So there's another attempt to make Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy into a movie afoot? As well as his The End of Eternity?

I don't think it will work. Last time I read them, I really noticed how much of the "action" is just two character's talking.

And...previous attempts have been bad from the get-go. For example, an attempt to turn the trilogy into two films (similar to what the initial attempt by Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings was). And the attempt to use the "creative team" behind that horrific version of Asimov's I, Robot. Blech!

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Straight-up chess, or chess played on a wall! I wonder how the match is going between the crew of the International Space Station and ground control and others?

And...has the internet killed "postal chess" or has it just all gone online?

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The Bad Astronomer talks about the bow shock around Betelgeuse (I have to pick up his new book, Death from the Skies!. Any book that uses an exclamation point in the title...)

To give this a SF twist, look up Gregory Benford's short story Bow Shock, which appeared in the first issue of Jim Baen's Universe. Why this story did not win a Hugo or a Nebula, I'll never know.

From direct images of exo-planets to stuff like this, it's amazing how astronomy keeps coming up with stuff that...well, amazes! "What a fascinating modern age we live in", as Captain J. Aubrey put it.

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Tobias Buckell is in the hospital. Again. For a heart-related condition. Again. Good gravy!

John Scalzi has a brilliant suggestion. Let's all make him feel better by buying his new novel. Heck, it's apparently already #1 in SF at Amazon, let's see if we can blip it up to the main list!

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The New York Times has published a list of what they consider the 100 Notable Books of 2008. Despite having read 82 books (to date) and 602 short works (to date), I've managed only to purchase (and not yet read!) one book out of their 100.

Am I disconnected...or are they?

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I wonder if the International Space Station has one of these posted onboard.

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At the urging of some friends, I went (with great trepidition) to the store to purchase some...anime.

O.K., O.K., so I've had RoboTech for years. I own Planetes. But the first was something that hooked me years ago, when it was shown locally (WPIX, Channel 11, out of New York), one episode a day, five days a week. I worked a few miles away from our then apartment and was able to get home and watch it while cooking supper. Along with Star Blazers, they were a lot of fun, but...

Primitive. Limited animation, limited story, limited characters.

A friend recommended Planetes, and I picked it up as I was interested in the subject matter: near-future space exploitation (not exploration, actually using space). Characters had pasts, "issues', were gritty, smoked cigarettes, drank and got drunk, bitched and moaned, fell in and out of love, died...Interesting stuff.

Beyond that, it was a confusing morass. What anime was good? What was bad? Which version to buy (each seems to exist in multiple "complete", "remastered", "expanded", "super deluxe", etc.)? How to proceed?

Man, there are so many titles. And if you look at online reviews, proceed with caution. As a "noob", most of the "fanboi" will treat you as pond scum when you inquire.

O.K., back to the jaw dropping. One title that was recommended was Ghost in the Shell. However...confusion abounds, as there is a movie, a sequel, a third movie which is not related to the two movies, but is a sequel to the two seasons of the television show which takes up some of the elements of the manga, expands upon some, parallels others, and...

You see what I mean? Oh, my, aching, head. Several versions of the movie on DVD. Sequels that do and don't relate. Releases of the television series in boxed sets, non-boxed sets, with extras, without extras...

Somebody needs to write a comprehensive guide for noobs.

I went to the store and picked up a two-disc version of Ghost in the Shell as well as a boxed set of the television series (first season). Last night, after a multi-hour Odyssey of the Mind meeting (don't ask, long story), I put the first disc of the movie into the computer and...

The jaw dropped.

I only watched about 15 or so minutes, but what a 15 minutes. Remember that story that William Gibson relates about how he was working on Neuromancer, went to see Bladerunner and staggered out of the movie theatre, realizing that he was seeing echoes of his creation on the screen...Ever hear about how the folks behind Matrix (great first movie, should have stopped there!) pitched their product and one of the pitch items was a showing of Ghost in the Shell (GITS, from now on)? Maybe they should have just skipped making those other two Matrix flicks and done what the folks at Pixar did with movies like Spirited Away (helped to distribute it to a wider audience).

