Tag: space

Upwards bound

Interstellar had more plot holes than wormholes, but this is still amazing.

What is happening? Suddenly, there’s been a wave of … inspiration! As if in tempo with Christopher Nolan’s INTERSTELLAR, there have also been several short movies that aggressively confront and take down the cynical theme that’s dominated this dismal century (so far). The way so many of YOU have given in to the seductive propaganda of limitations and despair. These wondrous pieces fight back by offering us visions of wondrous possibility.

First… try on this spectacular ode to courage – and our outward spirit – is by Max Shishkin, using the Interstellar score as background, taking us on a tour of vivid SF cinema images of space.
Even better is one of the best things I have ever watched, period. Invest 4 minutes! Scenes all taken (or extrapolated) from reality, not sci fi! This is what being human must be about… or else, why bother?)

Coda: Centuries tend to change direction dramatically, in their 14th year. Could this be our sudden veer? Backing away from the cliffs of cynical despair and getting back on trajectory toward confidence and daring and wonder?

Make it so.

What it takes to explore

This is nuts

In the story of how European Space Agency researchers are scrambling to locate—and possibly move—the Philae probe, which they successfully landed on Comet 67P 2 days ago, there’s an interesting comment about computer vision and the perception of exotic landscapes.


“It’s an entirely manual process, because the complex and bizarre landscape of comet 67P defies any kind of automated search. We don’t have an algorithm for this”

Solar Powered Lasers

There has been progress towards using solar powered lasers for Magnesium production. Having a profitable industrial application to fund and drive and scale the development of solar powered lasers is good news for accelerating solar powered lasers for space applications. They are scaling to 1 megawatt of solar collection and 30 watts of laser per square meter of collection area. A space based system could have 60 watts of lasers since there is no atmosphere blocking sunlight. Space based being application would then need another fresnel lens to focus the lasers for long range beaming.