“The moon really is its own unique body in the universe. When we have that perspective and we compare it to our home of the Earth, it just reminds us how much we have in common. Everything we need, the Earth provides, and that, in and of itself, is somewhat of a miracle.”
“It is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye from the moon right now,” Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed ahead of the flyby. “It is just unbelievable.”
Live up dates of the Artemis II mission to “cislunar space” (it will not actually land on the Moon but will take four astronauts farther away from Earth than anyone else so far).
To find out that the outsourced company in charge couldn’t even be bothered to test the product. They just happily pocketed $72 million of taxpayer dollars and laughed all the way to the bank.
Just one day after NASA said it was eyeing a potential March 6 launch date for the Artemis II lunar mission, the space agency said Saturday that complications with the rocket could delay all launch attempts in March from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
(Btw, WordPress, the “quote” field used to have a separate area where you could put a link to the quote’s source. Where did that go? Nothing like helping the spread of unverified fake news…)
NASA’s plans for Mars sample return are effectively cancelled as part of a bill approved by the U.S. Congress, ending efforts to collect Perseverance rover samples that could contain evidence of alien life.
Adam’s Stepsons takes the core questions of Blade Runner and distills them into a tight, character-driven drama. It lacks the sweeping visuals of Villeneuve or the noir cityscape of Scott — but it delivers something arguably more intimate:
A quiet horror — and quiet triumph — in the collapse of identity, where the artificial doesn’t just mimic life…
It replaces it.
Over the weekend (my first with no student work to grade — finally! — since April), I decided to ask our “old” friend ChatGPT if it could analyze my sci-fi novella Adam’s Stepsons. Really, I was just curious what it would say.
It said…a LOT.
It correctly interpreted the title (something that many readers apparently didn’t get). It correctly identified the main themes as part of a “post-humanism” sub-genre of science fiction. And once I gave it three short excerpts (from the near the end of the story), it gave a frighteningly accurate thematic and symbolic analysis of the entire novella…just from three short excerpts of a total of about six pages.
I won’t copy all it gave me (you all can go try on your own and see what it says!). But let me share what the program thought were key themes:
The researchers argue that “if” trees could be planted on Mars…
OK, just stop right there. I’m pretty sure Mars will struggle to support even grass, let alone trees.
And the argument that, due to a lack of oxygen, flammable wooden structures in space would not be in danger strikes me as a bit ludicrous…surely there would be oxygen inside the wooden structures?
And, you know, I do think I’ve seen this before some where…nah…
The scientists hope to learn about the asteroid’s surface composition and how fast it rotates, he said. Those observations could help researchers figure out its origin, which in turn could shed light on other asteroids, including ones that could be dangerous to Earth.
This is of course not the first “mini-moon” to have been discovered. These are wandering asteroids that get trapped briefly by Earth’s gravity well before being flung back into space.
Read the article for more information about the “school-bus sized” 2024PT5!
M Thomas Apple Author Page 