On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Okay, so you've watched the video of that interview, right?

One of those stories, "Lost in Space", that he and Candy Palmater discussed had a premise that got me thinking. Conclusion I reached: someone, someday, is going to be the first of each of their peoples to go to space. Be they Haida, Inuit, nêhiyawak/Cree, Omàmiwininiwak/Algonquin, Mikmaq...each of them is going to have a first space traveller someday.

Mr. Hayden Taylor might get them thinking that way too. And planning ahead for it. Not a bad thing.

Because various people have been pointing things out to me via Facebook that are catching my attention tonight.

The Geometry of Starship Design - Star Trek from robotjackelope.com. Focusing mainly on the TOS Enterprise, but a page is set aside for the Klingon D-7 as well. I was never the best geometry student in high school. I barely recall ever hearing about the "golden ratio" concept, and we never got into the Fibonacci Sequence material at all. But this is interesting. Thanks to the Star Trek Art Group on Facebook for this!

(For those of you interested in Star Wars, there's another page from the same blog.)

From the Icarus Interstellar Blog, pointed out to me by David Brin, we have some thoughts on starship design in a different direction, based on assumptions that artificial gravity will have to be attained by more realistic means. Mostly, they focus on the probability that long-haul generation ships really are going to have to be mobile towns on the scale of Melville to Moose Jaw in terms of population in order to work.

Not a mathematician or an engineer, so I'll be interested in seeing opinions from the rest of the room re: these two articles.

Finally got around to viewing this footage, and got another dose of appreciation for the workload being handled on a daily basis "upstairs".

Any corrections needed here?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/18/f-space-exploration-human-travel.html

james_nicoll just reminded me of the Anniversary.

Thankfully, the work of exploration continues, as the Seven would have hoped.

Thanks to centauri_dreams for the info that this is a real thing now.

Worth taking a look at, yes?

Just saw this report at CBC. Wondering if my NYC-based friends can link me to local news coverage online...?

My thanks to coffeeem for pointing this out on YouTube: NASA footage of the 2012 transit of Venus in several wavelengths.

Enjoy.

Some of you have likely heard of ITAR, the US rules for weapons/tech export.

In recent weeks, I've seen references to it pop up in places that turned out to be unexpectedly logical. First in lawmultiverse with reference to comic-book superheroes such as Iron Man and the Batman Incorporated operation. This proved entertaining, and still repays the occasional review with both humour and educational value.

Then tonight I spotted another reference at spaceref.ca, in an article on Canadian sovereignty and whether or not - and why - we need to develop our own spaceflight infrastructure. Referring to ITAR specifically as a probable stumbling block to Canada achieving its own objectives beyond the atmosphere.

It's more than likely to be coincidence, but an entertaining one.

So some stuff's been happening while I was fixing up the sidebars here at this here LJ...

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