Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

      In 1947, a businessman and pilot named Kenneth Arnold was flying near Mt. Rainier in Washington state when he came across a bunch of strange lights he compared to "saucers", among other things. The press would come to dub these objects "Flying Saucers". This sighting was one of many during the late 40's and 50's, when people around the world began to report seeing strange objects in the skies, which was soon attributed to beings from the stars. One of the biggest proponents of this was Marine aviator Maj. Donald Keyhoe, who wrote some bestsellers with information from official sources (though with differing interpretations of those sources and the eyewitnesses listed than either the Air Force or scientists probably would've) regarding the phenomenon. Of course, Hollywood smelt an opportunity, and made many alien invasion films during the period.With the (fairly dubious) prestige of Major Keyhoe, a film was made, "suggested" by his book, Flying Saucers from Outer Space. After going through titles like Attack of the Flying Saucers and Invasion of the Flying Saucers, the title Earth vs. the Flying Saucers just felt right, apparently. Ray Harryhausen did the effects for the film, and the producer was his regular one Charles Schneer. To help the film, Harryhausen sought the guidance of George Adamski (known for his... bizarre UFO sightings). The screenplay was written by Bernard Gordon (who had to take the alias Raymond T Marcus, due to being blacklisted), George Worthing Yates, and Curt Siodmak (known for writing The Wolf Man for Universal). Stock footage of the sinking of the HMS Barham and V-2 launches during World War II were among the effects used in the film to describe the alien attacks in the film. The film is regarded as something of a classic, with Tim Burton extensively homaging the film in Mars Attacks, but Harryhausen himself has admitted it was his least favorite of the films he had done.

      Flying saucers are everywhere, being seen by pilots, farmers, and all sorts of people. This includes Dr. Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife Carol (Joan Taylor), who are driving to Project Skyhook, a military effort to launch satellites as the first shot in space exploration efforts (this was 1956, right before Sputnik). They decide to keep it secret, but is informed by Carol's father, General Hanley (Morris Ankrum) that many of the satellites have been fallen back to Earth, and the current launch goes disastrously. One of the flying saucers lands on Earth, and the occupants, after being attacked by the US military, attack back, and kidnap General Hanley. They subsequently reveal to Hanley (and later Marvin) that, after being encountered with hostility, they have decided to attack the Earth, and have mysterious designs for the sun. Now, it is a race to figure out what the aliens are going to do.

     The effects of the flying saucers are very well-done, while appearing very simply at first. It seems like it's just hung from a string, but if you look closely, you can see them being rotated very quickly. It gives them more of a realistic feeling, especially as they go around the sky, and very much when they land. The scene where the saucer is on the ground before the aliens attack was very tense primarily because of that effect and the weird distortion used for the force field. The alien suits are less than impressive (and phallic), but the make-up once they are unmasked is pretty good. The climax where various landmarks are destroyed with stop motion is practical effects is amazing, some of the best of the period that I've seen, I like the use of stock footage very subtly as an indication, especially the photo-negatives of sun (always good to see astronomical imagery) I also like that there is more of an international presence in the plot of the film (even if it focuses primarily on the US).

    The movie has something of a fast pace. It goes immediately from Dr. Marvin and Carol seeing the UFO to the UFO ruining the launch to the invasion starting. As a result, it gets a bit hard to follow, since you need to keep up with each and every detail in order to follow it. This especially applies to the ending, where the military has to deal with the aliens in Washington, but it doesn't really say how they are dealt with worldwide. I also wish the aliens had a better motivation, than just growing hostile immediately and wanting to rule the Earth. There's apparently a comic series that explores the film from their perspectives, so I might check that out. Also, for a film with this large a scale, it is way too short to really soak in the sheer terror of a menace to the entire planet.

   I kind of agree with Harryhausen that this is his weakest film. However, it's mostly in terms of plot. The effects are still top-notch, and I can see why the film became so iconic. If you like alien invasion film, science fiction films of the 50's, or the work of Ray Harryhausen, definitely give it a watch.

   Tomorrow, we return to Wes Craven with his 1991 cult classic The People Under the Stairs.

Dailles and Nightlies- 2010: The Year We Make Contact

   2001: A Space Odyssey is my all-time favorite film. I've said this on this site multiple times, and will probably bring it up whenever it feels appropriate. I see the film at least once every year, I've read the book, I've read the sequel books, and I've read everything I could on the production of this film and its novel. So, it was a pretty good year for me when it became its 50th anniversary. With the attention given to the film due to this, I decided, with the inauguration of this new series, to spotlight its lesser known sequel. Arthur C. Clarke (co-writer of the original film, and the author of the book) wrote 2010:Odyssey Two specifically as a sequel to the film's continuity (i.e. changing Saturn in the book to Jupiter in the film). Stanley Kubrick declined directing, so Peter Hyams (known for Capricorn One and Outland) took over those duties, (having to start over with effects due to Kubrick destroying the original props), and was released to mixed critical and financial success in 1984. So, yeah, in honor of its 50th anniversary, we take a look at its underappreciated sequel.

     In 2010, 9 years after the Discovery shut down in Jupiter's orbit, Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider, taking over the role William Sylvester played in the first one) took the fall for the events, and is mostly working in the Very Large Array. He is approached by Dimitri Moiseyevitch (Dana Elcar), a representative of the Soviet space program (remember, this was made in 1984), who hopes to recruit him for a Jupiter mission they're planning with their ship  Alexei Leonov (named for the first human to conduct a spacewalk). They hope to investigate the events that lead to the shutdown of the Discovery , the malfunction of its computer HAL-9000 (Douglas Rain), and the disappearance of Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea). Most significantly, they hope to examine the large monolith the Discovery was sent to investigate (as revealed in the climax of the first film). Despite rising tensions between the US and USSR under a conservative president (who cut funding to Floyd's agency while they were planning their own Discovery Two to investigate) and an incident in Central America, Floyd agrees, and manages to get approval for him, Walter Curnow (John Lithgow), the designer of the Discovery and Dr. Chandra (Bob Balaban), HAL's creator, to travel with the Leonov. They find themselves with already tense relations with the crew, including Captain Tanya Kirbuk (Helen Mirren), who is concurrently a major with the Soviet Air Force; Dr. Vladimir Rudenko (Saveliy Kramarov), the ship's doctor; and Irina Yakunina( Natasha Schneider), the ship's nutritionist. As they enter Jupiter orbit, they find strange signals coming from Jupiter's moon Europa. After prodding from Floyd, they investigate further, only for a strange light to emerge. This only harkens the strange events that may or may not explain what happened to the Discovery, Dave Bowman, and HAL-9000.

