Carniculture in Science Fiction and Real Life
Like going on a brewery tour, except at this farm, the vats are full of meat.
The Apollo Program, A Personal Journal: The Command Module Training Simulator
The Apollo astronauts had more than a dozen really cool simulators to train them for a flight to the Moon. I had to learn how to fly one.
JUAN SERRANO – DISEÑADOR DE FX POR M.C.CARPER
Conduzco mi firma llamada GADGET EFECTOS ESPECIALES, donde día a día diseñamos y creamos efectos destinados a la industria audiovisual, ya sea cine, teatro, tv, publicidad, eventos…etc.
The Apollo Program, A Personal Journal: Engineer’s Toolkit
To explain to a generation born after PlayStation how we simulated Apollo reentries in 1968, using Stone Age implements and dragging our knuckles, I’ll need to go into a little detail.
Anime roundup 8/23/2013: Your Princess Is In Another Reality
In this week’s viewing: Space Brothers gets drop-kicked, Day Break Illusion causes a lecture on honorifics, and more!
Páginas del género en español 2: Mil Inviernos
Una web que me gusta revisar de cuando en cuando es Mil inviernos, una página muy dinámica que constantemente se actualiza y se nutre de todo lo que pasa a su “alrededor”
Discovering Science Friction: Snark Week 2013
Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives could easily have been made into a Syfy Channel movie (if they’d used lower resolution cameras, thrown in a former 1980s TV star and some cornball music).
The Apollo Program, A Personal Journal: Reentry Simulation Programs
Once I’d written a set of FORTRAN programs (yes,. paper and pencil) to model an array of Apollo reentry profiles, I sat down at a punched card machine and typed them in. This device was basically a desk with a built-in typewriter keyboard
Discovering the Invasion
The Invasion by Robert Willey takes us back to the era of a war torn United States fighting the good fight. At the same time, the story also opens the reader’s mind to some of the most fantastic speculations in space travel of the period.
Anime roundup 8/2/2013: Take a Number
Gatchaman Crowds #3 – This is the first sf work I know of to grapple full-on with the implications of widespread social networking. In any medium. You can point to any number of stories where […]
What’s the Deal with 3D Printing?
3D printing has popped up in science fiction for ages: recall the Star Trek crew materializing food in the microwave-like “replicator” or Neal Stephenson’s “matter compilers” in The Diamond Age. The appeal of creating whatever […]
Rockets and Missiles: Past and Future
Rockets and Missiles: Past and Future by Martin Caidin is literally a blast from the past. It is a delightfully historical account of man’s progression into space – because rockets are cool.
The Apollo Program, A Personal Journal: Ground Computers
>With limited computer resources onboard Apollo, the real “heavy lifting” had to be done on the ground, in Houston’s Mission Control Center.
Meditation on Cassini
Just stop for a moment and look at the picture above. It’s a picture of Earth as seen from the planet Saturn. The photo was taken by the Cassini Spacecraft yesterday. Just look at it […]
How Science Fiction Fans Can Save America
Will you stand for something? Or settle for anything?
The Apollo Program, A Personal Journal: Apollo Guidance Computer
The first task I was assigned in October of 1968 was to determine exactly how the onboard autopilot was supposed to operate during reentry, and that meant digging through the inner workings of the Apollo Guidance Computer itself.
The Apollo Program, A Personal Journal: Entry Corridor
Before I could develop a backup plan for the reentry of the Apollo Command Module, I had to get answers to two questions.
The Science and Engineering Applications of Zombies
I just watched World War Z last week, and it was not my first zombie movie of the year. It probably will not be my last. Zombies are the new vampire. They’re everywhere in every […]
The Apollo Program, A Personal Journal: High-G Roller Coaster
The Apollo Command Module is shaped like an oversized Hershey’s Kiss and entered Earth’s atmosphere broadside first, giving it all the aerodynamics of a misshapen rock.
Ray guns don’t kill people, peop … — oh wait, yes they do!
Be careful. Be careful, they got ray guns. – Loomis in the Carpenter Street episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, 11/26/2003 In Ray Bradbury’s epic The Martian Chronicles, published in 1950, the author presented his futuristic […]
Bieber to go to Space! Who should be Next?
I was struck by two news items this week. The first was that Justin Bieber has signed up for a trip into space. He’d like to do a concert from there. Whether or not you […]
Have Literary Luddites Taken Over SFF Fandom?!
For the past year, I’ve been doing the indie thing- writing and self-publishing my own novels on Amazon, B&N, etc. During that time I’ve learned quite a lot and have come to the conclusion that […]
The Apollo Program, A Personal Journal: Hand-Held Calculators (Circa 1968)
The first manned landing on the Moon occurred in 1969. The first hand-held calculator didn’t come on the market until 1972. So we got men to the Moon using pencil and paper and a slide rule. Really!
The Apollo Program, A Personal Journal: Godforsaken Place
In 1968, NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center in Clear Lake City, Texas was a hot and humid place, built three years earlier on a thousand acres of undeveloped cow pasture 25 miles southeast of downtown Houston, in the middle of nowhere.
The Apollo Program, A Personal Journal: “We Choose To Go To The Moon”
This post has been removed because its content may be incorporated into a forthcoming book by the author. To find more articles by Jack Clemons, go here. Information about Jack’s new book will be […]
All Aboard for Mars! A True Story
This is not fiction. Your mission, should you accept it, is to go to Mars and die there. I get a bit cynical about this sort of thing,
The Iron Man Cometh
Welcome internet traveler. I will be stockpiling neatly organized bits into a collective known as a blog along this portion of your journey. Do not fear for your personal safety, as I will take great […]
What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?
Why don’t American kids dream of being astronauts anymore? In Japan, interest in space is at a historically high level. I get slightly snarky about AKB48.
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