Carnival of Space #316

The 316th Blog Carnival of Space is running now at Next Big Future. I especially liked the one about colonizing Venus with balloon-like floating cities some 50 kilometers above the surface, where the atmospheric pressure is roughly the same as Earth at sea level (though the atmosphere itself is not exactly breather-friendly). This idea was floated some years ago, but it was fun to hear about it again.

The picture here is not exactly a floating city, but it is the only graphic I could quickly locate purporting to show something navigating the clouds of Venus. Simulated clouds of Venus with an Orbiter add-on "space yacht" based on the cover art for a 1970's album by Yes called Yessongs. Google any of that that doesn't make sense to you.

P.S. There are many strange and marvelous add-ons available for the Orbiter space flight simulator. I have pictures of many of them on my Flickr site.

Starmap Media: Personal Trainer

Starmap was the first astronomy app I bought when I got my first iPod Touch in 2008. Although I had used astronomy software like Stellarium on PC, I was amazed at the possibility of having a planetarium in my pocket. Something I could take outside with me and hold up to the sky to help identify objects, or search to find the expected positions of stars and planets based on current position and time. All with a simple touch, drag, and pinch-zoom interface. Over time, other astronomy apps emerged, I got an iPhone which included GPS and compass, and Starmap added even more features. Life is good for fans of iOS devices and night skies.

Now Starmap has been expanded to improve its usefulness as an astronomy learning tool. Starmap Media was recently released as both an add-in to Starmap and as a free standalone app. As with many iOS apps, "free" isn't the whole story. There are in-app purchases to provide most of the content, so at the first level,  Starmap Media functions as a specialized audio book reader for a series of "astronomy lessons" or stories.

But what's really cool is that the "lessons" are integrated with planetarium software that knows the time and location and what is visible in the sky at any given time (apart from such spoilers as clouds). So if you go outside on a clear night this week and fire up "Wandering the Summer Sky," the app will point you to the various objects of interest while the narrator tells you what to look for and why. It's like having an astronomer as your personal night-sky tour guide. It doesn't answer questions (yet), but it's still pretty amazing.

While there are a few free stories or "star tours"  supplied with the app, most are in-app purchases that cost 99 cents each to download (once downloaded, Internet access is not needed to use the stories). There are stories for beginners as well as intermediate and advanced topics. The writing, production, and narration are smooth and professional, with many multimedia features built in. These include animated overlays that explain the shapes and positions of objects and patterns in the sky, diagrams and pictures of nebulae, galaxies, etc., as well as historic and mythological background.

I tried out a few of the stories at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels (full disclosure: I was given  free reviewer access to a number of stories). For example, "Stellar Smoke Rings" is a 12 minute story labeled intermediate. It points you to and explains several well-known planetary nebulae including the Ring Nebula and the Dumbbell Nebula. It was easy to follow the instructions to find the correct area of the sky. The narration waits for you to get there and touch an OK button. You can press pause at any time and an interactive contents list pops up, allowing you to jump backwards or forwards as needed.

Another intermediate story, "More Than Meets the Eye," points you to a couple of seemingly minor constellations as background for a nice explanation of stellar magnitudes and measures of sky viewing quality. The advanced story "The Arcturus Stream" talks about the behavior and properties of the easy-to-find star Arcturus, and about some aspects of star formation that can be inferred from the amounts of heavy elements such as metals that are present or absent in a star's spectrum (the "rainbow" of light from the star that astronomers use to determine what elements are in a star, using a telescope instrument called a spectroscope).

Any problems? For one thing, even the "advanced" stories I've seen so far don't seem very advanced for someone with a serious interest in astronomy who has done much reading. I have studied a lot of astronomy over the years, but I don't mind a review of a familiar topic presented in a fresh way. And the star tours include topics from recent research, such as the idea that the stars in the relatively fast-moving Arcturus stream may have originated in a small satellite galaxy that was gravitationally captured by our Galaxy. It's also nice to have a professional narrator presenting the material "in context" as you look at the star or constellation in question. It's like having a "personal trainer" for star gazing!

What about the cost? I think of it like a subscription to Sky & Telescope magazine. The sky is big, with many things to see and learn, and it changes through the year. This is why astronomy magazines sell, even though there are many astronomy books out there - they keep you up to date, show you things you may have missed, present information and recent research in new ways, and tie stories to current events such as spacecraft launches and encounters. Starmap Media stories are like astronomy magazine articles read by a professional narrator and keyed to what you can see in the sky right now (there is also a "couch mode" for exploring when skies are cloudy or the objects are out of view). You only buy the ones you want (you can download a brief free preview of any paid story to see if it interests you). Once downloaded, the stories are yours to enjoy whenever you like.

If you have an iPad, a bonus is that the free Starmap Media app is a universal app that works well on either iPhone/iPod Touch screens or larger iPad screens. The Starmap app itself comes in two versions, one for small screens and a more expensive HD version for iPads. You may want the HD or iPhone "pro" version for other features (such as expanded catalogs and telescope control), but it's nice that the Starmap Media star tours and sky displays work well on any iOS display (you can use the iPhone version of Starmap on an iPad, using the 2x button to fill the screen, but the fonts etc. don't look as nice when you view a scaled version of an iPhone app on an iPad).