      This could've easily just been a Kubrick knock-off, a way to just imitate his style without any sort of consideration as to why that style is effective or making it work in its own way. While there are a couple Kubrick style shots and homages in the film (including an amusing one where he and Arthur C. Clarke are the US President and Soviet Premier on a Time magazine cover), Hyams largely does his own style, making it very distinct from the original and not overly reliant on it. I do like the more modern, 80's feel to the film, which, while unable to top the timeless period-ness of the original, is an interesting enough in its own right. The effects are superb, especially considering that they had to largely remake a lot of them from the originals. It keeps up with the original in those terms. It largely keeps to the events of the book (though my favorite scene in the book, where Dave Bowman is shown the floating gasbags of Jupiter, and oceanic creatures of Europa by the monolith beings, isn't in the film).

     Which probably leads me to my first problem with the film (and the book): the ending, where it is revealed the monolith beings want to create a new sun using the monoliths to create enough mass. It makes sense, given what has been stated in the plot and gives a good climax. However, it stretches belief and feels a bit odd in an otherwise realistic film. Another book-related problem was the explanation of HAL's malfunction. It is revealed that he was torn between the original mission orders and orders given to keep the Monolith secret. It feels like a disappointment given the scale of his malfunction, and felt like something else was missing from this, but the film decides to just leave it there.

      This is definitely not as good as the original, but most films in general aren't. However, I do think it is a good sequel in spite of that, and just a good standalone film, and does improve on the book by adding the Cold War tension to it. If you like the original, you'll like this, or appreciate it. Even if you don't like it, this is distinct enough from it that you might enjoy it. Definitely see 2001 first, though, if you haven't already. It is a far better film, for sure. However, this is a nice underappreciated film, and especially a study of Cold War tensions in film.   

Current Movie Reviews- Arrival

        The genre of science fiction runs on a spectrum. There are two major subgenres, "hard" and "soft" science fiction. Hard science fiction generally centers around what are known as the "hard" sciences, that being the sciences which have a heavy emphasis on mathematics, and is thus adhere closely the laws of the physical world. Soft science fiction tends to focus on culture and society, and deemphasizes the hard science, in favor of more, shall we say, fantastic speculation. Now, these are very nebulous, and there are elements of both in some works. However, these tend to be the two sides of science fiction. Arrival appears to be one of those exception, which generally takes elements from both. It is a hard science fiction film, about linguistics, a field which doesn't tend to focus on mathematics. Yeah, as a feature film, it doesn't dwell too much on linguistics, but it is a major element, and its application to the translation of an literal alien certainly does raise implication, on how we could possibly interact with aliens in the future. This was definitely a fascinating film.

       Based on the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, Arrival follows the, well, arrival of twelve alien ships across several locations on the Earth, which causes widespread fear and panic across the world. Colonel Weber (Forrest Whittaker) hires linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) to be part of an exploration group into one of the ships in Montana. Along the way is theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). Banks seems to be haunted by flashbacks of her deceased daughter. She manages to determine that the aliens writing and speech are separate, and uses a single word of their language (human) to break down the language barrier. Thus, they are able to decode the language, and begins a communication with the aliens. However, around the world, militaries begin to take premature precautions. In particular, People's Liberation Army Commander Shang (Tzi Ma) is prepared to declare war. Matters are not helped, when the aliens claim to bring a weapon to the humans. As the international chaos continues, Banks and Donnelly unravel the mystery behind their intentions. And even the supposed flashbacks Banks is having....

      Certainly, the "First Contact" trope is nothing new fiction. People going back centuries have written about encounters between aliens and humans. This film decides to focus on one of the major elements of the trope, decoding the language, and starting it off from there. It properly shows how an alien language, which comes from the ink out of an alien's hands, can actually be decoded, if the humans and extraterrestrial reach an understanding. The fact that their words are not representations of speech, but rather entire concepts cements how alien they truly are. Time is also a major subtext, with the various flashbacks and mentions of time. There is an ingenious twist at the end, which I will not spoil, but it builds off the rest of the movie, and makes you reconsider the rest of the film in that context. The fact the film seems to flash back actually underscores the twist even more. I also liked how rather than tell you the effects immediately, hint at them, and use them to resolve the conflict. The alien design, while nothing special, does serve a narrative purpose, in terms of how they communicate.

      I would've liked to have seen a bit more of the international crises going on in the background, especially with General Shang and the People's Republic. He barely appears, and as the antagonist, he deserved more characterization. A little bit more explanation on the aliens would've been nice, particularly what sort of atmosphere they came from, since they are able to walk, but also "swim" in this fog like atmosphere. It bothered me. At first, I thought they might have evolved on a gas giant, but 1.) How could they have constructed a metallic ship, and 2.) How would they be able to walk. It bothered me through the movie.

     Yeah, I might be biased, since I enjoy movies like this, but I think this is one of the best pictures of the year. A nice exploration into language, and how we communicate, and how we might communicate with extraterrestrials. If you're interested in such topics, I highly recommend this movie. It really adds a new spin on the subject of "First Contact", that many works haven't explored. And I certainly wish this movie produces discussion on such topics in the near future. 

