Category: Space

What Would Your Robot Say?

6/26/2014

Last August, I read that Kirobo, the first robotic astronaut arrived at the International Space Station. The doll-sized humanoid robot weighs about 2 pounds, speaks Japanese, and has been heralded as the first robot to speak in space. When powered up, its historic greeting was, “On August 21, 2013, a robot took one small step toward a brighter future for all," paying homage to Neil Armstrong’s moon landing speech.

While I understand and appreciate the sentiment behind the message, the SF fan in me wanted to hear something else. I would have been “over the moon” happy if the first words from a robotic astronaut were “Hello Dave” honoring instead, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick’s HAL9000 robot. After all, both Kirobo and HAL9000 have facial recognition, speech recognition, and natural language processing capabilities. Lest you think of HAL9000 only as the villain, the computer saved the day in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey Two.

If you could write the first words a robotic astronaut would speak in outer space, what would they be? I would love to hear your responses.

You may be interested in the following SciFi Writing Topics…
6 Tech-based Writing Prompts
5 Books for Aspiring SciFi Writers

…and general SciFi articles.
SciFi Writers – The Shamans of Modernity
SciFi and the Dangerfield Effect
SciFi Authors and Editors as Agents of Change
What Would Your Robot Say?
What Were the First SciFi Stories You Read?
Earth Day – April 22, 2014

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Musings on NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission

6/22/2014

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As I read the recent NBC News article about NASA’s proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission, I couldn’t help but think about Sam Kepfield’s story, Open for Business, in the Far Orbit Anthology. Sam’s story about capturing an asteroid and bringing it back to earth is so timely it could have been ripped from today’s headlines. It also shows us that good science fiction doesn’t have to be about some far off future or set in the far reaches of the universe. It can happen around the corner, down the street, or in our back yard.

In addition to NASA’s plans to snag an asteroid, two companies, Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources have announced measured initiatives to begin asteroid prospecting operations using small CubeSats and off-the-shelf technologies. Open for Business floats effortlessly on this sea of current events. The story reads like mid-century science fiction but there is a twist. Rather than following the steely-eyed lead scientist, the author gives us a more human story by making the point of view character a slightly neurotic attorney.

Anyway, these are the things that went through my mind while reading the NASA story.

Other Far Orbit posts featured on this blog:

Musings on NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Project and Sam Kepfield’s “Open for Business”
Bear Essentials by Julie Frost
Composition in Death Minor by K.G. Jewell
Spaceman Barbecue by Peter Wood
Far Orbit Interview on SciFi4Me.com
Great News from Sporadic Reviews!
Guest Blog on Fantasy Café (they wanted to hear about Grand Tradition SciFi
Good Choice Reading Interviews Far Orbit Authors Tracy Canfield, Jacob Drud, and Kat Otis
My intro for the Far Orbit Anthology
Launch Day!!!
Inspiration… perspiration… exhilaration…

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Far Orbit Interview on SciFi4Me.com

6/12/2014

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The other night, I had a chance to talk about the Far Orbit anthology with Jason Hunt from SciFi4Me on blogtalk radio. Jason also interviewed Far Orbit author Wendy Sparrow (“A Game of Hold’em”) about her contribution and her new upcoming book. You can learn more about Wendy by listening to the interview and visiting her website: http://wendysparrow.com.

The site was having serious technical difficulties. The interview started late and Far Orbit author Eric Choi (“From a Stone”) was locked out completely. It was a pity, because I was looking forward to hearing what Eric had to say. Eric is the first winner of the Asimov Award (now the Dell Magazines Award) and he is an Aurora Award winner for his anthology “The Dragon and the Stars.” Eric is an aerospace engineer who worked on the Phoenix Mars Lander meteorology payload and he was among the final forty candidates (out of more than 5,000) vying to become the third cadre of Canadian astronauts. Eric is currently co-editing the forthcoming a hard SF anthology “Carbide Tipped Pens” with Ben Bova which will be published at end of the year by Tor books. You can find out more about Eric by visiting his website: http://www.aerospacewriter.ca/

You can listen to our abbreviated interview by following the link below. Please move ahead to the seven minute mark to skip over Jason’s exasperated and valiant efforts to vanquish the Google gremlins who were gleefully pulling wires and connection thingies from his control board. Note to self: Need to invent a better digital bug spray.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/scifi4me/2014/06/11/scifi4me-live-from-the-bunker-140610

Thanks, Jason. I enjoyed talking with you and Wendy.

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Earth Day - April 22, 2014

4/22/2014

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Photograph courtesy of NASA.

For my Earth Day post, I wanted to feature the Earthrise photo taken in 1968 by Apollo Astronaut William Anders. This iconic photo has appeared in numerous magazines and books and on a postage stamp. Earthrise was the cover photo for LIFE Magazine's 100 Photographs that Changed the World and wilderness photographer Galen Rowell called Earthrise "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.” According to futurist Stewart Brand, it is no coincidence that the first Earth Day took place just 16 months after we first saw our world framed against the vastness of space.

I am featuring the Earthrise photograph today because it, more than any other image, evokes the “Spaceship Earth” worldview. It reminds us that crew survival depends upon working together for the common good, prudent use of our limited resources, and taking care of the fragile blue bubble that feeds us and shelters us from the ravages of space.

Poet Archibald MacLeish expressed his reaction to the photograph in a poem entitled “Riders on Earth Together, Brothers in Eternal Cold," published on page 1 of The New York Times on Christmas day, 1968.

“To see the earth as it truly is, small blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold—brothers who know now they are truly brothers”

Context makes this photograph especially important. Taken at the end of one of the most socially and politically tumultuous years in recent memory, Earthrise is powerful for what it does not show – political boundaries, ideological conflicts, the struggle for power, position, and resources. It does not show gender, race, religion, right, or wrong. Instead, it shows one world, one path through the universe, and one sun to light the way. It shows all of us and our shared journey through the cosmos.

You may be interested in the following SciFi Writing Topics…
6 Tech-based Writing Prompts
5 Books for Aspiring SciFi Writers

…and general SciFi articles.
SciFi Writers – The Shamans of Modernity
SciFi and the Dangerfield Effect
SciFi Authors and Editors as Agents of Change
What Would Your Robot Say?
What Were the First SciFi Stories You Read?
Earth Day – April 22, 2014

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What Would Your Robot Say?

Musings on NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission

Far Orbit Interview on SciFi4Me.com

Earth Day - April 22, 2014

@BascombJ

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What Would Your Robot Say?

Musings on NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission

Far Orbit Interview on SciFi4Me.com

Earth Day - April 22, 2014

​@BascombJ

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@BascombJ