Starmap Media is a really cool way to add to your enjoyment and learning while exploring the stars and planets. If you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, try it out the next time you are out looking at the marvelous night sky.

Space Settlements

A few weeks ago I saw the movie Elysium, mainly because I was intrigued by trailers showing a huge Earth-orbiting space settlement, very much like those proposed in the 1976 book The High Frontier by Gerard K. O'Neil. I had that book back in the day (actually I may still have it). Back then they were called space colonies or habitats. The movie was both entertaining and irritating. The imagined technologies and the visuals were very cool, including Elysium itself, a rotating torus-type space habitat that is supposed to be large enough to house 500,000 of the super-rich in 2154 (the much-less-than-one-percent), when the Earth's surface has become just too ugly to stand (or something). There's a lot of shooting and other typical action movie stuff, and a plot based on the huge disparity between the haves (living in luxury in space) and the have-nots (living in squalor in Los Angeles, apparently). Matt Damon is the sort-of hero in a wildly implausible story. I wanted to see more of the Elysium habitat, but that was not the point of this movie. I'm not really sure what was, other than that grossly unequal wealth distribution might have unintended consequences. True, but hard to believe this could be the result.

I hope that someday we do develop space settlements that are not gated communities for the super rich. Who will they be for, and why will we need them? I pretty much agree with the National Space Society (NSS) that humanity should strive to have places to live beyond the Earth for a variety of reasons. To provide a backup in case of extreme disaster on this planet, a way to preserve human and other life. To give access to additional resources. For economic growth that could arise from new frontiers and technologies. Because we can do it. And because it's really cool! I'm also a member of the Mars Society, and I think that eventually we will be able to colonize Mars (starting as early as 2023 if the Mars One project succeeds). But Mars is very far away, and if we can learn to capture near-Earth objects and use their materials to robotically build things in space, large space settlements might be practical, and they can be built in near-Earth orbit (like Elysium), or at other places in the Earth-Moon system, and eventually in other places in the solar system. 

So I would say, plan for all possibilities. There's an essay by Rick Tumlinson in the current issue of the NSS magazine ad Astra called "All of the Above." In it he says, "the opening of space to human development is the most important activity of the human species" (in the long run, this is certainly true). He suggests that there is no "one true path" to achieve this, but that there are three key components:

1. Regular, reliable, and low-cost access to and from space.
2. Utilization of the resources of space, wherever they are, for whatever purpose we need (i.e., "live off the land")
3. Governments that understand and support the idea of an open and expanding frontier in space, by, of, and for the people.

I agree with these points, though I'm sure not all the governments who will be active in space in the coming decades will sign up for #3. 

The same issue of Ad Astra has a space habitat on the cover. It's not Elysium, but the movie may have affected the timing since the article discussed was written in 2007. "Kalpana One" is not a torus, but a cylinder, and it's much smaller than Elysium, in consideration of the amount of mass needed to construct it, as well as radiation shielding and various safety factors. It is sized such that a 2 rpm rotation rate produces one G of rotational pseudo-gravity (low radiation and Earth equivalent G are essential, especially for growth and development of children). It might house 3000 people. It's really cool that so much analysis has gone into this. You can read the article here.

I've read a lot of science fiction on subjects like this. In terms of what things could be like if we open up and settle the solar system, I especially like Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312. Is the NSS agenda really just unlabeled science fiction? I don't think so. I think that technology is accelerating at such a rate that we really need to be planning for things like space settlements and Mars colonies. They aren't going to happen next year. But with the usual caveats (e.g., assuming we don't plunge ourselves into nuclear war or world-wide depression), some of these things could happen in the lifetime of my children. Or at least my grandchildren. 

The 100*Pi Carnival of Space!

Well, 314 is approximately 100*(pi), right? Anyway, the 314th weekly blog carnival of space is live at the Dear Astronomer blog. Like the summer, it's short but sweet (and hey Curiosity, congrats on your first Earth year on Mars!).

Kerbal Space Program?!?

I read something about KSP (Kerbal Space Program) a couple of years ago but I didn't do anything about it. Then the other day I saw this comic on xkcd, referencing KSP. If you hover your mouse over the comic, the comment says "Ahem. We are STRICTLY an Orbiter shop." Me too! But I was curious about what had happened to KSP since it was last (vaguely) on my radar.

Quite a bit, it turns out. It's still in an extended alpha development phase, but it's already got some interesting capabilities for people who like to "play in space" (something I once wrote a book about). After looking at a few web sites and videos, I decided to download and try KSP for myself (current version is 0.21.1, and it costs $23, including future updates). So what is KSP? From the web site:

KSP is a game where the players create and manage their own space program. Build spacecraft, fly them, and try to help the Kerbals to fulfill their ultimate mission of conquering space.