Mr. Lowell and his Amazing Canals

        So, here is the more appropriate update for the recent Mars discovery. The discovery of perochloridate salts in the seasonal flows on Mars, hence indicating the presence of ( briny) liquid water on the planet, is a tremendous discovery. However, it confirms previous observations that water was present on Mars, in one form or another. Not on the surface, obviously. It is too cold on the surface for liquid water to exist as a liquid. However, it likely existed billions of years ago, and it might exist subsurface, where the seasonal flows likely come from. And if water, however salty, exists, the chances of life of some form existing on Mars does increase. Of course, this mode of thinking is only around 50 years old. From the time of William Herschel (who was the first to demonstrate that the white parts of Mars were ice sheets), it was believed that water, and presumably life, was abundant on Mars. Especially with the presence of the icy poles. In fact, a dark shadow that would go from the pole to the Equator was considered to be a seasonal plant growth in the late 19th and early 20th century (Astronomer Gerard Kuiper would say that the dark spot was windblown dust, and this hypothesis was later confirmed by Carl Sagan, and his student James Pollock). And the idea of life on Mars was ingrained, actually still ingrained, in our fiction. The aliens that invaded late Victorian England in H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds were Martian in origin.  In Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom series (which you may know from that overall descent, but disappointing film John Carter a few years ago), was full of various races and creatures roaming the planet Mars. And there are many other examples, from Tweel in the 1934 short story Martian Odyssey (it's in public domain, so you might be able to find it) to Looney Tunes' Marvin the Martian.  The biggest influence on all of these ideas was a man named Percival Lowell, and his ideas about Martians using canals to transport water.

          Well, I call them in the title "his canals", but Lowell didn't actually discover them. They were first described by an Italian astronomer named Giovanni Schiaparelli, during the Opposition of 1877. Basically, when Mars is on the opposite side of the sky from Earth. He had drawn several extensive straight lines on Mars, which he described as canali. Before I go any further, I would like to put that particular term into context. Apparently, while it is spelled like canal, the word "canali" actually roughly translates to channel, as in a natural channel. Schiaparelli also never hypothesized that they were artificial in origin, though he didn't oppose the notion. However, in the Anglosphere, the term canali became canal, and soon, it became a very popular idea that canals existed on Mars. Then came Percival Lowell, whose name would come to be associated with the canals. Lowell was not a professional astronomer. He was a business man and diplomat by training, and Harvard educated to boot. After hearing about Schiaparelli's discovery in 1893, he set out to discover see them himself. He built his own observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and looked at Mars, and drew the canals that he found.  Using these, he concocted an entire story, (based in part on William Pickering's speculation on the canals) about a civilization which was dying due to a lack of water. They needed to transport the water via canals to keep them alive. He popularized this particular story in a large variety of books and articles on the topic, where the idea of Martian canals was disseminated into the general culture. He would promote these ideas until his 1916 death. Note that this was the time that technological progress of all kinds, particularly transportation, were being celebrated, so the public was ripe for this idea, much as ancient aliens appeal to modern audiences.
       Despite the popularity of the canal hypothesis, professional astronomers were skeptical. Why? They couldn't see them! No professional astronomer could actually see or describe the canals. Astronomers like Asaph Hall (who discovered the Martian moons), and Edward Bernard (who discovered Amalthea, one of Jupiter's moons.) viewed the Planet and couldn't find any of the canals Lowell described.  Other, non-astronomers also criticized Lowell. In particular, was biologist Alfred Russel Wallace, who was notable in formulating the theory of evolution independently of Charles Darwin, and influencing him to some extent. In 1907, Wallace wrote a rebuttal against Lowell, and his theories, noting that the so-called “canals” are likely just cracks in the Martian crust, where volcanic carbon dioxide rises from the mantle of the planet, and into the plants on the surface. Even if this explanation wasn’t true (its validity based on the idea that Mars had non-contracting core inside a contracting crust),  Mars  also had a mean temperature of -35 F, far too cold for any life to exist.  And in In 1909, during  an observation in a thirty-three telescope in Meudon, France, astronomer Eugene Antoniadi proposed that the canals were optical illusion, based off the fact that the surface of the planet were naturalistic. Despite the rejection of the mainstream astronomy community, the canals of Mars persisted into the 1950's. Werhner von Braun mentioned them in his Mars work, and Ray Bradbury was influenced to some extent by Lowell, when he was writing the Martian Chronicles. However, it was the arrival of Mariner 4 to the Red Planet in 1964 that finally killed off the idea of Martian canals. It not only showed that Mars was virtually dead, but there were no canals at all, confirming the observations of the astronomers of Lowell's time.
     So, what were some good things to come out of this? Well, towards the end of his life, Lowell would turn his attention towards a ninth planet, which he called "Planet X", which he and the observatory at Flagstaff would try to find. Eventually, in 1930, an astronomer working at the Flagstaff observatory (at this point named the Lowell Observatory) named Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, and the initials PL (as in Percival Lowell) was chosen as its sign. Also, it did popularize the idea of water on Mars. Further, Schiaparelli's initial idea of "canalis" as natural features have been shown in the form of various channels and canyons, which were more than likely formed from the erosion of liquid water in the distant past. While there were no dying civilizations or large artificial canals, this weeks discovery does demonstrate that water does exist on Mars, and with water, there is the possibility of life on Mars...

Sources:

The Scientific Exploration of Mars / Fredric W. Taylor.

Cambridge, UK; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2010.

