Remembering our high-flying fallen: It's that week again

It's not an artful picture, but it is real life... a real-life corner that is the ongoing memorial to what we sadly but resolutely recall each year—what via NASA has come to be known as "Day of Remembrance," or a day within the single week's span in late January when coincidentally over time all three of our American space disasters and loss of life have occurred.

This year, today marks the 30th anniversary of the Jan. 28 loss of Challenger and its seven astronauts at just 73 seconds after launch, as they climbed into orbit, due to overlooked  cold weather effects on the solid rocket booster O-rings that were supposed to keep hot gases in their place. Three of the crew had been among the pioneering women and minorities that Nichelle Nichols had helped to recuit for NASA to open up the astronaut ranks, nearly a decade earlier.

That's their mission patch logo to the left, here at a simple memorial in the original, historic and now preserved Mission Control Room at Johnson Space Center in Houston—nerve center of American space flight from Gemini through the shuttle. I snapped this shot during a visit last fall.

Of course, Jan. 27 was the date in 1967 when the Apollo 1 capsule fire, sparked by an electrical short in pure oxygen with a bulky main hatch, claimed the lives of its crew trio in seconds during a routine pre-launch test at the Cape for what would have been the first use of the new capsule in space; their mission patch is to the right. And Feb. 1, 2002 marks the loss of pioneering shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven as it began orbital re-entry, breaking up under routine stress just 6 minutes from landing due to unexamined damage to a wing's leading edge from ice damage at launch. (That loss happened after JSC's new modernized Mission Control was opened, and this historic place was preserved as it was—without their mission patch as well [though it is prevalent elsewhere].)

All were tragedies... all stemmed from unintended human error and oversight... and all three marked a case when the lives given provided hard education and lessons learned, to move forward after not just mourning but  investigating the loss.


By the way: Between the mission logos, as a reminder of how sometimes tragedy can be averted in a mishap with ingenuity and luck, is the Apollo 13 lunar module mirror claimed from Aquarius after it served as a lifeboat for the safe return of that crew when their command module Odyssey was crippled after an oxygen tank shorted and exploded, turning their moon landing mission into one of simply triumphant survival.

If ever there was a concept that truly evoked Kirk's "Risk is our business!" speech, NASA's "Day of Remembrance" is it. The NASA webpage has information, video and memorials to all three ships and crews.

It's the kind of day to pause and reflect how far we have come, and how much further the way will be until we realize our future—and the additional lives that will surely be sacrificed as the cost to get there, despite best efforts, along the way. As I always say, I was a NASA kid before I was a Trek kid...and it's one of the reasons why I've always been a booster of all things space and future-looking, including my stint with Enterprise in Space.

Yo: My TV Academy piece on 'Astronaut Wives Club'!

It's on my website bio... and any of you Enterprise in Space supporters have heard me say it as well: I was a NASA kid long before I was even a Trek kid. I know a lot of you guys-n-gals are big space nuts, too—it's the mutual Trek/NASA reality that's always been around.

I was also a legit and trained journalist in the lay world before Trekland ever stamped my passport full-time.

Why is why I'm doubly proud of an interview piece of mine just published, and want to share. And it's not even Trek.

It was commissioned as an original feature for the sleek website of the Television Academy (the Emmy folks) and is not a reprint from their magazine—the first of more to come in a new site section.

And, two: Did I mention it's not Star Trek? I talk with Stephanie Savage—the adapter and show-runner of this summer's cool ABC mini-series The Astronaut Wives Club, taken from Lily Kossel's living history book of the same name—in what amount to the female mirror of The Right Stuff: the saga of the original Mercury Seven astronauts' wives.I doubt that rarely will these new web chats of mine for the Academy site be so selfishly space / sci-fi oritented—but what a way to start! If you haven't been watching TAWC, it truly is a hoot, an eye-opener, and the period production is right on—and you can catch up on the episodes in full on abc.go.com.

Meanwhile, having a connection to today's Hollywood output, in productions set sooner than 200 years from now, is refreshing, again! And such a classy boss.

Yes, MLK saved Uhura—and she brought diversity to NASA's real space faces

Dot-connecting time to Star Trek, on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day: 

Yes, MLK "saved" Uhura, via Nichelle Nichols' famous tale—but that in turn allowed, and led directly 10 years later, to her incredible NASA outreach mission and some of our most iconic faces in space, giving us the diverse shuttle corps we came to know—and some real-life IDIC in action.

