Finis?

Done, finis, complete … okay, not done done but done. I finished my novel Refuge this week. It is a complete rewrite; 58,627 words.

I know I’m not finished … there’s still a lot of work ahead. (I accumulated pages of notes as I slogged through this latest iteration.) I’ve learned that writing the book is but a fraction of the work involved in the journey to publication.

I still need to polish the bible and refine definitions, write a multi-page summary, a one paragraph summary and a single sentence summary and oh … find an agent (I’ve decided I’m going to follow the “traditional” route to publication).

It’ a daunting task. The agent thing is probably going to be the hardest part of the whole journey. I have to do a ton of research to locate someone who works with science fiction authors, accepts new clients, makes a good match, and likes what I’ve produced.

What agents like seems so hard to quantify.

Last year, I attended a conference and sat in on a panel discussion that featured four agents critiquing first pages from a variety of attendee manuscripts. A page was read, then each agent explained what she liked (or disliked) regarding the submission. One author’s first page spent a paragraph describing Victorian wallpaper in a study room. One of the agents suggested that this page caught her attention because she liked wallpaper. Wallpaper? Really? But, that may have been enough to get this person to read beyond the first page. Isn’t that what authors strive for? Another agent did not like the submission because it had too much detail for a first page.

Regardless of what lies ahead, I’m up to the task. I started this journey a number of years past and I’ve come too far to quit.

Have a suggestion or agent/submission story you’d like to share? Leave a comment below.

A Game of Thrones

Courtesy Google Images

A Game of Thrones is a Home Box Office (HBO) series based on George R.R. Martin’s books in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. I have not watched the show, but Dwight Schrute, Rainn Wilson’s character in NBC’s The Office, describes it thusly, “The superb Home Box Office series A Game of Thrones; it has a lot of nudity which I fast forward through to get to the chopped off heads.”

I saw an interview with Mr. Martin where he indicated the total volumes in the series would be seven, possibly eight, books. To date, five are complete and number six is scheduled for a 2014 release.

I don’t know what rock I’ve been living under; but until my son gave me a copy of A Game of Thrones, the first book in the series, I had never heard of George R. R. Martin. According to the Houston Chronicle, he’s been writing genre fiction since 1970. He has written for television (Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast) and A Game of Thrones was published in 1996.

Courtesy Google Images

I was pleasantly surprised. I haven’t read much fantasy so at first blush, A Game of Thrones looked to be a ponderous read. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The book is set in a fantasy realm that has the feel of feudal England; it reads like historical fiction. There are knights and lords but the element of fantasy is strong, as there are dragons and the undead. Martin also weaves in the hint of magic.

Each chapter is named for a different character and all the characters have interdependency— what happens to one will eventually affect another. And don’t get too enamored with any one character. Martin has demonstrated they are mortal … they die.

The main players are the Lannisters and the Starks. The struggles of, and between, these two families may decide who will rule Martin’s fantasy realm.

I’ve started book two, A Clash of Kings, and so far I like it as much as book one. If the HBO series is as well-crafted as the books (it won eight Emmys in 2012), it must be good viewing.

I’m curious to know the opinion of those who’ve read the books or seen the television series. Leave comments below.

Season 2 Recap

Christmas Eels

Back in the day when there were only three networks and subsequently only three channels to watch, I’d get up on a Saturday morning and settle in for a morning of cartoon watching. I have a recollection of a character’s body going rigid and translucent as electric current coursed through his frame when he grabbed hold of an electric eel.

Courtesy Google Images

As funny as this was to a preteen, apparently it’s not so farfetched. According to tvtropes.org  an electric eel (which isn’t really an eel but rather a species of knife fish) is capable of delivering a jolt capable of killing an ungrounded adult. When you consider that less than one tenth (1/10) of one (1) amp can prove fatal if it travels through the heart, you can understand the plausibility of meeting your demise if you were to encounter an electric eel.