The Exploration of Mars/ Wernher Von Braun, Willey Ley, with illustrations by Chesley Bonestall

New York; Viking Press, 1960

Canals of Mars- The Worlds of David Darling:

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/Marscanals.html 

The Canals of Mars- ScienceBlogs

http://scienceblogs.com/universe/2012/09/28/the-canals-of-mars/ 

Tracing the Canals of Mars: An Astronomer's Obsession by Richard Milner, Astrobiology Magazine- Space.org: 

http://www.space.com/13197-mars-canals-water-history-lowell.html 

Is Mars Habitable? by Alfred Russel Wallace:

http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S730.htm 

Moon Mission in the 30's

    Howdy everybody. Though I was gone? Nope! It's been a somewhat hectic two months for me. I enter college at CU Boulder, so I've been focusing on adjusting to this new climate. Now that I'm more or less adjusted, I can now resume with writing these entries. I'm back, and  in honor of the recent Mars discovery, I am going to talk about... the Moon. What? I begin this entry months ago, it's not like I could change the subject to Mars, given I had already done the research for this. Anyway, remember my Daedalus overlook? Well, in that, you probably remember me talking a little bit about the British Interplanetary Society's proposal about a moon mission in the 1930's. Well, I'm going to write about it. Enjoy
       In 1938, the BIS commissioned a study about a vehicle that would carry a crew of three onto the Moon, as well as a ton of payload, and safely bring them back to the Earth, with only half a ton of final payload. It was meant to show that a mission to the Moon was both physically and economically viable at the time. The moon rocket would have been using powder as a fuel, as was common in model rockets at the time. However, there was a major problem. The velocity required to actually reach the Moon would be in excess of 16 km/s. If it would be built in a single rocket, 90 % of the mass of the rocket would be propellant. To solve this, they decided to create a step rocket, with multiple boosters. Basically, since the booster would have a very low yield, there would be approximately  2,490 mini honeycomb based boosters, which would be immediately discarded. (Such an idea can be traced back to the multiple stage rockets proposed by Kostatin Tsiolkovsky in the late 19th Century.) It would be launched from a high altitude lake near the Equator (possibly Lake Titicaca). It would be about one metric ton, and could send a crew of three to the Moon. There was shielding for the descent to the Moon, though no shield for the descent back to Earth. Also strange was the use of solid fuel, since liquid fuel was considered impractical, due to the power of pumps needed to actually produce the force to push each booster. (Of course, this problem was eventually solved, by a German rocketeer named Werhner von Braun).  The lunar lander itself looked like a gun shell, about 11 ft tall, and 13.5 ft in diameter. The landing would bear some resemblence to the eventual landing of Apollo 11 in 1969.  The hull would be a glass like aluminum oxide, but the cabin would be plastic, with a ceramic covering. The cabin is also attached to boosters, which would create a spin for artificial gravity. The rocket, despite being the center piece of the mission, was actually not the only part of the mission studied. They also studied how the Astronauts could survive the mission. Along with the aforementioned heat shielding, the food was supposed to be high in calories (such as bread, butter, cheese, honey, etc.). The crew would carry an assortment of scientific equipment and protection, to study the Moon, including sunburn lotion (apparently, spacesuits weren't conceived of yet), a telescope and microscope, and geological hammers. Air and water for the mission would be extracted from a single tank of  To communicate, they would use "flashes of light." (Presumably using it for morse code), which would be broadcast by the BBC (ironic, given their coverage of Apollo 11 30 years later.)
    The design, led by J. Happian Edwards, and including Arthur C. Clarke as the astronomy consultant, was published in January of 1939 in the Society's journal. Even then, they noted that they didn't actually have the resources to actually go through with this mission at the moment (given that even experimenting with rockets was illegal in Britain at the time.) However, they hoped to send out a survey to gather public support, to actually begin with this mission. This attracted a lot of attention to the Society, both positive and negative. It had gotten attention in Time Magazine, and publications as far away as India. Despite this, most modern analyses of the mission do deem it ultimately implausible, due to the large number of boosters, and the lack of heat and radiation shielding. After World War II, the Society turned to lesser targets, such as organizing the first conference on planning the first orbiting artificial satellite. However, it is still held as a seminial study, as the first serious attempt to plan a mission to the Moon, using (then) modern technology, and some of it would later recall the later Apollo missions.
  So, thanks for reading. A shame I couldn't do something Mars related. Maybe the BIS did something with Mars...

Sources:

The Union Jack on the Moon, by Ron Miller- io9.com
http://io9.com/the-union-jack-on-the-moon-1262867212

The BIS Lunar Spaceship- The British Interplanetary Society official website:
http://www.bis-space.com/what-we-do/projects/bis-lunar-spaceship

HMS Moon Rocket, by Tony Reichhardt- The Air and Space Magazine, March 1997:
http://www.airspacemag.com/space/hms-moon-rocket-3143/?all

BIS Lunar Lander- Encyclopedia Aeronautica
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/bisander.htm