Essentially it's a space flight simulator with reasonably accurate physics, wrapped in a game-like interface with pretty decent graphics and some quirky alien-like astronaut characters (KSP's developers also seem to have a quirky sense of humor). It is just now starting to emerge from its "sandbox" phase (with the ability to build and fly your own spacecraft, but without any specific game-like goals). At this point, it's something like 3D simulated model rocketry, but with the ability to launch the rockets you design into space (orbital mechanics is involved, but the math is hidden behind clever controls and displays). You can dock with space stations, travel to and land on other planets, and try to navigate your spacecraft back to Kerbin for a safe landing.

Yes, Kerbin, not Earth. This fictional solar system has real physics (orbital mechanics and atmospheric flight) but it doesn't use the names and specific physical properties of our own solar system. Kerbin is an Earth-like "exoplanet" with two moons (Mun and Minmus - you can fly to and land on them).

So far I've only scratched the surface of KSP, and I don't know how much time I will spend with it. It depends in part on whether I start to do some space-related educational outreach again. I haven't done any for quite a while. When I have done school presentations, I have generally used Orbiter to dynamically demonstrate certain aspects of space flight and the solar system. That's cool for demos, and it beats simply using PowerPoint, but Orbiter's learning curve is quite steep, and it's hard for me to recommend to any students younger than maybe 11 or 12. KSP is definitely more kid-friendly. The rocket building section (see picture at top of this post) is simple yet powerful (though there is no guarantee that what you build will fly well or at all - the physics is pretty realistic, so you have to worry about mass, thrust, stability, etc.). As the Minecraft craze shows, kids (and adults) love to build stuff inside virtual worlds (and real ones). While building your own spacecraft for Orbiter is certainly possible, it's a separate "add on" development process, not integrated with the simulation itself.

KSP also integrates the instruments and controls needed to change orbits directly within the 3D views (spacecraft and map), making it easier and less abstract to see the effects of firing your rockets at certain times, locations, and directions. The screenshot above is from the integrated Orbiting 101 tutorial, and it shows the "maneuver node system" being used to predict the effect of a pro-grade burn at the low point of the orbit (periapsis). Dragging the pro-grade symbol changes the delta-V (speed change) value, and the dotted orbital path shows the predicted effect in real time (your path doesn't actually change unless you make that proposed burn at the proper time and with the correct ship orientation). Orbiter has similar capabilities (and much more) with its various "MFD" instruments, but these work like display screens in the cockpit, not directly in the 3D view. More realistic but also harder to visualize and understand.

KSP allows you to build and fly some pretty cool and complex space vehicles such as multi-stage rockets with strap-on boosters, and even Apollo LM-like landers such as the one shown above (docked with an Apollo-like command module housing three Kerbals who are about to land on the Mun - this is a supplied sample scenario). Although it's easy to build monster rockets with many engines, you do need to pay attention to structural integrity, symmetry, and stability or your giant booster may tumble out of control, crash, and burn. Unlike in Orbiter, things can and do blow up in KSP, though at the moment the hardy Kerbal astronauts are immune to G-forces, allowing you to perform high-G atmospheric entries and the like with impunity (this will undoubtedly change in future versions).

Future versions will also include a flight sim-like "career mode" with awards for completing certain missions or milestones like docking or landing on the Mun). I suppose that training options will also expand, although there is already some basic training in the game, and a variety of user-created tutorial videos and PDF's available on the web. Note that since changes between versions can be pretty extreme, there is no guarantee of backwards compatibility for previously built things when you upgrade.

I think KSP is already a great educational tool, because it is sufficiently "toy like" to be fun and non-threatening (think building robots with Lego MindStorms, but much cheaper), but powerful enough to allow really interesting and challenging activities. I really like the emphasis on what is essentially engineering - designing, building, testing, and thinking about why things work or don't work so the next iteration can be better. And remember, to engineer is human (and sometimes fun too).

The First Moon Families

Today would have been Neil Armstrong's 83rd birthday, and I happened to see this LIFE Magazine web feature somewhere. It includes photos of Apollo 11 astronauts Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins before their Moon mission in 1969, "away from the office," with their wives and kids. I especially like the photo I've posted here.

Weight, Weight, Don't Tell Me!

Although I have kept personal journals at various times in the past, I don't think of this blog as that sort of thing. It's more of a place to "think out loud" about about stuff I find interesting, and to share those loud thoughts with anyone who cares to visit, and on rare occasion, to add their own thoughts. Music, space, books, etc. Usually not "personal stuff." But for the last 6 months or so, one of my interests has been losing weight. I've just had a minor setback in that department which has taught me a lesson I hope not to forget. So I decided to share it here, for myself and others.

After watching my weight creep up over many years, I hit 223 pounds in January. The fact that this number is just over 100 kg (101.2 kg!) struck my semi-metric brain as some sort of a last straw. Triple digits in pounds can't be helped at my height (about 72 inches or 183 cm), but triple digits in kilograms? No way! So I signed up for Weight Watchers (WW) online program, drawn especially by their iPhone app, which makes it fairly quick and easy to keep track of what I eat throughout the day. I rationalized that the $19 per month for the WW program would be healthier than spending a similar amount each month in afternoon snacks from the vending machine at work (which I was doing).