This is a cyberpunk movie, a heck of a lot closer than anything else I've seen for the genre. Obviously inspired by Bladerunner, it does what Bladerunner set out to do several levels better. It is cyberpunk on the screen, a lot "rawer" and closer to the source than anything out of Hollywood.

So I go back to the store today and look for similar stuff. Still a morass of titles and versions, not any clearer where to go next. But I did pick up a novel of the movie and a CD of music (the music is pretty dang astounding on its own).

My jaw has dropped.

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Harrison H. "Jack" Schmitt, the only geologist to walk on the Moon, has resigned from The Planetary Society.

Finally, becoming a deep space-faring nation again constitutes a mult-generational endeavor, particularly if Mars is in the mix. Unfortunately, the government-run, politicized K-12 school system will not currently support such an endeavor. It has totally failed several generations of young people, not just in STEM subjects but in history, language and economics. This problem has to be solved first. The people requirements for a return to the Moon should help jump start that process, although it will take a much more grassroots effort to be successful.

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For some wacky reason, Hollywood has decided to remake one of the all-time classic science fiction movies: The Day the Earth Stood Still (directed by Robert Wise). Before you trot off to see yet another accounting error from the studios, take some time and read the story that inspired the original. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Posted at The Library of The Nostalgia League.

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If it comes to pass that the one name being bandied about as the next NASA Administrator is nominated and serves...we could see the end of the agency as a functional institution.

Don't believe me? Start digging around and see what disasters he headed.

Update: Lori Garver? Ah, another political hack.

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Assuming that the weather holds, space shuttle Endeavour will liftoff at 7:55:39 Eastern today on a mission to the International Space Station. Should be a spectacular site, given the light conditions at the time.

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One of my most treasured astronomy books is a massive NASA-published collection of pictures from the 1960's-era Lunar Orbiter series of probes. You can get a copy online, if you search, but if you want a "deadtree" edition, be prepared to get another mortgage out.

So it was pretty amazing to see that the data from these probes is still of use: it is being reprocessed to get more detail and will help out our future unmanned and (the new administration willing) manned missions to our nearest neighbor.

I really hope that they reprocess the image known as The Picture of the Century (download the 9.8MB version for a real "wow!). That is my all-time favorite.

(Some details here.)

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It looks like the Hubble Space Telescope has directly imaged an extra-solar planet. Pretty good for a piece of equipment on "life support"!

Dorsai? Why, everybody knows that the Dorsai are from the Fomalhaut system!

Phil Plait, a.k.a., The Bad Astronomer, has details.

Pictures of the second extra-solar direct image here.

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Somali and Yemeni pirates learn the hard way that it is not wise to attack a vessel of Her Majesty's Navy:

By the time the Royal Marines boarded the piratesÂ’ vessel, the enemy had lost the will to fight and surrendered quietly. The Royal Navy described the boarding as "compliant".

And...the Russians have developed invisible helicopters, apparently:

The Russians claimed a helicopter based on their own frigate Neustrashimy had also taken part in yesterdayÂ’s battle, though the Royal Navy knew nothing about it. The Royal Marine commandos who boarded the pirates' dhow were supported by a Lynx helicopter from HMS Cumberland, the MoD said.

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While they were derided as being "Battlestar Galactica missions", Cassini and Galileo provided (and in the case of Cassini, still provides) returns up and beyond their original specifications. Jupiter and Saturn are almost solar systems in their own right; sending a single-purpose mission that far is almost a waste.

So it is interesting to hear about plans for future missions of this class. For example, how about dropping a hot-air balloon to explore Saturn's moon Titan?

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An article looking at the hoops one has to jump through in order to do experiments at home. Have you looked at a kid's chemistry set recently? Trash!

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You'll have to take my word on it, but from this article the maker of Legos has lost its exclusive right to make bricks. Cheap bags of bricks for those who make aircraft carriers ahead?

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India's Chandrayaan-1 satellite has entered lunar orbit to begin an intensive study of our natural satellite. Instruments onboard include some provided by NASA and the JPL. more...

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Mystery Science Theatre 3000 is twenty (!!!) years old.

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The venerable Martian rover Spirit is endangered by dust. On Mars for over 1,725 "sols", dust has cut down the rovers ability to generate power to the point where engineers need to take steps to protect the rover. more...

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