Book Review: Voyage by Stephen Baxter

        Often, I.... You know what, long intros are somewhat hard to write. Largely because I really want to get into the meat of a piece, but you get bogged down by writing a captivating opening. So, here's the jist: I have a vested interest in Alternate history and in Space and Space exploration, and this book combines them. Alright, got that? Great: let's begin.
        The year is 1985. The Ares I is launching from Cape Canaveral, towards its ultimate destination. As you could probably tell by the name of the craft, it is heading towards the Red Planet itself, Mars. They plan to reach Mars, by first doing  Venus fly-by, which would give a gravitational assist to slingshot themselves to the Red Planet. Then, reminiscent of Apollo, they will detatch a manned capsule down into the Mangala Valles. The mission would proceed from March, 1985, and will arrive on the Mangala Valles on March, 22nd, 1986. So, how did such a mission occur? Kennedy was not killed in Dallas, but rather crippled. Hence, he lives to see the Apollo 11 landings. Following Nixon's call to the astronauts, Kennedy also calls, and proceeds to dedicate the US to a Mars mission. Nixon, browbeaten into accepting this, decides to make that the agenda for the post-Apollo space program, as opposed to Skylab or the Shuttles. The book alternates between the mission and the events leading up to it. The main astronauts are Phil Stone, a former X-15 test pilot; Ralph Gershon, an African American Air Force pilot who had flown missions in Cambodia in the early 70's; and our protagonist, Natalie York, a geologist who is the first female astronaut in the program (remember, there is no shuttle here.) These characters gain the primary focus through the mission portions. However, there is also the preceding part before the mission, which takes up a majority of the book. Whilst the three astronauts are given focus at this point, particularly how they became the astronauts, it has a larger cast of characters. There is Joe Muldoon, a Buzz Aldrin analog (actually replacing Aldrin as the second man on the Moon), who is a major figure in the mission, and eventually its head. Gregory Dana, a mission specialist who tries to propose a radical, somewhat infeasible plan to reach Mars, going against what is considered the main and most viable option of a NERVA  nuclear rocket. This puts Dana in conflict with NASA mission architect Hans Udet, who, incidently, had run the Nazi prison camp that Dana was imprisoned in during World War II (Udet is a parallel to Werhner von Braun and Arthur Rudolf) There is his son Jim, who is an astronaut himself, and eventually tests the NERVA rocket, Apollo-N (with disastrous consequence ). There is Bert Seger, a senior manager at NASA, who manages the political side of the mission, meeting and planning the mission. There is JK Lee, an engineer who works at struggling contractor Columbia, who was give the responsibility to build the Mars Excursion Module, or MEM for the mission. Finally, there are the three astronauts. In particular, it deals with Natalie York, her conflicting attitudes towards Mars, her struggles to become an astronaut, and her frustrated love life with both Mike Conlig, dedicated NERVA engineer, and married astronaut Ben Priest.  All of these characters work to make the manned Mars mission a viable and safe opportunity. However, there will be triumphs and tragedies on the road to Mars.
   First and foremost, this books was very well-researched. It has little nods to various other Mars missions, but also gives its own interpretation of what a Mars mission in the 80's would be like, and how it would play out. There is a lot of details about how the mission would work, what the craft would look like, what are its perimeters, what the astronauts do, how they deal with failures, what they will do when they reach Venus, and how they will actually land on Mars. It also has engineering specs on every aspect of the mission, which makes sense, given that Baxter is a trained engineer.I can't tell you how much of it is accurate, but it seems plausible to a layman like me.  It also looks at the ramifications of this. For instance, whilst we get a Mars mission, many of the unmanned programs of the 1970's, like Viking, Voyager, and Pioneer, were canned to save money. We know less about the solar system in 1986, than we did in real life. In fact, we know less about Mars, as neither the later Mariners nor Viking missions were able to reach it and study it. It also has a (superficial) effect on politics. Ted Kennedy takes Walter Mondale's place in politics (both as Carter's vice president and as the failed 1984 candidate). There is also the implications of NERVA, and how characters interact with that. In particular, there is the upmost confidence in NERVA as the method to Mars, and Gregory Dana trying to change that. There is also the 70's anti-nuclear hysteria, which targets NERVA. (I think Three Mile Island was mentioned once in reference to this.) The latter proves prophetic, as the first NERVA test, Apollo-N, ends up failing, with the astronauts and even some of the engineers (including Mike Conlig) dying of radiation poisoning. They end up using Dana's plan (both as a viable alternative, and respect to Gregory, as Jim was one of the astronauts on Apollo-N) of a Venus flyby to send the craft to Mars. Besides that, the characters are well done (in particular is York's conflict on whether she should abandon a solid academic career to become an astronaut), it is very captivating to read, particularly the mission segments, and it is not just a wish fullfillment piece. It actually deals with the good and the bad of a Mars mission after Apollo, and how it might have turned out if Nixon had decided to go to Mars. It is great that we reached Mars earlier, but was it really worth losing the knowledge of Voyager and Viking?
     A few minor gripes with the book can be considered nitpicks. There is a lot of swearing in this. Most sentence seems to have "Goddamn" or a "Jesus Christ" I know it is supposed to be realistic, but I don't think people swear that much in real life. The engineering details, whilst consistent and precise, tends to get rather dense at times, and occasionally interrupts the story. The story also drags occasionally, especially towards the end. Once again, these are nitpicks.
      Overall, I rather liked the book, and I hope to read more of Stephen Baxter in the future. In particular, Proxima sounds interesting. I'd recommend it to those who like Kim Stanley Robinson/ Robert L. Forward style hard sci-fi, or Apollo history buffs, who would like to see what the Apollo Application Program would have brought. If you are a more casual reader, it works as a interesting piece on an alternate space program, but it has a lot  of engineering packed inside. If you can handle that, I think you could enjoy it. Thanks for reading.