However, the current emitted by electric eels is capable of more than incapacitating other life forms. Turns out their power can be harnessed for good. Currently (pun intended), the folks at the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy, Utah have illuminated Christmas lights that they attached to an eel tank. As the eel swims through the water, it generates a current necessary to power the lights.

How cool is that? It’s not a new idea but that doesn’t diminish its interest factor.

Anyone have any idea how many eels it would take to power a house?

Watch

Good Baby?

Nature versus nurture— it’s an age old argument. Is a person’s personality determined by heredity or is it shaped by the environment? Are babies born good or is behavior learned?

On Sunday, November 18, 2012 CBS’ 60 Minutes aired a segment detailing a study that leads researchers to believe children as young as six months old know the difference between good and bad.

Lead by Paul Bloom and Karen Wynn, husband and wife psychologists at Yale University, the study explores a variety of tests created to determine if children could identify a “good” puppet versus a “bad” puppet. The test subjects were babies, six-months of age, of both sexes and varying races.

Out of the multitude of tests, two piqued my curiosity.

1. A puppet attempted to open the lid of a box. A second puppet (good), offered assistance. A third puppet (bad) prevented the first puppet from opening the box. Next, a different researcher, one who didn’t know which puppets had been presented as good or bad, held the good and bad puppets at arm’s length in front of a baby. A majority of the children reached for the good puppet.

Courtesy CBS 60 Minutes

2. A puppet played with a ball. A second puppet came into play and “stole” the ball away. In most cases, the baby would pick the puppet that didn’t “steal” the ball.

The research results seem to indicate that people are born with an innate sense of what is good behavior and what is bad. As a parent, I find this fascinating because I wonder why some aspects of my kids’ personalities are so varied, yet others are similar. Did we raise them that differently or were they just wired that way from birth?

I suppose there are a number of factors that determine a person’s personality. But, I’d like to think we’re all born with our moral compass intact; that we possess a basic sense of right and wrong.

What do you think has the greatest impact – heredity or environment?

Happy Thanksgiving

Today was a great day!

The whole family made it for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s first time in a few years we’ve been able to gather for the Feast. It was special to have our daughter-in-law, three boys, grandson and my mother in the same place for this day.

And we were able to celebrate Mom’s 94^th birthday.

I’d be interested to hear how you spent the day … I hope it was as spectacular as ours!

There’s not much left of this bird!

The Next Big Thing

Today is the anniversary of my very first blog post. I cannot believe a year has passed. In that time I’ve written about all manner of advanced motorized transportation and we even had a commercial space vehicle dock with the International Space Station – amazing.

To commemorate this event I am participating in The Next Big Thing Blog Hop. The idea is for writers to answer ten questions about a work-in-progress or a newly-published book.

My writing coach, Sera Rivers, tagged me last week. Since it’s my blog’s one-year anniversary, she has decided to let me go first. (As she looks upon this paragraph, she is grumbling about my phrase-choice “she has decided,” but in celebratory honor, she is allowing me to keep said phrase-choice: THIS time…yes, she wrote these parenthetic remarks.)

Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing:

What is your working title of your book?
Refuge

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I’ve always been a bit fascinated by the myth of Santa Claus. How does this guy get toys into the hands of all good children? My hypothesis is that he’s an alien who utilizes advanced technology to fabricate and deliver the toys in a timely manner. Refuge is his backstory, who he was before Santa Claus.

