Author: w.steve.wilson

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.]

As I was thinking about what to write this week, I found myself sitting in my office—staring at blank walls.

Sure I have the bookcases, but nothing is hanging on the walls art-wise. I’ve been reluctant to commit to anything, considering I’m not sure what’s the right direction for a budding science fiction writer.

A few years ago, I attended Worldcon 76, the science fiction conference held that year, 2018, in San Jose. One of the presentations was on the art of Chesley Bonestell.

[Image Credit: https://www.bonestell.org/getattachment/509c3ea4-3770-4a5e-b85d-417606bc7f2f/Saturn-as-seen-from-Titan-(1).aspx]

Bonestell’s works were visionary and remarkable, considering many of his works, such as the one to the right, were produced before we’d sent any interplanetary probes or visited the Moon.

That would be a great way to set the tone for my office. Unfortunately, Bonestell’s works are not available for home exhibition. I had to move on.

Then there are the many pictures of rockets, shuttles, and satellites that I’d snapped at various museums when I was on vacation. But to be honest, I’m a lousy photographer. So could I find pictures of satellites that NASA shares, such as this image of Mariner 2?

[Image Credit: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSp8ZibPKxBjik2NicSc7Szo6D3zqDkYAvmkQ&usqp=CAU ]

But then—these are science fact rather than science fiction. Don’t get me wrong, they would inspire, but is there something else out there?

As we’ve found before, the Internet being what it is, there are lists of the best in Science Fiction art. One list is Greatest Sci-Fi Artists of All Time. The art on this site is beautiful, compelling, and tells a story when you let your imagination run wild a bit.

And—Science Fiction art has been around for a while. One collector has assembled cover art going back as early as 1908. Check it out at Classics of Science Fiction Art.

Finally, the site: Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Art. brings together the work of many artists, and their work is fantastic.

[Image Credit: https://www.scififantasyhorror.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/mohamed-reda-sci-fi-workshop-feature.jpeg]

The final possible source of décor might be photographs and images of actual natural phenomena—planets, moons, galaxies, and nebulae. I’ve considered the famous picture of the Earth “rising” over the Moon by Apollo 8. Pair that with a photograph of Moon-rise from the International Space Station, and I might have what I need.

[Image Credit – Earthrise: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/shopping?q=tbn:ANd9GcSFOOqWlaDvmOkj7aCUbod1CPdR-5x0i7FYHYWjNvuNH-1VC5CC2UZGW7ha2orqm75ElKj7ZjEAUUA&usqp=CAc]

[Image Credit – Moonrise: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CJ3kX6suXyQ/V-4gpS47TGI/AAAAAAAA7i8/GLv0YJSYgrI8X-Bgcu4OAo4qvsTykJUlACPcB/s1600/moonrise-iss-09.JPG ]

Where did I end up? With blank walls and too many ideas. At least I’ve done some investigation and have some thoughts on what’s next—another task for the winter months ahead—a Science Fiction Rock Playlist and artwork for the walls.

What do you think? Do you have some favorites? Should I go with all Science Fiction art? Maybe a few planet and nebula pictures? How would all rocket ships or all aliens look?

[Image Credit: https://cdn.hswstatic.com/gif/Hubble-20201.jpg]

Leave a comment and let me know what you think. I’ll share the results in a future post.

Thanks for stopping by.

This week we’re going to return to the general category of fantastic science, engineering, and technology feats that I first marveled at in the post from March 29, 2021 (Obliterate The Box: Three Spectacular Feats Of Rocket Science).

But this week, we’re going interstellar.

Interstellar? You might ask. Humans aren’t traveling in the vastness of interstellar space—or are we? OK, so maybe humans aren’t, but our machines are, and that’s where we can marvel at the spectacular feats of science, engineering, and technology.

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are sailing the interstellar realm. I follow both on Twitter, and it occurred to me, beyond the novelty of space probes having Twitter accounts, that the reports give us their distances in light-seconds. For example, the Monday (10/4) tweet from @NSFVoyager2 [unofficial account] reported that Voyager 1 (@NASAVoyager [official NASA account]) is 21 hours, 24 minutes, and 49 seconds of light travel from Earth, and adding 11 miles to that—every second. Voyager 2 is a little closer at 17 hours, 45 minutes, and 33 seconds of light travel from Earth.