This tracking process seemed to be the key to it for me. WW has a proprietary "point system" that is roughly equivalent to counting calories, but with smaller numbers and some helpful simplifying assumptions, such as "fruit has zero points" (even though fruits actually do have some calories). There seems to be some clever motivational psychology in their system. You have a budget of daily points, weekly "overdraft" points, and activity points that you can gain by walking and other exercise activities. These extra points kick in when you run out of weekly points, and I gained around 3 activity points a day by taking a 30 minute walk every morning (usually with the dog). The theory is that if your weekly food points total less than your combined daily, weekly, and activity points, you will lose weight.

The good news is that it worked for me. From January 12 to about a month ago, I lost over 30 pounds (~14 kg). With a few minor exceptions, my Saturday weighings showed that I lost weight every week. Then over the last 4 weeks, I seemed to be stuck around 191, gaining or losing a little each week, though never falling below 190 (my final goal is 183 lbs.). But this week I weighed 193, and it was clear to me that the trend line is now heading up.

What happened? Around 4 weeks ago, I stopped tracking food points and started cheating more (I have kept up the daily walks, which the dog won't allow me to forget). It seems I decided that my habits had changed, so I didn't need to track my food points, just my weekly weight. Of course I had "cheated" at other times in the last 6 months, though technically WW lets you eat whatever you want, as long as you stay within your weekly points budget, so it isn't "cheating" per se. As long as I was tracking any treats or extra stuff I ate, I would tend to stay in line the next few days so I wouldn't blow my whole weekly points budget. But once I stopped tracking my food points, it was only my own memory and "will power" that would keep me from cheating several days in a row. Pretty soon I was gaining weight. Not too mysterious.

So what's the lesson? The lesson is that I need to keep tracking my food intake and activities every day to keep myself honest. You don't have to "cheat big" if you are cheating small and often enough. I've already noticed myself making better choices again, helped by keeping a large supply of "point free" fruits and vegetables in the house. Carrot sticks, blueberries, cherries, and even bananas are all "free" and this really helps me to stay on track.

I had been thinking I might cancel the WW subscription and just track my weight on my own. I realize there are other ways (some free) to track my food intake, so I will look at alternatives, especially those that have iPhone apps. But I will keep the WW subscription a few more months until I know I am back on track.

GREAT Website - Brainpickings.org

I recently discovered a fantastic website called Brainpickings.org. Allow me to quote from the About page:

Brain Pickings is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large, who also writes for Wired UK and The Atlantic, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow.

As a fellow curious mind at large (without portfolio), I salute and highly recommend Brain Pickings. Although it covers a lot of books, it goes beyond simple book reviews - the book articles are more like heavily illustrated and quoted exploration guides. It also covers other things - pretty much whatever Maria finds interesting, I guess. Happily this includes a lot of science in addition to literature, people, creativity, and much more.

Our Robotic Future, Creeping Up

The other night I decided to watch the 2004 movie I, Robot. I had only seen it once before, in the theater 9 years ago. It popped up as I was browsing films in iTunes. While it's not the greatest SF or Will Smith movie I have ever seen, I enjoyed it, though I was skeptical of the level of AI and mechanical performance of the fictional year 2035 robots. Even before the latest super-smart NS-5 model that drives the movie's plot, the human-size, bipedal robots in wide use seemed to have good speech understanding and athletic ability, and even more impressively, they could interact seamlessly with humans in social situations ranging from home kitchens to bars to crowded streets. Could robot technology really reach that level 31 years from the film's release, just 22 years from now?

A few years ago, I might have said no, but now I'm not so sure. One data point: the recently announced Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics, which I read about today in this NY Times article. This 150 kg robot is hydraulically operated and is designed to work in human environments. It is an R&D model that will be programmed by several teams next year in a DARPA competition to demonstrate capabilities needed for human assistance missions. It's no cakewalk. From the Times article: "The contest involves programming the robot so that it is able to climb into a vehicle, drive to a destination, get out of the vehicle, cross a rubble field, open a door, use a power tool and turn a valve." Wow. You can watch the big lug in action in this DARPA video. It's clear this will NEVER be used for direct military purposes, despite the little hand exercise that looks like a wild west gunslinger spinning his 45's around. They probably only do that in movies anyway.

I'm not sure what to make of all this. I do believe that technology is developing at an exponential rate, and with sufficient computing power, strong but lightweight materials, and advanced batteries, I can imagine "Atlas" evolving into "Sonny" in 20 years. Sure. I've read a lot of other articles about how the use of robots is expanding into activities that require close interaction with humans, and how recent models can even be programmed by simply moving their arms to teach them the needed motions. Smarter, cheaper, easier to use robots are certainly not going to help our unemployment problems. Even if it never gets to the point of a robot bartender, a lot of jobs that could not easily be automated in the past will be up for grabs. Maybe even bartender.