In Star Trek's own way....THANKS one more time, Dr. King.

Nichelle Nichols On Gene Roddenberry

And Dr. King's Fateful Advice

     FORBES.COM — BY MICHAEL VENABLES 

"… As a result of Nichelle Nichols’ efforts of space exploration evangelism work over the last four months of 1977, NASA received 8,400 applications, 1,649 from women and nearly 1,000 from minorities. 

Here is the NASA leader who is responsible for inspiring the recruitment of Sally K. Ride, the first American woman in space, Judith A. Resnik, the second U.S. female astronaut and first Jewish-American in space, Mae Jemison, the first African-American female astronaut (in TNG role with Nichelle, above), Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian-American in space and the first African-African American male astronauts, Guion Bluford and Ronald McNair.

Nichols' charismatic recruitment method increased the number of applications from women sixteenfold, and from people of color thirtyfold."

I'm excited about 'Enterprise in Space'—and so will you!

You've never seen anything like this.

You've seen Kickstarter and other crowd-funded projects… you've seen fan films, games, novels, events… a lot of them I'm involved with. But no—you've never seen anything like this: 

"This" is the Enterprise in Space project you may have been hearing me hint about in recent weeks.

Look, I had no clue I'd be wrapped up in this non-profit mission as the year started. Now I'm thrilled I got involved and can spill the beans and the excitement: There's so much!—but hang with me while I try. The site and project is finally LIVE, and it is based on a few simple premises:

Take our shared and inspired love of space and exploration, whether fact or fiction (right?)... give 100+ student minds worldwide a chance to fly their space projects in orbit—all disciplines and, for once, for free ...let the donors come along as virtual crewmembers... and make science fact out of that science fiction. It's a great way to play the adventure and pay homage to all our sci-fi heroes and creators with a real-world result.

There are SO many groovy moving parts, it's hard to get it all out. For starters, you can take a look at the website's first video to get an idea.

But as founder Shawn Case says, simply: "Isn't it time a real Enterprise flew in space?" That was Shawn's starting premise... and if all goes as planned, that will finally happen in 2019—along with a big outreach to educators and students, helpful corporations and non-profits, and of course grassroots funding... all over the world. And after the 8-foot craft re-enters for recovery, the whole thing goes on a tour of museums and conventons before going on a display at a major space museum (yes, we're talking with THAT one). And, of course, the experiments' data will be maintained, analyzed and made available.

Just to be clear: The NASA space shuttle Enterprise was an unpowered test ship, remember, and flew key but dummy drop-tests; Richard Branson's same-named Virgin craft was sub-orbital. Thus, the name "Enterprise" is an honored one, from namesakes of Star Trek's various iconic and beloved ships to their own namesake as two heroic US Navy aircraft carriers, and even sail ships before that.

Shawn, a Trek fan and space buff from Oregon, did what a lot of us do in our daydreams:  figure out how to marry up the most inspirational, optimistic science fiction with science fact, right? It got me excited, and it got the National Space Society excited too—where both Gene and Majel Roddenberry served as prior board members...excited enough to sponsor what Shawn and his team have planned out for over three years, now officially the "NSS Enterprise orbiter." It's got the likes of Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin and Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols, Grace Lee "Yeoman Rand" Whitney and renowned broadcaster Hugh Downs...and many more... just as excited.

And the first part of all is... there's a contest—open to ANYONE—to design the thing! Sure the orbiter has to be spaceworthy, but check out these rules and get your entry in. Call all the designers, doodlers and CG artists you know as well. That's why there's no shiny spacecraft to show off—yet—but the contest ends Nov. 27, so get cracking. Or sharing.

The optimistic brand of science fiction—from Gene's Star Trek to the forward-tilting futurism of Heinlein and Asimov—has always had a mutual love affair with NASA and our real-life space heroes, right? I mean, as I've said often, I was a NASA kid way before I was a Trek fan, growing up on all the early flights—especially the Apollo moon landings. We played Apollo at recess, guys! I turned our treehouse into a LM and we put on whole Apollo missions.

I bet you feel the same way, right? You swell with pride every time we fix a satellite, discover a new deep-space secret, or rev up another rover on Mars. And I bet you've fumed "Stop picking on NASA, budget-cutters!" more than once the last decade or two, right?

