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Zero G Lindy Hop is a science-fiction novella told in several parts, posted serially if unpredictably by me, your grappler-beam jockeying host, Cheeseburger Brown. This is the third installment. Chapters: 1|2|3|... Connected Stories: Simon of Space, The Christmas Robots The story continues: CHAPTER THREE The corridor is wide, its sides dotted with doors, the middle dominated by a larger than life sculpture of a pelvis whose anatomically precise details form the works of a fountain. Various fat glowing fish sashay back and forth in the pool below, changing colours as they turn. Mistress Glittervale gestures triumphantly, framing the door to the left of the fountain with a pose of presentation. "Blammo!" she grins. "This is it." "What's with him?" asks Tas, shifting from...

In a recent article on the end of India’s inaugural moon mission, the BBC reported: Soon, the spacecraft started overheating due to the intense summer heat on the Moon. Isro scientists say it was deft mission management that saved it from a total burnout. I’ve got news for whoever wrote that: summer in the northern hemisphere is not summer in the whole solar system. It’s not even summer on the whole planet. There is no such thing as “summer heat” on the Moon. There’s just heat. The same heat, all the time, from the same sun, all the time. The Moon doesn’t have a large enough tilt relative to the sun to have significant seasons, nor the atmosphere to support them if it did, and they wouldn’t affect a spacecraft in orbit above it anyway....

Charles Krauthammer has a great piece on why the United States shouldn't abandon space exploration. I absolutely agree. Tom Wolfe also discusses this lack of vision in allowing the space proram to stagnate.America’s manned space program is in shambles. Fourteen months from today, for the first time since 1962, the United States will be incapable not just of sending a man to the moon but of sending anyone into Earth orbit. We’ll be totally grounded. We’ll have to beg a ride from the Russians or perhaps even the Chinese.So what, you say? Don’t we have problems here on Earth? Oh, please. Poverty and disease and social ills will always be with us. If we’d waited for them to be rectified before venturing out, we’d still be living in caves.Yes, we have a financial crisis. No one’s...

Canadian fans of Doctor Who and Torchwood needn’t worry. With the CBC out of the picture, SPACE has acquired the full rights to all episodes and specials (past, present and future) of these two series: The first of the 2009 specials, DOCTOR WHO: PLANET OF THE DEAD, premieres this July. As a London red bus takes a detour to an alien world it forces the Doctor (Tennant) to work with the extraordinary Lady Christina (Michelle Ryan, BIONIC WOMAN). But the mysterious planet holds terrifying secrets hidden in the sand and time is running out as the deadly Swarm gets closer.......

God bless Google Images. I can’t imagine what my day would be like without coming across something utterly bizarre and hysterically funny in my travels. It appears as though this image was originally tied to an article (now defunct) about the possibility of there one day being a McDonald’s on the moon. That’s arguably the most mundane sci-fi concept I’ve ever heard. Can you imagine? One day man gets to live on the moon — and even then someone still has to ask “do you want space fries with......

Damn you Battlestar Galactica and your mid-season finale! Here I was, sure that since it was only ten episodes into the final season, BSG would last me through the summer, building up to its grand series finale. Then, they had to go start airing a promo on Space saying “THE LAST EPISODE UNTIL 2009!” Spoilers below! Interestingly, almost everything that I expected would get drawn out over the whole season happened this episode. Especially interesting was the sprint to Earth in the last ten minutes. It all came across as very rushed and not well thought out. I think the whole Cylon-Human relationship at that point is not well explained, with one group threatening the other at every turn. I see no reason for the humans to trust the Cylons enough to bring them to Earth, no matter...

Almost four months ago I signed on with my company, based out of Gastown. I’ve been blogging about my discovery of the neighbourhood ever since. Where to get lunch, what to see and do, and where to get a great sammich. Well yesterday our company moved out of our cramped, non-natural-lighting office space on Abbott street and have settled into a new space over on Mainland. As the years progressed, the proximity of False Creek and the railway meant that Yaletown became heavily industrial. Many factories, rail buildings and warehouses were built, many of which survive to this day. After the real-estate boom and bust cycles of the 20th century, the area became shoddy and contaminated, and was bought up by the city. After the 1986 World’s Fair (Expo 86), held on neighbouring...

I am a big Star Trek fan. I actually met James Doohan once. He gave a lecture at Mcgillwhile I was a student. He said many students had told him they had gone into engineering because of Scotty.Now Scotty finally gets to warp out of here. RIP James Doohan! Say hello to Dr. McCoy for me.Star Trek's Scotty plots last course for the starsFri Mar 30, 5:25 PM ETPHOENIX (Reuters) - The remains of actor James Doohan, who played the starship Enterprise's chief engineer Scotty on "Star Trek," will be blasted into space next month, the company organizing the flight said on Friday.The Canadian-born actor who inspired the catchphrase "Beam me up, Scotty" -- even though it was never actually uttered on the television show -- died two years ago at the age of...

Pop on over to NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter site and grab a copy of this 20048-by-9500 Martian Landscape (that link is to a page of alternatives, not the image itself, it’s safe to follow). Then drop it into your favorite photo-browsing application—the detail is remarkable—and go for a walk around Mars....