Two things are clear. Boston Dynamics was thinking ahead when they loaded Atlas's chest with blue LED's. This is the same as the NS-5 in I, Robot, so when someone overrides their programming and makes them turn bad, it will be a simple matter to replace the blue lights with red bad-robot LED's (white hats and black hats are so twentieth century). The second thing is that when Skynet sends a Terminator from the future back to our time to locate some key technology, they should send it to Boston, and not Los Angeles.

Europa Report - Good Movie

I just bought Apple TV and connected it to our HDTV. Coolest thing ever. With my heavy stake in Apple i-devices, iTunes music, and even a few movies and TV series bought over the years, it's the perfect thing. I can stream music from iCloud through my living room stereo, share content from the iPad or iPhone on the big screen, view rented movies at full (1080p) HD, and much more. Great little $99 device with no additional subscription required. Much nicer web interface than the Panasonic BluRay player we have used up to now (and still may use for Amazon movies since Apple TV doesn't support those).

But I digress. The very first movie I rented through Apple TV was Europa Report, and I really liked it. It's an unusual situation that this first-run film is available on iTunes ahead of its theatrical release on August 2, but that works for me, especially with Apple TV.

Europa Report is mostly "hard SF," my preferred SF genre. The science and the technical treatment of human space flight on a long interplanetary mission are mostly realistic and quite well done, on par with 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's a planned 3-year mission to explore the surface and sub-surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa. The space-station like spacecraft is fairly large and has a rotating component to provide artificial G in the crew quarters. The six person crew (4 men, 2 women) works well together, though they experience tension, boredom, isolation, and other mundane effects of a long mission in a cramped environment (the movie is only 90 minutes, but the production manages to convey the length of the mission pretty well). They also experience a number of crises, which also mostly seem realistic, triggered by events such as a solar storm, equipment failures, and accidents.

I won't give away any key plot details, but as the picture above suggests, they do reach Europa, their crewed lander reaches the surface, and they are able to drill through some 2.7 km of ice with a probe that sends back video and data from a sub-ice ocean. I will let you see the movie to find out what they learn and what happens. It's pretty dramatic and exciting.

I do have a few minor complaints. Why does a lander intended only for non-atmospheric use have deployable landing gear? Why would they not follow better safety and backup procedures on EVA's? I won't say more lest I reveal plot details, but some of the dramatic events seemed preventable to me if certain common sense procedures had been followed. Of course it's a movie, so dramatic events are needed. And these are minor complaints - on the whole, this movie required much less suspension of disbelief than 90% of the space movies I have seen. There is serious consideration given to zero-G, radiation, crew psychology, communication delays, spacecraft operations, and much more, all in the context of a good story with real-seeming characters. Multi-year spaceflight seems much more of a tough job than an adventure in this movie, though the adventure part is definitely there (sort of like the old saying about war - long periods of sheer boredom interspersed with moments of stark terror).

I would give the movie 4.5 out of 5 stars if I were one to give stars to movies (and BTW, there are no "stars" in this movie - the actors are all unknowns to me, but they do a fine job).

Carnival of Space #305

The 305th edition of the Carnival of Space is on view this week at AARTScope Blog. A few members of the diverse space and astronomy blogging community share stories ranging from fast-moving galaxies, to new Mars maps, to a method of turning x-ray astronomy data into music (visualization becomes musicalization!).

Ach, Bach! Und Schubert!

Do I really need more classical music floating in my Amazon Cloud? Probably not, since I already have more music than I can listen to in my lifetime, but Amazon keeps throwing out these crazy deals. This week it's a new Big Box collection from the Bach Guild, and this time it's Schubert, one of my favorite composers, 130 works (or movements) for 99 cents. Some 13 hours of music. Some of these are pretty rare recordings including a version of Symphony No. 7 which Schubert completed in sketch form (but he did not complete the orchestration himself).

And under the classic VoxBox label, another huge collection, Bach Complete Organ Works, played by Walter Kraft, 284 works (or movements), again for 99 cents (14+ hours). These are generally older recordings, remastered, repackaged, and re-released, but they sound great to me. Clearly it's some sort of promotion, but even when these sets go up to $4 or $8 they are still a great value.

Laura Mvula: Beyond Amazing

I discovered and bought Laura Mvula's debut album Sing to the Moon on April 19, and it immediately blew me away. It is still in heavy rotation in iTunes at home and in my car, and it still sounds surprising and fresh every time I hear it. What is it about her music? Part of it is her voice, which is smoky yet clear, an extremely expressive instrument, which she indeed uses as an instrument, with all sorts of tonal colors (the vocal harmonies are unusual and seductive as well). Part of it is the songs, which have structures and melodies that are just somehow different yet catchy and somehow familiar. She is not at all like Joni Mitchell, but her songs and sounds remind me of Joni's work from Blue through Hissing of Summer Lawns. Maybe a little of Paul Simon's Graceland too - again nothing like that work, except that it stands out as truly different, yet as delicious as any comfort food. Songs that are more than songs -- fully formed musical works that sound familiar yet somehow alien. Songs that have melodies, chords, and harmonies not that different from other popular music, yet totally unique. Mvula's work is like that - hard to describe, but just so pleasing to the ears, even after many listens.