von Braun's Mission to Mars

  ( I promised myself that I wouldn't do this particular topic until I finished my extended essay, which was all about Mars. Incidentally, von Braun gets a single sentence mention in the final version, so I suppose it wouldn't have had such an effect, but I still made sure I finished it.)
         The man known as Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun has a polarizing reaction amongst people. Some see him as a visionary whose innovative rocket, the Saturn family, helped put a human on moon, an achievement that has essentially suppressed any other in human history. Others see him as a Nazi ideologue, whose V-2 rockets killed thousands of slaves making it, and whose crimes were covered up by the US to allow him to work on the rockets. I myself have a mixed opinion on him. On the one hand, he did meet higher ups in the Nazi government, and despite his claim, he probably did know about the horrid conditions at Mettelwerk (the factory where the V-2 was made). Isaac Asimov once expressed horror that he had shaken a hand that shook Adolph Hitler's hand, and I sympathize. On the other hand, could he actually have done anything about it? Remember that the Nazi government was ruthless, and von Braun's job could be held by anyone else, so he couldn't complain, or he might be killed, at best. If you were in that position, would you ever complain?  Further, I don't think he worked for the government willingly. If the communist won in Germany during the early 1930's, rather than the Nazis , he'd likely work for them to get funding for rocketry.
       If you don't know, Werhner von Braun was a German rocket scientist who created the V-2 rocket in 1942, and then, was brought to the US at the end of World War II, to work on their missile program. After the 1957 launch of Sputnik, and the failure of the Navy's attempted space program, von Braun and his fellow rocket engineers were recruited to work for NASA. There, he built the Jupiter and Saturn family of rockets, the latter of which was used in the Apollo program, However, I'm here to talk about something a little more fanciful. Between his arrival in the United States, and the 1958 founding of NASA, von Braun, and several other German expatriate scientists tried to promote the idea of Space exploration to the American populace. Their first attempt was in the magazine Collier's, in the popular column "MAN WILL CONQUER SPACE SOON." These ideas were also translated into three episodes of Disney's "Tomorrowland" in 1955-1957. This proposed an optimistic view of a future, where man has managed to have a strong Space based infrastructure. This vision of the future had influenced many future visions of Space exploration, and even a school of space advocacy has been named"von Braunist" if it supports a government funded missions available to few at first (the other two are the "O'Neill" after Princeton experimental physicist Gerard K. O'Neill, and the "Sagan" after science popularizer Carl Sagan.). One of many concepts for the exploration of Space was a manned Mars mission. von Braun first detailed his plans in a 1948 science fiction novel (later published as Project Mars: a Technical Tale. When that was rejected, he instead posted a more straight-forward speculation in Das Marsprojkect (The Mars Project) in 1953. Later, he worked with science writer Wily Ley and illustrator Chesley Bonestall to write an even more refined version in 1956, under the name The Exploration of Mars. This mission is fascinating, to say the very least.

     Von Braun's primary objectives was to create a mission using the technology at the time.  Despite this, there was also a small number of objectives that needed to be achieved. A manned space station was established. After that event happened, a circumnavigation of the moon would occur, and a manned mission would occur.  There was also the assumption that nuclear powered rockets were to be available for the Mars mission. That said, they also noted that chemical rockets would still be in use.  The mission to Mars itself  included 70 men and ten ships. These ships would be assembled in Earth’s orbit. A fleet of 46 reusable vehicles would bring 25 tons of cargo (plus 14.5 tons of propellant for the Mars mission) to assemble these ships. 950 launches were needed to assemble this flotilla. Once completed in orbit, each of the ten ship would weigh 3720 tons. ) This fleet would have seven passenger ships, and 3 cargo ships. In the cargo ship, there is a 250 ton lander and supplies for the Mars missions. They would launch from Earth orbit, use the “minimum-energy transfer between circular orbits is an elliptical trajectory called the Hohmann trajectory” begin a 260 day journey to Mars. They would use a propellant of nitric acid and hydrazine. Once they arrive, they ease themselves into orbit, and begin to survey for a landing spot. Once they find one, they send their first glider to the surface. The glider heads to the poles, and deploys skis to land. After landing, the crew on that lander would proceed to travel to the equator, where they would set up a base and landing strip for two other landers. Two landers with the remaining crew would arrive, and the reunited crew would set up living quarters, and beginning a 400 day stay on the planet. After that, the crew will leave on two ascent vehicles, where they will return to the seven passenger ships. The ships will return to Earth orbit, and crash back to the planet. The mission would 963 days (260 days for going to and returning from Mars, and staying 400 days on the planet.) The Launch date was in 1965, though after a space station and a moon base were established. In Exploration, the mission was scaled down slightly to two ships with twelve men. 963 days were required for the trip in the original plan, 969 in the later version. A variation on aspects of the plan appeared in Conquest of Space. 

           Could any of this actually work? (snorts) It is greatly grandiose in both scale and cost. This plan will definitely not work in any sort of capacity today. However, one must admire the engineering demonstrated. Von Braun was able to create the first detailed exploration of a manned Mars mission using only modern technology. It was also the first study into what a Mars mission would require, later becoming the prototype to many Mars missions to come. The idea that modern technology could allow for a Martian mission would be used in many other mission concepts, such as Mars Direct.

     Sources:

 Wernher von Braun’s Martian Chronicles
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/wernher-von-brauns-martian-chronicles-9845747/

 Encyclopedia Astronautica- Entry: Von Braun Mars Project:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/vonn1952.htm

3The Exploration of Mars/ Wernher Von Braun, Willey Ley, with illustrations by Chesley Bonestall
New York; Viking Press, 1960

3Horizons: The Newsletter of AIAA Houston Section: The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, September/October 2013 issue
http://www.aiaahouston.org/Horizons/Horizons_2013_09_and_10.pdf