Now, yes, we're not talking backyard model rockets here. But Shawn's dream isn't just shared by you and me: It tugs at the heartstrings of inspiration for a lot of fans—many of whom are today's aerospace pros, rocket scientists, project managers, top educators... and that's exactly who got excited enough to join the EIS team. I now know the guy who oversaw Citibank's world-record eCommerce system ... the woman who managed the $6 billion expansion of O'Hare Airport... a longtime engineer for the space shuttle and unmanned probes galore... NASA's only two-time educator of the year—but Buck Field, Alice Hoffman, Fred Becker and Lynne Zielinski are just the tip of the iceberg of the talent within the EIS group, all under the legal sponsorship of the National Space Society. The meet has been meeting twice weekly for months, jointly on Skype calls from California, Oregon, Texas, Illinois, other states and even Chile.

And THAT is why this $40 million project can be done, with Space X boosters and SpaceWorks capsule fabricators as the intended contractors—that kind of talent pool. ... Wait, did your eyes glaze over at that budget? How about, as Shawn says, you think of it as "2 million people worldwide giving $20 each...one time"? We have non-profit and corporate grants, too, and aerospace tech testing materials for re-entry... but our viral target stays the same. No one or two big sponsors in control ... but grassroots for "the cost of a movie ticket," as Shawn says.


See, fans, don't think of your typical Kickstarter, here. One of Shawn's goals that I Iove is that there IS no donor bureaucracy with EIS—no levels, no toteboard, no manic requests on ticking-clock deadlines. 'Cause let's be honest: you know I will support all my projects and hope you do too, but there is a bit of crowdfunder fatigue out there.

So, with EIS, just send in $20 for the entire project, and be a virtual NSS Enterprise crewmember: You get an immediate certificate, plus first updates on every step of the mission AND, most cool: Your name goes on a chip that will fly and come back post-flight, for you to see yourself at an event near you. And, for just that $20, you've got plenty left still to help out your other fave projects asking for your help—or shop for those great Trek Christmas gifts!

Look, do me a favor: Share the design contest info now (it closes Nov. 27). (Later there'll also be a contest to design the mission patch.) Share the website, Facebook and Twitter, Google+ and YouTube with everyone you know—the more far afield the better (I'm lookin' at you, my European and Asian friends, for starters!). Tell all the cool teachers and bright young minds you know about the experiments submission and curricula materials. Volunteer to help out, either live or online...or even be a sponsor if you want to go big. We need everything from local event speakers to video/animators to social media voices.

Most of all, please "sign aboard", cadets, with your $20 donation that helps make it all possible—and claims your place on the digital manifest you can see yourself in a few years.

Then follow along as Enterprise in Space, step by step, makes this inspired dream a reality. There's more to come: a tablet showing your "crew" image waving from the portal window, filmed by a tether-towed camera? A new technology of AI-style vocal smart computing for experiment and craft control, a la Starfleet? The ideas are rolling in as we speak...others are volunteering help from their expertise areas .... and there will soon be a weekly EIS podcast produced by our Trekland: On Speaker producer and friend Chris Jones at trek.fm to really keep everyone up-to-date, along with the e-newsletter you sign up for on the homepage.

I am aboard as the "promotions manager" for EIS, which mostly means I'll be the voice and face of bringing the excitement and details and talented people of EIS to the fan, space and genre community at our live and recorded events...and at conventions and conferences. I won't blog here at Trekland so much as link you over to our posts, podcasts, and press releases as each project milestone is reached. 

But I do hope you sign up and join us on this adventure—a positive, real-world outcome based on all the good vibes from that positive future that Gene and so many others aspired and inspired to.

As for me ...It feels great to be a "space kid" again!

RIP Sally Ride—but do you know her big Star Trek Moment?

It was January 10, 1995, and Star Trek: Voyager was just days away from becoming not only Star Trek's first true network series since the orignal... but also the first in the franchise to feature another groundbreaking casting choice: a female captain, Kathryn Janeway.

For the highly anticipated cast and crew premiere screening at Paramount, the UPN honchos and Voyager co-creators Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor (in background) joined new lead Kate Mulgrew—whose Janeway role had been the brainchild of Taylor—and made sure to make a little history that night as well.