What genre does your book fall under?
I would call it a cross-genre of science fiction and historical fiction; I’ve got aliens, Vikings, Scots, spaceships, advanced weaponry and a cloaked island on Earth.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Dwayne“The Rock” Johnson as the protagonist, SubCaptain KrisIngles. Bruce Willis as Lieutenant GuarDell, an old school Sanklausian Marine. Dye her hair red and Piper Perabo, star of USA’s Covert Affairs, would make a kick-ass Gitta, the potential love interest of KrisIngles.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
The first in a trilogy, Refuge is a redefinition of Santa Claus’ origin.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I will be seeking representation.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It seemed like it took forever to write the first draft, when in actuality, it took about a year and a half.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I’m not certain. I think I would liken it to, “First Contact,” Season Four, episode 15 of Star Trek The Next Generation (airdate: 2/18/1991). During a mission to determine if the Malcorians are Federation worthy, Will Riker, disguised as a Malcorian, is injured and stranded in a one of their hospitals.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I have always felt like there was a story inside me waiting to be written. On numerous occasions, I started a tale but never got past the first page. I had all sorts of excuses – family, work, night school (I was working toward a BS in Computer Science). Finally, in the beginning of 2005, I vowed that I’d start working on a book when I attained my degree. While I wrote and wrote and wrote, it didn’t really come together until I hired a writing coach to help keep me on task.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Refuge grew from what I had originally planned as a prologue/introduction to an entirely different story. But it took a life of its own and has turned into the first novel of a trilogy. As I wrote, I realized there was much more of KrisIngles’ story to tell.


Leave questions, similar book titles, and general comments below. I’d love to hear from you.

Look for next week’s NEXT BIG THING post by Sera Rivers.

Home Repairs Made Easy?

Home ownership is tiring. You have to mow the lawn, trim the shrubs, rake the leaves, clean the gutters, shovel the walk, sand and salt the driveway, repaint, wallpaper. Aaaarrrggghhh, it’s never ending. And sometimes … it seems like the most benign task becomes a major project; I lose count of my trips to the hardware store.

Courtesy Google Images

Want to get rid of those cracks in your home’s foundation? There’s hope. Researchers at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands are developing self-repairing concrete. FutureTimeline.net reports that microbiologist Henk Jonkers and concrete specialist Erik Schlangen have created a self-healing concrete by adding inactive bacteria to the concrete mixture.

The theory? When a small crack forms in concrete it becomes exposed to the elements. Water seeps into the crack, activates the bacteria, and helps turn calcium in the nutrients into limestone which fills the cracks. How cool is it that scientists are figuring out how to grow concrete?

What I wouldn’t give for a lawn that mowed itself or a room where the paint never faded, dulled or chipped. Wouldn’t it be great if scientists could, somehow, transfer this type of technology to other aspects of home care?

Billion Dollar Baby

A dollar bill is 6.14 inches long and .0043 inches thick. If you were to lay four billion of them end-to-end they’d stretch around the earth nine and one half times. A stack of four billion ones would be over 271 miles high.

Courtesy Google Images

$4.05 billion; that’s the amount, in cash and stocks, that The Walt Disney Company paid George Lucas for Lucasfilm. When I sat in a theater in 1977 and watched Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope I never dreamed the franchise would be worth such a vast sum; heck, I never dreamed there’d be a franchise.

Back then, people compared Star Wars to the, then, defunct Star Trek franchise. They said the special effects in Star Wars far outshined those from the 1960s series.

Seriously? Being a fan of Captain Kirk, et al, I was offended. Movie and television technology had dramatically advanced in the decade after Star Trek ended. What did people expect? of course the special effects were going to be more … special.

According to ABCnews.com, Disney also announced that in 2015 they will release Episode VII. That is awesome! Lucas had decided that he was done with Star Wars movies after Episode III so I think that with the backing of Disney Studios there’s a chance we may see Episodes VII through IX.

Does anyone else share my rejuvenated Star Wars excitement?

Not Captain Kangaroo’s Green Jeans

Courtesy Google Images

I am old enough to remember the Captain Kangaroo morning show with Bob Keeshan portraying the Captain. I remember the magic drawing board, Mr. Moose, Bunny Rabbit, Dancing Bear and Mr. Greenjeans.

Captain Kangaroo and his cast of characters have been … retired for some time, but that doesn’t mean an end to green jeans. According to the British Council, Professor Tony Ryan of the University of Sheffield and Professor Helen Storey of the London College of Fashion are collaborating on the development of clothing that will purify the air.