Another part of it is orchestration. I read that Mvula is or was a composition student at a music school in Birmingham, England. Her songs are not the least bit "classical," but her use of woodwinds and strings is totally organic to the songs, not simply studio "sweetening." These songs are composed, but still loose and natural. Like Ravel or Rimsky-Korsakov, she turns combinations of orchestral and vocal sounds into beautiful colors. It is not really pop, soul, jazz, R&B, world, or classical. It is Laura Mvula's music!

Yes, I'm in love. I almost wrote something about her back in April, but so much new music becomes just OK after an initial burst of excitement. But Mvula's music is like Willy Wonka's everlasting gobstopper, it just keeps going and going and going...

P.S. Check out her videos: Green Garden, That's Alright, and She. Wonderful.

iPad Astronomy

I love my iPad Mini. It follows me everywhere and is the most wonderful little tool for reading books and magazines, creating music, studying Japanese, and exploring the Universe, to name only a few frequent uses I have for it. I have around 13 astronomy and space related apps on my iPad right now, including my favorite "game," F-Sim Space Shuttle (I probably have bought a dozen more astronomy/space apps not currently installed - 32 gigabytes is not as big as it sounds). Back in April, I wrote about one of my favorite apps, Exoplanet. Recently I've found a few other astronomy apps that are really awesome. Here's some info on two of them.

Luminos is currently my favorite general astronomy or "planetarium" app. It is beautiful and packed with features, more than I have really managed to learn so far, although I can't say the interface is poor - it's just that there's a lot of stuff to see and do. It is comparable to Stellarium, the (free) planetarium program I have used the most on Windows, but of course more portable and with a touch-based UI. I like that in addition to the usual planets, stars, and deep-space objects, it also includes small bodies (comets and asteroids) and satellites. Everything is easily configurable for how much information to collect, update, and display.

Cosmographia is one of two really beautiful astronomy apps from Fifth Star Labs LLC (the other one is Sky Guide, which is based on real astrophotography and has the interesting feature of assigning musical tones to different types of sky objects when you touch them). Cosmographia is focused on the solar system, and it reminds me in some ways of my favorite (free) space flight simulator for Windows, Orbiter, though it doesn't include the user-controlled space flight aspects of Orbiter. It is wonderful for tooling around the solar system, exploring the planets and their moons, as well as various minor objects and spacecraft including including Cassini (Saturn), ISS (Earth), Galileo (Jupiter), the two Voyagers (now leaving the solar system), and several others. Each of these typically includes one or more "highlights" which are scripts you can select to run a simulation of an event such as a close fly-by of Enceladus by Cassini (select the spacecraft, then the circled i for info, then scroll down to the mission highlight links at the bottom).

This is the part that most reminds me of a replay in Orbiter (though in Orbiter you have the ability to define or change spacecraft encounters by flying the spacecraft yourself, assuming you have learned the operations and orbital mechanics needed to do this, as explained in my free e-book Go Play In Space). The planetary and spacecraft graphics are beautiful, and there is also extensive information on each of the objects. You have full control over time, so you can also use this app to see the positions of the planets at any given time and date, as well as control time acceleration to speed things up and observe the motions. The app is very configurable. You can see and control orbit trails, stars, asteroids, labels, etc. You can even watch Curiosity (MSL) approach Mars and enter its atmosphere - in theory anyway. If you choose one of these highlights, it works for a while, but when it gets close to Mars - poof! MSL just disappears, showing up as a labeled dot on the surface that you can't zoom into.  Aside from that small defect, this app looks and works great, and I highly recommend it to fans of the solar system and space exploration.

Carnival of Space #304

The 304th edition of the Carnival of Space is up, hosted by Dear Astronomer.

Why Would Aliens Care About Us?

I somehow came across this blog post the other day, "Why we'll never meet aliens." I'm familiar with the Fermi Paradox (if there are smart aliens, where are they?). There are a lot of assumptions built into that question, and a lot of possible explanations. But as imaginative as humans are (or imagine themselves to be), it's hard to get around the sample size problem. Everything we know about how intelligent creatures can be expected to behave is based on observing ourselves. If you expand that to other Earth life forms that are intelligent (other apes, whales, crows, etc.) or even just "interesting," you can certainly expand the range of possible adaptations (hive behavior, long lifetimes, different types of senses, metamorphosis, etc.). But all of these life forms evolved on this planet, and only one of them is known to possess the means to communicate or travel across space, or even to be curious about worlds other than this one. That is us. Are us. Sample size, N=1 for my purposes here.