Who else to honor on such an auspicious night for the world's biggest space adventure and its first female regular captain .... than America's first female astronaut and high-flying gender pioneer, Dr. Sally K. Ride?

(I was there that night in the front press row, a recent arrival in LA myself, and I'm danged if I can locate my good original photos this second. Instead, here's the studio photog's image we ran in Communicator/Issue 101—so apologies for the print-screen.)

Ride passed away today of pancreatic cancer at 61, having made her mark at age 31 in 1983 as American's first woman in space, and then-youngest ever, at age 32. She left NASA in 1987 after nine years and one more mission, with a third mission postponed by the Challenger disaster and her sitting on the accident's review commission. She resigned to work at Stanford's Center for International Security and Arms Control, as her spot in history will always be assured.

But back on the Paramount Pictures main theater stage in 1995, after honoring Ride for such contributions to space exploration, Mulgrew presented her with a plaque and combadge from the show's sets so Ride "could beam up whenever she felt the need to." In line with the historic mutual love affair overall between Star Trek and NASA—America's fictional and real-life space heroes—Ride's remarks that night revealed she was suitably touched and honored to be a part of another landmark for women in culture.

Ride even had a second and earlier link to the franchise, of course, in that she was in the group of new astronauts chosen from among women and minorities recruited by the NASA program Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols headed in the 1970s-80s.

Yup—they ALWAYS fall for "Spock's Brain"

Yeah, so this blog uses a clip from the Shat's How William Shatner Saved the World 2005 doc to make its point...

...that NASA's "Dawn" mission to explore inner planets and the asteroids one at a time by orbiting them is using ion power—which is very cool and exciting, yes—

...but even Bill's own show, and JPL's Dr. Marc D. Rayman, shows once again how I love that everyone falls for the clinker in "Spock's Brain": that the "What is brain?" Eymorg gogo-boots females having ion power in their ship is a big deal, even to the Starfleeters. Mostly because Spock not only reports the fact, but Scotty UNDERLINES it big time with a "They could teach us a thing or two!"

So rather than blame the best crew in Starfleet with amnesia, let's just chalk it up to bad third-season continuity—again. Not only is ion power indeed a fact already in our lifetime, per the NASA missions, but it already was in THEIR lifetimes. And routine.

Check out the computer's audio readout on that peskly Starbase 10 shuttlecraft—shuttlecraft—from "The Menagerie," Part 1...

"... Class F shuttlecraft: Duranium metal shell. Ion propulsion power. ..."

Nope... no one ever remembers that. Too bad Scotty wasn't around to say "Wowzers! Aye!" or that line might have been remembered as well.

None of this nonsense, of course, takes away from the awesomness of this NASA exploration of asteroids and more, complete with "parking orbits" of each one studied ...

'Impulsive' flights to Mars? 'We' told you so

To Mars in 40 days rather than 180? It's a great leap for rocketkind!

And check out that engine name:

...Ad Astra's Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) ionizes gases such as xenon or hydrogen to create superheated plasma stream for thrust. ...

New Rocket Engine Could Reach Mars in 40 Days
By Jeremy Hsu—SPACE.com Contributor

Future Mars outposts or colonies may seem more distant than ever with NASA's exploration plans in flux, but the rocket technology that could someday propel a human mission to the red planet in as little as 40 days may already exist.

A company founded by former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz has been developing a new rocket engine that draws upon electric power and magnetic fields to channel superheated plasma out the back. That stream of plasma generates steady, efficient thrust that uses low amounts of propellant and builds up speed over time.

....VASIMR and the necessary power sources could get a boost in the coming years. NASA's new five-year budget includes more than $3 billion for developing heavy-lift and propulsion technologies, as well as a Game Changing Innovation program that similarly targets next-gen propulsion and power sources. ...

Image: VASIMIR installed on ISS (NASA concept art)

Captain, there be Kelvans HERE!

It's too bad Mike, Denise, Dave and Niel didn't have THIS image of the Andromeda Galaxy in time when they Remastered "By Any Other Name." But still, it's an amazing first—wondrously detailed like never before.

Turns out this is an ultraviolet image taken by the SWIFT satellite in Earth orbit, and snapped while moonlighting from its primary mission of studying gamms-ray bursts.

No word yet on the current radiation levels in the Andromeda Galaxy, or any empires of brainy, hundred-tentacled giants.