The Independent reports that Ryan and Storey discovered microscopic particles of titanium oxide worked as a pollution buster when sprayed on clothes. Professor Storey said, “It seemed to be particularly effective on denim jeans and then we realised there were more denim jeans on the planet than people.” The toxins trapped in the coating will be neutralized and washed away when the jeans are laundered. Tests are being performed to determine if the jeans are safe to wear.

Regardless the outcome of the testing, I’d be hard pressed to don any clothing that is designed to absorb toxins.

Does anyone want to wear a catalytic converter in the guise of Levis?

Chainless Hybrid Bicycle

On my eighth birthday my parents gave me a brand new Sears Roebuck bicycle. It was a single speed (I didn’t get a cool banana seated three speed until my eleventh birthday) and fire engine red. I loved that bike; I rode it everywhere.

Courtesy Google Images

In the early 1970s, there was a gas shortage so people purchased mopeds, small motorized scooters that had pedals. The operator would start pedaling then a motor would kick in. They were useful because you only needed a valid state driver’s license to operate one and they were much faster than walking.

Courtesy Google Images

The next generation of motorized bicycles is just around the corner. In 2013, Korean auto parts maker, Mando, will roll out a chainless hybrid bicycle called Footloose. According to DVICE.com, Footloose is a folding electric bike that turns human pedaling power into energy to be stored in the bike’s lithium-ion battery. The bike can travel up to 18.6 miles on electricity alone. It has a control unit that monitors the vehicle’s speed and automatically adjusts its energy output.

I was never a big fan of the moped. It was bulky and seemed to lack a whole lot of mobility. On the other hand, the Footloose appears to handle like a regular street bicycle. Depending on cost, I could envision owning one.

Does this make anyone feel like going for a weekend bike ride?

Fearless Felix

On August 16, 1960, Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger, completed a world record 102,800 foot skydive. According to centennialofflight.gov he was protected against the subzero temperatures by layers of clothes and a pressure suit and during his descent, he reached speeds up to 614 miles per hour.

Yesterday, Sunday, 10/14/12, on the Discovery Channel, I watched Australian daredevil Felix Baumgartner break Kittinger’s 52 year old record. Interestingly, Joe Kittinger was a member of Baumgartner’s support team.

Courtesy Google Images

Baumgartner’s capsule was lifted on high by a hot air balloon to a height greater than 128,000 feet. He wore a high tech pressure suit and helmet that protected him from the freezing temperatures present at that altitude.

Just before the jump, he stood on platform outside his capsule and hesitated and I wondered if he was thinking, “Wow, that’s a long way down.” He leaned forward and toppled. As he dropped he pin wheeled. I wondered if he was ok but I could hear him breathing. His descent steadied and eventually he opened his chute and floated safely to the ground.

According to abcnews.com his skydive was record breaking on three counts.

1. The only man to achieve a supersonic skydive (833 miles per hour or Mach 1.24)

2. The highest exit from a platform

3. The free fall without a drogue parachute

I was amazed and awed that someone would be willing to perform a stunt like this. I don’t even like to ride the roller coasters at Six Flags.

Are there any daredevils out there that want to attempt a jump of 128,000 feet?

Red Shirts

According to Infoplease.com, in college sports a red shirt is an athlete who did not play in any games (at the coach's request), or was seriously injured during their first season. The "red-shirt" designation means that that season will not count against the player's four years of NCAA eligibility, allowing them to play four full seasons.

Courtesy Google Images

Anyone who has watched the original Star Trek series (1966 – 1969) knows that a red shirt character is usually the first one to die. The term “red shirt” has become so ingrained in my family’s lexicon that when we watch a TV program we attempt to identify the designated red shirt.

I found an interesting article at Wired.com that reported being a "Red Shirt" on the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 was one of the most dangerous jobs in any (imaginary) military. According to Wired.com 13.7% of Kirk’s crew died during their three-year televised mission; 73% of the deaths were Red Shirts.