One of the functions of science fiction is to go beyond that limited view, to imagine very different forms of life, intelligence, culture, and technology. There are zillions of examples of this, from the abysmal to the sublime. In "popular" SF (I'm thinking of most SF movies), writers tend to stay pretty close to human forms or at least motivations. This makes it easier to understand the story in terms of good guys and bad guys. Sometimes the bad guys (mysterious aliens) do pretty dumb things, like coming to Earth to take our water, because they need hydrogen (dudes, hang a right at Mars and check out Jupiter). That's one of the arguments of the "never meet aliens" blog post I found. They don't need us! They've got faster than light travel and they know where to find hydrogen (and anti-hydrogen) if they need some. They've been scooting through wormholes for millions of years, and they've seen all the possible forms of life. Humans? Yawn.

I mostly buy that. By the principle of mediocrity, our star and planet are nothing special (we've recently identified hundreds of planets orbiting other stars). We don't know how easily life starts (N=1 again), but we probably aren't very special in that regard either (although life had to emerge first SOMEWHERE in the universe, and it could be that we are that special - there's no way to know right now - just like someone wins the lottery, just never you). So I agree, it doesn't appear that we have much to offer an advanced alien life form.

Or do we? What is likely to be interesting or valuable to really old, advanced, intelligent entities? Maybe information. We have a lot of that here. Not so much in our computers and networks (though it's getting there), but rather in all the genetic material for all the millions of lifeforms on this planet. Although there may be similar beings elsewhere (filling similar ecological niches, much the way wolf-like creatures evolved independently in Australia - they happen to be marsupial and extinct, but OK), there is likely to be no life form elsewhere with exactly the same genetic signature as any particular species here on Earth. Evolution is a very big, parallel processing computer program that has been running for millions of years and generating millions of locally optimized solutions to the problem of living in some part of this world. The solutions (and programs) are recorded on tiny "reels of tape" called DNA.

That's the basic idea of a great SF trilogy I read in the last few days, Lilith's Brood (which collects all three original books) by Octavia Butler, although it's a lot more interesting than I've made it sound so far!  Written in the late 1980's, it starts with a nuclear war on Earth that very nearly wipes out humanity. But it turns out that a race of life-craving and life-preserving aliens have been studying us for some time from gigantic spaceships lurking in our stellar neighborhood, and they come in and rescue and heal a large number of surviving humans. Why? For a captive breeding program, basically. Wait, no, it's not what you think! Mars Needs Women, right? Vonnegut's zoo on Tralfamadore? No, it's not like that, but in a way it is, and that's what makes these books so confusing and engaging.

This blog post is already longer than I intended, so I won't attempt to summarize or review the books in detail. Some consider them to be an allegory on colonialism and slavery. I can see that, but I thought they were more about what it means to be alive, to be "a people," and what it is that is valuable about life, any life.  And why anything would "want" to live. While there is plenty of incidental technology (most of it could be considered extreme genetic engineering), that is not the main point. The Oankali have starships (organically grown!) but there is no discussion of their propulsion or the nature of space-time. Almost all of the book is about interpersonal relationships.

The Oankali are natural genetic engineers who can sense and manipulate genetic material as easy as you and I use a fork and knife. They crave new life forms, and they engage in genetic "trade" - integrating novel genetic "programs" into their own bodies to drive their own evolution (human cancer was a real find, like a fancy power tool if you learn how to harness its power, as they quickly do). They don't intentionally destroy life - unless you consider hijacking your reproductive system for the purpose of creating hybrid or "construct" children to be "destroying life." They certainly destroy "life as we know it," but humans would have become extinct if the Oankali had not come along. The Oankali value, preserve, and extend life, but they do not value any particular form of life. Their people have "traded genes" with many planets' species, and in so doing have changed their physical nature completely. While they will incorporate human DNA and adopt some human characteristics in the process, it is not in their "charter" to preserve the the culture or other defining characteristics of humans and human society. This is where the colonial and slave trade parallels really come to the fore - although the Oankali don't label the humans as "primitive" as Europeans once labeled native people they conquered (all genetic information is potentially useful!), neither do they honor or preserve most of the things humans consider important.

It sounds weird, I know, but the writing and characters are really wonderful. I still don't really know what I think about all of it. But I do believe that if there is any reason for other intelligent beings to be interested in us, it could be in the immense complexity and diversity of DNA that is within the genes of every plant and animal on Earth, including us. They can fill their hydrogen tanks at the nearest gas giant before they drop by here.

Carnival of Space #303

It's been a long time since I participated in the Carnival of Space. I've been doing other things like work and music, and I haven't been reading and writing as much about "space stuff" as I once did. I used to post frequently in the Carnival of Space and I even hosted a few, starting with #6 in June 2007.

So now that I'm paying more attention to space stuff again, I expect I'll be following CoS more closely and occasionally even contributing, as I did this week. Carnival of Space #303 (303!) is hosted by Pam Hoffman's Everyday Spacer blog. At my recent blogging rate of maybe 5 posts a month, I can't promise to be an everyday spacer myself, but I will try harder.

