation. But what about the lighter side? What’s out there that gives you a good belly laugh, or a sense of fun?

Brainstorming a bit, it was easy to come up with some favorites: Mars Attacks, Galaxy Quest, and one of the best, Space Balls. In a previous post, (Monster Movies–Are They Science Fiction? The Argument Rages On), we considered whether monster movies are science fiction. If some are, then I would include Young Frankenstein on the list of Science Fiction Comedies—a totally funny movie.

[Poster Source: https://www.ebay.com/itm/SPACEBALLS-Mel-Brooks-Movie-Poster-A1-A2-A3-A4-Sizes-/321438740053?_ul=IN]

 Science Fiction Comedies might fall into several broad categories, a couple of which are spoofs and comedies in their own right. Spaceballs I would put in the spoof category as it took so much from Star Wars. And Mars Attacks spoofs just about every Mars invader movie—although the opening barbecue scene ending in burning cows might be one of a kind. (Mars Attacks Opening)

 [Poster Source: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mars_attacks]

What about Young Frankenstein? spoof? original comedy? funny actors in a “serious” story? All I can say is, every time Taco’s recording of Puttin’ on the Ritz comes on, I can’t help but see the dance number by Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle. Absolutely hilarious. The fabulous comedy actors made it superb.

Finally, relying on our trusty Internet to provide lists, we find there are more comedies than you might imagine. I checked out 10 Best Sci-Fi Comedy Movies That Blend The Genres Perfectly [sic]. I have not seen a few on the list. One more item on the to-do list for this winter—watch ‘em all. Maybe a long weekend after a snowstorm.

IMDB (the Internet Movie DataBase) of course has a list of The Top 50 Best Sci-Fi Comedy Films. Again, I’ve not seen some of these, but many I have. It was nice to see Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home on the list. One of my favorites, right after Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn (clearly not a comedy).

So, it looks like this winter will be full of fun, catching up on some favorites and enjoying some new titles.

What do you think? Do you have some favorites? Any you’d add to the lists that made you laugh? Any movies on the lists that aren’t so funny?

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks for stopping by.

[Disclaimer: Please accept my apologies for any ads that pop up before the linked videos. They do not reflect my position, nor do I endorse any of the products – it’s just a YouTube thing I can’t get around.]