Courtesy Google Images

I knew that the "Red Shirt" was the first to go. It’s reassuring to know that there is statistical evidence to back up what I knew intuitively.

Not America's Favorite Pastime ... Yet

The 2012 Major League Baseball (MLB) season is nearing a close and this makes me reflective.

I don’t know a baseball fan that isn’t familiar with the tune, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” According to the Baseball Almanac, the lyrics were written in 1908 by Jack Norworth on a scrap of paper. Albert Von Tilzer composed the music and by the end of 1908, the song was a hit.

The quintessential lines, “Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack. I don’t care if we ever get back,” remind me of sitting in the stands and taking in the sights and sounds of a baseball game. The cheering/jeering crowd, the perfectly manicured field of play and the in-game strategic moves by the managers coalesce to make baseball my favorite of the professional sports.

Courtesy What-If


So, when one of my kids sent me the link to realivistic baseball I was intrigued. In a nutshell, the webcomic describes what would happen if a pitcher could hurl a baseball at the speed of light. It’s an impossible scenario but it’s still interesting to postulate the outcome of such an event. According to what-if.xkcd.com, the end result would be a firestorm that destroys everything within a mile of the park.

I think I’d rather watch that game via video feed.

If you’re seeking a snack while lounging on the couch watching your favorite realivistic baseball game and you’re too lazy to move, you’re out of luck. Supposedly a device, the Popinator, has been developed to shoot popcorn into your mouth once you issue the command, “Pop.” However, according to ABC News 7 out of San Francisco, California, it's just a guerilla marketing campaign for a popcorn company. Darn, that’s so disappointing.

I figured if they had a machine that could shoot popcorn, an automated beverage shooter wouldn’t be far behind?

Explosions and hoaxes aside, is anyone interested in catching a game and noshing on some popcorn?

Internet Security

It must be a decade since I took a computer security class as part of my degree program at Westfield State College. Since that time, computer security has become an even bigger industry.

Courtesy Google Images

During the course of my research for a term paper about Kevin Mitnick, an infamous computer hacker, I learned about the Def Con Hacking Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to the Huffington Post, it is an annual event that attracts thousands of the best code crackers to discuss the latest hacking techniques. Hackers can make a name for themselves by demonstrating how they find security flaws in technology that most consider well-protected.

What amazed and confounded me most about the conference was the assertion by one of the attendees that he could hack a bank account using information from an ATM slip. This prompted me to make sure that I never leave my ATM slips in the trash at the teller; I shred them.

Database breaches have had an indirect impact on me. On three separate occasions, institutes I’ve done business with have had their databases compromised. Each incident resulted in that company enrolling me, at no cost to me, in a credit watch agency. Fortunately, none of the incidents presented a financial hardship for me.

I’ve probably become lax regarding computer security. I came across an article by Mat Honan at Wired.com that reminded me how much damage a hacker can do. The article, How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking describes, in detail, the process the hacker(s) used, the data lost by Mr.Honan and the process (and cost) of retrieving just 75% of what was destroyed. (They were even able to erase data from his mobile phone and home computing devices.)

Mr. Honan’s experience has led me to re-evaluate my on-line practices. I think there are three (3) elements of internet security we should all practice:

1     1.  Don’t save credit card/bank information on a site just to make purchases and bill paying easier.

2     2.  Create complex passwords that contain a mixture of letters, numbers and characters.

3     3.  Don’t use the same password for all your secure internet sites.

I think what happened to Mr. Honan is frighteningly educational. I wouldn’t want it to happen to me.

Is anyone else concerned about leaving an electronic trail that hackers could utilize?

Not a Harley

When I was a kid I used to love riding my dirt bike; a 2 stroke Kawasaki. I think it was 180 CC’s, but it’s been so long I don’t really recall the size. I lived in a very rural area, surrounded by fields, woods and apple orchards. The orchard gave me access to the trails along the power and pipe lines. I would ride for hours and never encounter another soul.