Apollo 11 was not alone

What can I add to the celebrations and remembrance Apollo 11 so richly deserves on its 40th anniversary?

Not much--but allow me this pet peeve with the media:

There were six moon landings—increasing robust, increasing outfitted, increasingly ambitious. A dozen moon walkers in all. And, of course, there were to have been two more on a seventh landing--not counting the last two missions cut early on for budgets when "the new wore off" for the public and lawmakers already blasé about it all.

But as we celebrate once again Apollo 11's incredible testament to humanity's abilities, let's not negate all that was achieved and equally honorable by all the rest.

Note to the media: Honor each and all with accuracy.

It's not THE moon landing, it's the FIRST moon landing.

They were right: RIP Walter Cronkite

It was only a few weeks ago we broke hiatus to help make sure the word was out....

And now comes news that we have indeed lost him. It's assuredly a blessing in the end for "Uncle Walter" and his family, but what a loss and a time of reflection for all of us.

You will of course pardon this intrusion into Trekland, for Walter Cronkite was a resident, too—and we noted before.

What sad, ironic timing with the Apollo 11 anniversary. Weeknights growing up, we watched NBC and Huntley-Brinkley, my maternal grandparents watched Walterand CBS--but for the space shots, where you have Frank Reynolds on ABC and Frank McGee on NBC as the usual anchors, we surfed but usually stayed with CBS. (That's Cronkite above during Scott Carpenter's Mercury shot.)

Oh, how we need old-fashioned, unmoney'ed media and his kind of straight-arrow reporting now. All those colleagues rushing to praise him would do well to stand back and remember not just the sound bite moments such as Apollo and JFK's murder, but the really tough times he delivered not just the usual news but the extremely—and thus powerful—on-air rare editorial, like the post-Tet Offensive summation. Or connecting the dots of Watergate in prime time when no "mainstream media" would touch yet the story out side of the lowly Washington Post.

Say something, Wally, I'm speechless.


And now, back to our regular Trekland programming ...

Prayers for Walter Cronkite

Not quite a Trekland regular, but ironic on the timing as we approach a major Apollo 11 anniversary ... I couldn't let this pass:

Legendary CBS journalist Walter Cronkite reportedly gravely ill

Legendary CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, 92, long known as the "Most Trusted Man in America," is gravely ill, according to multiple CBS News sources and published reports.

From joy to sorrow: The Chicago Sun-Times site does indeed carry video of his incredulously stunned Apollo 11 "first step" moment, shared with analyst and astronaut Wally Schirra—as well as his immortal JFK death bulletin announcement.

Good for Mike Okuda: NASA honoree

This just tickles me, and I'm so happy for Mike Okuda: he's been honored with NASA's highest public honor for "civilians" outside the agency.

Here's word via Wired.com that Mike's been awarded NASA's Exceptional Public Service Medal.

I thought *I* was a NASA fan and space junkie long before Trek or any other post-color TV franchise came along (Just ask Mrs. Large how many Apollo mission bulletin boards I talked her into letting me put up in the sixth grade!)

But Mike tops it all by staying a "NASA nut" and helping design logos for the agency, much less fostering goodwill: there's the whole "mutual NASA/Star Trek love affair" thing, for instance, that he helped keep alive all during the modern Star Trek TV run—along with a crewful of help.

And in case you wonder why, visit he and Denise's portfolio site and get plenty of reasons—both in and out of NASA and Trek.

It all flows from the purest joy of exploration, the need to explore and discover and push out—no matter the obstacles, including the human political ones. And it's hardly a spirit unknown to Trek fans...

Good on you, Mike! (And thanks, Denise, for getting the word out).

No deflector dish on the space station?

Whether it can also be reconfigured to emit an antiproton beam ... or become an interplexing beacon to reach the Delta Quadrant ... this is why we need a main deflector dish "out in front" of the International Space Station!

WASHINGTON — The crew of the international space station had a close call with space junk Thursday. The three astronauts briefly took refuge inside a Russian escape capsule before returning inside the space station. Officials were worried that the orbiting outpost might get hit with a small piece of passing space debris. Tiny pieces of debris could cause a fatal loss of air pressure in the station. ...

By the way—how did we miss the 10th anniversary of the ISS last Nov. 20th? Here's a belated happy birthday wish to this oft-overlooked but ongoing next platform in the final frontier.