Review: Interstellar

     Here's a funny anecdote from my film-going experience. When I was waiting in line for this film, with my popcorn, and my nuggets.I was about to take out my ticket, to show to get in. However, I found that I didn't have it on me! I was completely stressed that they may not let me in. Luckily, the couple for me vouched that I had been there the entire time, and I was able to get in. My faith in humanity has been restored. And that's really it for the introduction. Okay, let... Alright fine, I'll give you more. Science fiction is my favorite genre, and recently, it has been growing in popularity. Superhero films are being churned out on a regular basis, and films like Avatar, and (much to my dismay) the Transformers films have grossed millions of dollar. However, with the new fame, comes the inevitable realization that perhaps a genre has become overwrought with cliches, and perhaps, it has become too oversaturated in the media. So, when Interstellar was announced, I was really excited. Sure, I'm not a Nolan fan, but I saw as a sort of a 2001 for the modern era. When 2001 came in 1968, science fiction films were largely crude productions, known for their absurdity. 2001, a film which deployed subtlety and imagery, helped influence science fiction pictures which are generally considered better. Now, as science fiction is going through a similar phase (albeit with science fiction becoming little more than "Fast and Furious" style masculine pandering), Interstellar, I assume, would be a return to cerebral, intelligent science fiction. And it is a story promoting Space exploration, which has gone stagnant over the past few years, particularly in the US. Here was a film telling us to explore and seek, which would help the people on Earth. I was very hyped. Then the reviews came in, and said that the film was visually impressive, but lackluster in narrative. And when I saw it, the movie sort of fit that mold, and kinda didn't... Full disclosure, I liked the picture. I didn't love it. I wasn't disappointed with this film the same as Gone Girl, but I didn't get the film I was hoping for several months ago.
     The story is set in the not-too distant future. Cooper (I don't think he was given a first name)(Matthew McConaughy) is a former astronaut test pilot turned farmer living in rural America. The world has been rocked for many years by ecological disaster, which has caused crops to slowly die out, adding to the fact that the large population simply cannot be fed . Cooper lives with his father Donald (John Lithgow, of all people), and his children Tom and Murph. Murph reports having a ghost in her room. After initially dismissing it, Cooper finds that this supposed ghost is actually a gravitational anomaly, which is stating a set of coordinates in binary. The coordinates send him to a secret instellation, which is the remnants of NASA, now forced underground to undertake a secret mission. A wormhole had been discovered near Saturn, leading into another galaxy and several team were sent into it to find habitable worlds (why they didn't send robots first to investigate first is not answered). Some of the teams were to send signals indicating if the planet was habitable. Then, two courses of action were taken. Either they begin colonization with the humans on Earth, or they send in eggs to be fertilized. Professor Brand (Michael Caine) an old teacher of Cooper, encourages Cooper to take up the mission. Cooper reluctantly accepts, forcing him to leave behind his children. Murph, in particular, is great dismayed by this.  Cooper and his crew, including Brand's daughter, Amelia Brand( Anne Hathaway) , launch, and after two years in cryogenic sleep, arrive in Saturn orbit (sound familiar?). The wormhole takes them to several planets orbiting a massive black hole, where the three remaining signals are coming from. After the first signals turns up a dead signal on a water world, Cooper and Brand return to find that, due to the time dilation on the planet, coming from it orbiting a black hole, 23 years have passed on Earth. In those years, Murph (Jessica Chastain) is now a NASA scientist working with the dying Brand on a gravitational equation that would get the entire population off Planet. However, Brand reveals on his deathbed, that his equation revealed that there needed to be the singularity of a black hole to solve it. This meant that he abandoned getting humans off the dying Earth, and was hoping to use the embryos to save humanity. With this knowledge, Cooper and Amelia must find a new home, before they run of time (literally), whilst Murph continues to work on Brand's equation. However, soon, things get complicated.
        There is a lot of very good things in the film. The special effects are magnificent, the best I have seen all year (including Planet of the Apes). The worlds they create just pop into life, and are just so extensive. The black hole they explore is simply gorgeous to look at. Similarly, the world-building is great. The way that they establish that exploration is discouraged by teaching the Apollo hoax was interesting, as was the Dust Bowl-inspired setting. The worlds that they explore are also very interesting. Additionally, as an aficionado of hard science fiction, the technical and scientific jargon was a treat, and gave the world more depth. I particularly liked how, in the scenes actually in space, there is no sound. The acting is good (surprising for a Nolan picture), as is the score by Hans Zimmer. All these elements allow for a good first hour, and a solid last 30 minutes.
         You know, if I wanted to watch 2001, I have it on DVD. I would watch it, if I wanted to. I say this because many of the elements in this film are taken from 2001. From the scenes on the ship, to the views of Space, to the wormhole and black hole sequences (Star-Child, anyone?). Seriously, when the ship is leaving Earth orbit, I started whistling "Blue Danube" Also a ship with cryogenically stored astronauts leaving for Saturn? Haven't seen that before. I only bring this up, because the film obviously seeks to homage that movie. However, when I watch these homages, all I could think about is how much more subtle and interesting 2001 was, and how I wanted to watch that. However, if that were the only flaw, I would forgive it. If only. The second third of this film is terrible. The twist that Brand wasn't going to save the people on Earth is simply stupid, and serves merely to give more drama to a story that should already have drama. It's like Little Shop of Horrors, where they just added needless elements, when a guy buying a man-eating flytrap is a good enough story. The story, as it stands, already has drama, as Cooper is leaving his family, and potentially risking his life, all whilst time moves on Earth. We do not need this twist. And character begin acting irrationally, for no reason other than the plot said so. For instance, the grown Tom is refusing to move his family, even as the dust destroys their lungs, and becomes aggressive, once again, because the plot said so. And the story just grows so convoluted, it gets very hard to follow, what is even going on. I would give more detail, but frankly, I don't want to go into it.

          This is one good opening and ending, with a terrible middle sandwiched in there. Despite that, the opening and ending are good enough for me to recommend this. It might even get nominated for an Oscar. If you like Nolan, you're probably going to watch this, regardless of what I say. If you want a good science fiction film, I say watch this, if only for the world building and the scientific accuracy. If you want to just watch a film out of boredom, well, probably watch it, but you'll have sit in the theater in 3 hours. Overall, the film earns a 60%. Oh, and another thing, if you will watch it, watch it in IMAX. Yes, the sound occasionally makes dialogue unlistenable, but it does pop, and the sound is quite extensive. 

Project Daedalus: Journey Beyond the Stars

Daedalus craft and Saturn V
Credit/Copyright: Adrian Mann
(A very special thanks to Adrian Mann for allowing me use of the photo. For more of his incredible work, check out:http://www.bisbos.com/index.html)

   

 Manned Interstellar travel is currently impossible. The distance to the closest star, Proxima Centauri is over 4 light years, which translates to 5.87 E 12 miles. In contrast, the moon is 225,622 miles from Earth. Given this, it would take (given the fastest propulsion system, for instance nuclear) at least 87 years to actually get there. It would take even a relatively small craft, like Voyager 1, which is outside the Heliosphere, 80,000 years. Of course nobody has the time to actually, well, live through it. The kinetic energy to achieve reach a close star is beyond the capabilities of many modern spacecraft. Further, the dangers of outer space are well known. Whatever may fill the interstellar medium could damage the spacecraft. You would have to remain on the craft for a long time, without the ability to go outside, and to interact with the same crewmates, These problems prevent a Star-Trek esque future of interstellar travel in the near future. (Then again, that show is set in the 22nd century, so it's hardly the "near-future"). However, unmanned probes could hold potential. After all, the crafts don't have to account for the human side, just the technological side. Whilst the time and distance problems still remains (as seen in the Voyager example above), one can make the argument for an unmanned interstellar mission. One such group acting on this was the British Interplanetary Society, and in the 70's, they made their case.