Alas, as I aged, my fear of sustaining a serious injury pushed aside the joy of zipping over the myriad of obstacles that trail riding presented. By the time I graduated high school, my motorcycling was a distant memory.

Courtesy Google Images

I have found something that might reignite my desire to own a motorcycle. DVICE.com reported on a concept spherical-wheeled motorcycle that students at the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering at San Jose State University are investigating. The end result will be a rideable, electric motorcycle that uses balls instead of wheels. I think it looks cool; kind of like the Batpod from The Dark Night.

Courtesy Google Images

The students needed to obtain funding to study their spherical drive system (SDS) design so they assembled a sponsorship packet that outlined their team and its goals. They explained, in detail, why they wished to pursue the SDS, various aspects of the design, such as the drive system and the wheels and provided a detailed breakout of their projected costs.

I’m not an engineer or a scientist so I won’t pretend to understand all the nuances involved in making this thing operate. I just think it’s futuristically awesome-looking and I want one!

Anyone else share my desire to own a high-tech two wheeled piece of the future?

Mind Reading

Extrasensory perception (ESP) and mind reading has been a staple of fiction for generations. Television shows such as Babylon 5 featured a PSI Corps; a government sponsored organization that employed mind readers to help keep the Earth Alliance safe. What Women Want is a cinematic comedy in which Mel Gibson plays a man who acquires the ability to read the minds of women.

Mind reading has always been a figment of fiction. However, advances in technology may be changing that.

In December, 2011, Mashable conducted an interview with IBM Senior Inventor Kevin Brown. He said IBM’s vision for mind reading is this: a person wears a headset that can detect general electrical signals from the brain and sends them to a computer. Sophisticated software interprets those signals and, in turn, tells a machine what to do.

“One of the common misconceptions is that the headset is reading your thoughts,” says Brown. “It’s not. It’s just reading a level of excitement. It’s not understanding.”

Forbes reports that a group of researchers from the University of California at Berkeley, Oxford University and the University of Geneva presented a paper on this very topic on August 8, 2012 at the Usenix security conference in Seattle. Their presentation hinted at the darker side of a future where brain sensors are used to let thoughts manipulate computers. The researchers found they were able to extract hints directly from the electrical signals of the test subjects’ brains that partially revealed private information.

The ACLU has some issues regarding the possible use of this technology. They are concerned that private employers might attempt to use the technology as a lie detector in violation of Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988.

The whole thing seems a little MinorityReport-ish. I think there’s the potential for abuse of mind reading technology by well-meaning individuals. On the other hand, the use of the brain’s electrical impulses to manipulate electronic devices could be a boon for the physically handicapped.

What do you think? Would you use a hands free device that’s controlled by the electrical activity in your brain?

Google Glasses

I’ve worn glasses since the fourth grade and I’ve been called Poindexter, Four Eyes, Specs. You name it; it’s been thrown in my direction. But, I’m the youngest of five boys so there was nothing others said that could bother me, especially since my family nicknamed me Shithead.

Yup, you read correctly: Shithead. When I was but a wee lad, we traveled to DeerIsle, Maine for Thanksgiving. My uncle had hung a banner that read: Welcome Egertons. You too, Shithead. It stuck.

But, I digress. Despite the barbs tossed my way wearing glasses had never been an issue for me. I’ve worn contact lenses and I’ve considered Lasik eye surgery, but it’d always seemed easier to just don the spectacles.

I guess I’ve never understood why wearing glasses was such a big deal. So, I was happy to hear that in the not too distant future, wearing glasses might actually be considered cool.

Google, the company that is working to develop a driverless car, is developing what could possibly be a “must-have” piece of technology, the Google Glasses.

Google Glasses are being developed in the ultra-secret special projects lab near Google’s MountainView, California headquarters, and they could be the next generation of computing apparatus. Techradar reports that the glasses will run Android, will include a small screen in front of your eye and will include motion sensors, GPS and either 3G or 4G data connections. Google still needs to develop a workable interface, such as voice activation.