Phlogiston, Ether, Dark Matter, and Starships

I've been reading about and playing with space stuff again recently. There are so many great astronomy and space apps on the iPad (more later maybe), and so much interesting SF and non-fiction space stuff to read. Going Interstellar, edited by Jack McDevitt,  is a mix of SF stories and non-fiction articles related to interstellar flight, all written with the constraint that only “known physics” could be assumed. This means no warp drives or space-time worm holes, but fusion and anti-matter based propulsion and advanced AI are OK, even though a huge amount of “it’s just engineering” remains before such systems could possibly be built. And for anti-matter propulsion, even if you can build the reactors and starships, the energy costs and logistics of generating, collecting, and containing large amounts of anti-matter are non-trivial to say the least!

This limitation means that the starships in the fictional stories are limited to something like 0.2c (20% of the speed of light). While this is fast, a journey to Gliese 581 (20.1 light years) is going to take 100 or so years, so we are talking “generation ships,” or possibly some sort of hibernation technique to allow humans to survive the long journey (unless the travelers are technologically enhanced or even non-biological, advanced AI’s or hybrids of some sort). “Known physics” still allows a lot of room for imagination. The best story in the book is Michael Bishop’s Twenty Lights to “The Land of Snow,” in which a group of 990 Tibetan Buddhists sets off with the Dalai Lama to found a new homeland on a planet in the Gliese 581 system.

I also recently re-read Ender’s Game, where starships are still sub-light-speed, but there exists an advanced communication system captured from the enemy aliens. The “ansible”  somehow (quantum entanglement? It is never explained) allows instantaneous communication across interstellar distances. This supports the key plot point of a fleet of starships sent toward the enemy’s home world years before anyone knew who would command them. When Ender Wiggin finally arrives at the Earth orbiting Battle School to learn how to save the day, there needs to be a way for his commands to reach Earth’s faraway fleet with no light-speed delay.

All of this got me thinking about dark matter and the question of “known physics.” Of course SF authors have always felt free to assume that new and convenient features of the universe will eventually be discovered so that faster-than-light travel  and other amazing feats can be accomplished. The convenience of writing away the problem you need to solve is one of the luxuries of fiction. Quite possibly boring old Einstein is right and c is the ultimate speed limit. But once upon a time, there was phlogiston theory, which explained combustion in terms of a special essence contained within materials that burn. Chemistry and oxygen eventually provided a better explanation. And what about the ether? In the nineteenth century, physicists quite logically assumed that light waves would require a medium, much as do sound and water waves. Michelson, Einstein  and others showed that no such medium existed nor was needed.

“Dark matter” really sounds like phlogiston or the ether to me. A placeholder until some new Einstein comes up with a better explanation. Will that explanation allow matter or energy to travel faster than the speed of light? Not necessarily. Einstein was a pretty sharp dude and plenty of experiments have shown that going faster than c is pretty damn hard if not impossible.  I’m just saying that it’s quite likely that the physics we have now is nowhere near the final word on how the universe really works. It’s a very good approximation, as was Newton’s mechanics for most of the problems anyone could think to ask until around 1900, and still good enough for most purposes. Einstein’s special and general relativity theories are minor corrections for most mechanics problems even today (even for most orbital mechanics, but not quantum mechanics). Any “bigger and better” physics that may arrive in coming years will still have to reduce down to what we have now for most circumstances. But with any kind of luck, someone will figure out how to build some special circumstances into the back ends of starships, and when the new physics kicks in, we’ll be able to get to Gliese 581 in time for dinner.

Chris Hadfield's "Space Oddity"

Col. Chris Hadfield has returned to Earth from his five months on the International Space Station. His photos, videos, and tweets were amazing. He shared the space experience with the public better than any astronaut had ever done. But he had one more surprise in store before coming home - this music video, a lyrically revised version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," with vocals and guitar recorded in space! So cool. Great job, Chris! I hope they decide to give you another gig in space real soon (though I heard somewhere that Canada isn't eligible to send another astronaut to the ISS for three years).

Floating in a most peculiar way indeed! Though they should have had him "upside down" for at least part of this shot.

Ender's Game Teaser

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is one of my favorite SF books. I know I'm not the only one, and for years there have been rumors of a film version. I haven't followed this too closely, but apparently it's finally happening (release date November 1, 2013). So far there is only a brief teaser trailer, introduced by stars Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield (who plays Ender Wiggin). The full trailer is due May 7. The zero-G "Battle Room" plays a central role in the book, and the teaser shows a couple of brief shots of this, captured below. It looks really cool. I hope the movie is good. I just ordered the Kindle version so I can re-read it again (too lazy to go find the paperback!).

UPDATE (5/16/13): Ah yes, Ender Wiggin, not Wiggins. I saw the full trailer and didn't like it as much as I hoped. I suppose there are practical reasons for making Ender and the other Battle School kids older than they are in the book (Ender is six when he starts International Fleet Battle School, which he attends for only about three years before advancing to other things). And in his brief trailer scenes, Asa Butterfield doesn't quite look and act as I imagined Ender would look and act after re-reading the book last week. But there's a lot of potential there and I will keep an open mind and just wait for the film.