     The British Interplanetary Society was founded by Phillip Cleator in 1933. It was founded during a boom in rocket societies in developed countries, such as the US, Germany, and the Soviet Union (many members of these societies would become key figures during the Space Race). At first, the Liverpool based organization was based solely off rocketry experimentation, but the Explosives Act of 1875 (which banned liquid fueled rockets) put an end to that. After a move to London in 1937, the membership boomed, with notable members including famed science-fiction author Arthur C Clarke and Val Cleaver, designer of the British Blue Streak Missile in the 50's. They become known for their extrapolations speculating on the possibilities of manned and unmanned space travel. They did a notable study of a moon mission in 1930's, with notable similarities to the Apollo Missions. Even after the space race concluded unceremoniously, the BIS continued to speculate, this time going to more distant locales....

       On January 10th, 1973, thirteen members of the BIS embarked on Project Daedalus, named for the mythical creator of the Labyrinth, a theoretical study dealing with the possibility of unmanned interstellar travel. This was first proposed by member and former Rolls-Royce engineer Alan Bond in 1972. The project was lead by Bond, Tony Martin, and Robert Parkinson.  It was, in part a response to the Fermi Paradox, a supposition by famed physicist Enrico Fermi that contrasted the theoretical abundance of intelligent extraterrestrial life, with its absence. One possibility is that interstellar travel hasn't been developed sufficiently by extraterrestrial civilizations sufficiently. The project was in part made to debunk that interstellar travel was hypothetically impossible, at least for unmanned crafts. The final project was published in the BIS Journal in 1978.  The conceived product was a 54,000 ton craft (larger than the Saturn V), equipped with scientific instrumentation such as robotic sub-probes, telescopes, and cameras, whose destination was the distant Bernard's star, over 5.9 light years away. To mitigate the impact of slow moving particles, a beryllium shield was added, due to the high latent heat and lightweight nature of Beryllium. The giant ship would have to be constructed in orbit, due to its sheer size. The journey was to take 50 years. 

      The mission had three stated goals: 

     

• (1) The spacecraft must use current or near-future technology
• (2) The spacecraft must reach its destination within a working human lifetime
• (3)The spacecraft must be designed to allow for a variety of target stars

      The thirteen member group had a serious task ahead of them. They needed to find a way to achieve astronomically (pun unintended) high speeds, and weather potential threats to the craft. Whilst full on nuclear propulsion (as in the cancelled Project Orion) was possible, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty prevented this. They were able to solve this, by deploying an interesting method. The engine was two stage, with pellets of deuterium and helium-3 (extracted from Jupiter or the Moon, depending on the year) being bombarded by high energy electron beams. This would induce fission, and hence energy for thrust, much like a chemical rocket. There would be 250 of these detonations per minute. The first stage would be a boost stage, which would consume 46,000 tons of fuel, achieving a speed of  75 million miles per hour. After 3.8 years, the second cruising stage would apply, where the craft would travel at 12% the speed of light, which would be 22,000 miles per hour. This would last 46 years, until reaching Bernard's Star. The ship would be inactive during the first part of this journey. However, halfway through, the probe would turn its two 5 meter optical telescopes and 20 meter radio telescopes towards the star, and take photographs, as well as analyze spectrographs, photometers, etc of the star and any accompanying planets. Eventually, its legion of robotic probes are awaken, and given coordinations. The eighteen probes will be released 1-7.2 years before the craft actually arrives to Bernards Star, and then descend upon the solar system, each equipped with spectrometers, photometers, cameras, and other scientific equipment to find more about the planets, and maybe the life on them. These will return data to the ship, and transmit it back to Earth. Robots would also be responsible for the care of the ship.

   No cost was placed on this project, though estimations would put it at a whooping 100 trillion dollars. This is no surprise, given the scale of the project, and the fact the ship would be larger than several famed buildings. Also, the BIS acknowledged that a large degree of international cooperation would be needed to actually build the craft. None the less, this has influenced thinking on unmanned interstellar travel amongst major space agencies, including NASA.Despite the discovery that Bernard's star didn't actually have planets, the model can easily applied to any star. So, will it be used? Maybe, but not in its original form. Elements may survive, but the mission to a distant star system would likely be smaller in scale. After all, this was merely a speculative study, not an ironclad blueprint. Variations  have appeared, including self-replicating robots, and a magnetic sail in place of nuclear engines. It was, and in a way, still is an ambitious project, one which pushes the boundary of what truly is "possible." To quote a former BIS president: "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

Sources

Project Daedalus – Interstellar Mission- The British Interplanetary Society:

http://www.bis-space.com/what-we-do/projects/project-daedalus

Daedalus-Brisbo.com:

http://www.bisbos.com/space_n_daedalus.html 

The Daedalus Starship- Damn Interesting:

http://www.damninteresting.com/the-daedalus-starship/ 

Project Daedalus- Origins:

http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/2049/DAEDALUS.HTM&date=2009-10-25+11:06:11 

Project Daedalus- Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus 

Project Daedalus- The World of David Darling

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/D/Daedalus.html 

The Cost of Interstellar probes- Centauri Dreams:

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=13202 

Interstellar Travel- Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel

List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs- Wikipedia, the Free encyclopeida

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars_and_brown_dwarfs