Initially, people wearing these glasses might seem odd to onlookers. They'll appear to be talking to themselves and bobbing their heads as they walk to avoid virtual obstacles. But as people adopt the technology, Google Glasses will become mainstream.

I think the advantage of these glasses will be the heads-up display that will provide the user with unobtrusive Internet and phone access. FarhadManjoo states that wearable computers could end up being a fashion statement. They actually fit into a larger history of functional wearable objects—think of monocles, wristwatches, and whistles.

If Google Glasses existed when I was a kid I doubt I’d have been tagged Four Eyes or Specs but I can’t imagine any technology that would prevent my uncle from dubbing me Shithead.

Does anyone care to make a functional fashion statement?

The Good and the Not so Good

The Good:

In my May 28, 2012 post, I wrote about SpaceX’s successful launch of a cargo ship to the International Space Station (ISS). It was the first time a ship owned by a private citizen had visited the ISS, and now they may have an opportunity to expand into the manned space shuttle business.

On August 3, 2012, NASA announced three companies had been contracted to design and develop the next generation of crewed spacecraft under the umbrella of NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative. NASA’s press release states the CCiCap’s objective is to facilitate the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability. Their goal is to achieve safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the International Space Station and low Earth orbit. The idea is that the technology, once developed, would be available to the government and private sector.

The three companies are:

• Sierra Nevada Corporation, Louisville, Colo., $212.5 million
• Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Hawthorne, Calif., $440 million
• The Boeing Company, Houston, $460 million

According to NASA, these commercial partnerships have the potential to set the agency on a course to provide new transportation into space for its astronauts, while expanding human presence beyond low Earth orbit and enabling new missions of exploration across the solar system.

The Not so Good:

NASA is working on an in-house project called Morpheus, a vertical test bed demonstrating new green propellant propulsion systems and autonomous landing and hazard detection technology. It is a full spacecraft that will be capable of carrying 1100 pounds of cargo to the moon.

On Friday, August 3, 2012, NASA completed a successful tethered test flight at Kennedy Space Center.



It went so well that NASA decided to attempt a free flight with a Morpheus prototype on Thursday, August 9th. Unfortunately, the craft crashed about fifty feet from the launch site.



NASA says no one was injured, no property was damaged (besides the vehicle), and they have been able to recover significant data that will give them greater insight into the source of the problem.

I think both these events are of equal importance. I hope NASA doesn’t give up on Morpheus. This was a setback but no one was injured and to me, the fact that they are creating a homegrown spacecraft is huge. Also, since NASA has awarded some developmental contracts I have hope that the United States space effort is not dead.

Does anyone else think both these events are of equal importance?

Curiosity Follow Up

My December 6, 2011 blog discussed the Mars Rover Curiosity. On Sunday, 8/5/12, it landed on the Red Planet in what CNN reported as a spectacle known as the "seven minutes of terror." The reason for the “terror” was the unknown; the distance between Mars and Earth caused a communications lag so the folks in mission control couldn’t follow the descent and landing in real time.

Courtesy ABC News

When they launched the rover on 11/26/11, there didn’t seem to be much hype. I don’t recall there being more than fifteen second blurbs on news casts. But after landing, ABC News ran a clip that showed the unbridled elation of the technicians in mission control when they received confirmation of a safe touchdown. It seems that every night thereafter, they’ve had a piece about some aspect of the current mission.

Courtesy ABC News

After traveling more than 200 million miles in about 8 ½ months, Curiosity has settled safely in Gale Crater on Mars’ surface. Within minutes, it sent its first image, and in the distance you can see the rim of the Gale Crater. (For all you conspiracy theorists, that’s not the Mojave Desert.)

Curiosity’s mission is to scout for signs of life on Mars and NASA expects it will function for two years.

I think it’s exciting. NASA says missions like this pave the way for manned exploration. We can only hope.

What do you think? Is the Curiosity mission frivolous or a logical step in potential human space travel?