Think about that for a moment. We frequently measure things compared to the length of a football field, try to wrap our heads around the Moon being a quarter of a million miles away, or talk about Mars being at its closest to Earth at about 39 million miles. It’s hard to imagine something so far away that we need to measure that distance in how long it takes light to travel there. By comparison, light from the Sun takes about eight minutes to get to Earth. It takes that light five and a half hours to reach Pluto. That same light takes almost a whole day to get to Voyager 1.

Fantastic also that Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are still doing science, sending scientists information on the interstellar plasma. The hope is that Voyager might still be doing it when it’s 50 years old in 2027. Voyager 2 may not be able to power a science instrument but may continue to transmit a weak radio signal through the middle of this decade.

One last note, the probes are expected to continue on their journeys for who knows how long, reaching the Oort Cloud in something over 300 years, close to another star in 40,000—unless one returns home before then. We know how this movie might end.

The danger was real, and it was only through Spock and Kirk’s quick thinking that Earth’s annihilation was avoided, and V GER met its creator. (OK. OK. It was a not-real Voyager 6, not one of these. But, who knows what’s out there.)

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 or after 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.]

A Note about the blog posts from the future [CE 2224]: In January of 2021, with Perseverance due to land on Mars the next month, NASA activated their experimental Quantum Transmitter. The transmitter was designed to communicate with Perseverance, without regard to location and at faster than light speeds—near real-time. Unfortunately, they lost the connection after the initialization routine was completed. However, as an unintended consequence, NASA connected with a specific locus in the space-time continuum located on the Moon in 2224. That locus was the storage device of the quantum computer of a popular blog site. It is from that blog site that these blog entries are extracted. I hope you enjoy a peek into our future, and hopefully, I’m not violating some temporal directive. So far, no visit from the time cops.

Guest Author: Kimber Abubakar, Communications Director, Mars Organics

Originally Posted: Monday, October 4, 2224 (Earth Standard Calendar)

The current move by the officials on Luna to subsidize organic waste processing is an affront to the cooperative and egalitarian culture the off-Earth settlements have fostered for 150 years. The current regulatory environment that has built a robust, self-sufficient, net export economy is in jeopardy.

Luna and Mars have benefited from the AI regulatory, compliance, and ethics ecosystem that a collaborative partnership between the two largest non-Earth economies built over the last 100 years. Retaining the government’s hands-off stance and minimizing the intrusion of government regulation has proven a boon to commercial enterprise across the system settlements.

Embodied in the Lunar Cities Consortium collective actions, Luna threatens to upend that partnership by introducing non-compete subsidies. Luna recyclers have convinced the Lunar Cities’ mayors that as Martian organic recyclers and Mars Organics, in particular, become competitive in pricing and services, Luna recyclers are at a competitive disadvantage. They contend that longer transport distances from the Asteroid Settlements to Luna than to Mars put them at a competitive disadvantage. The Lunar Organic Recyclers Association, itself an affront to open and fair competition, cites instances of transport companies bypassing the Luna off-loading stations and retaining their waste cargos until the following passage to Mars to capture a higher price. This argument ignores the offsetting higher fuel cost and is misleading, more a consequence of orbital mechanics—not economics.

This campaign to position themselves as disadvantaged is patently manipulative. The Association ignores the reality that Mars is farther from the largest belt facilities than Earth for almost half its orbit. The Association further ignores their practically exclusive control of the near-Earth facilities and the Luna orbital facilities, most notably the construction hub at the Pointe. It is doubtful that any transport company would find it profitable to ship wastes from the Earth-Moon sources to Mars for processing.

Mars Organics opposes this move by Luna to favor their domestic processors to the disadvantage of Martian commercial interests. If Luna continues to pursue these subsidies, Mars Organics will have no choice but to file a complaint with the InterSolar Trade Court.

For more information, please visit us at MarsOrganics.ag.Mars/WasteProcessing.

[Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual institutions or actual events is purely coincidental.]