Tag Archives: space

Let’s go to space

I would totally go on a really long space mission. You know, given the chance, like if they needed volunteers, “Calling all Americans! We’re looking for one patriotic spacefarer to help NASA explore the cosmos!” they’d obviously be making cold-calls because the mission would be too intense, even for trained astronauts. I’m not talking dangerous. Just long. A very time-consuming, extended mission.

But seriously, I’d definitely be up for it. Put me on that spaceship and let’s blastoff. I don’t care about Gravity. Do you think I’m that easily scared off by a George Clooney movie? And it’s not even a George Clooney movie, it’s a Sandra Bullock movie, but I didn’t want to come across as sexist, implying that the most non-scary element of that movie was the lead, Ms. Bullock.

But I’m not scared. Remember that scene where a piece of space debris ripped a hole right through that guy’s head? Come on, that didn’t look that realistic. Start fitting me for a spacesuit already. Can mine be blue? Like midnight. Like space blue. Even though space is black. But like a spacey navy blue, with yellow stripes around the wrists, and a golden-tinted spacesuit helmet.

What’s the hesitation in sending a crew of astronauts to an asteroid, to Mars? What are all of the professional astronauts scared of, cosmic radiation? Space madness? What else could astronauts be worried about? Claustrophobia? A debilitating loss in muscle and bone mass? Actually, that’s probably be the one thing that really creeps me out, that of my own body slowly disappearing right before my eyes, just because I don’t have any gravity to keep everything fresh.

But whatever, I’ll still do it. I’ll just clench my muscles, all of them, constantly. That’s got to be good for something right? And I’ll just make sure to do plenty of space jumping jacks. Even without gravity, that’s still got to be pretty tough, extending your arms and your legs out, it’s got to get tiring eventually. I think I just solved the whole no gravity problem. Someone should get a message to any astronauts currently in space: do some space jumping jacks, like a thousand of them.

Or even better, they could get some sort of a mechanical suit that does the space jumping jacks for them, so they could put it on while they’re asleep. Even better than that, you could just heavily sedate anybody in space and then program that same space jumping jack mechanical suit to do all sorts of crazy exercises, space pull ups, space Insanity.

Or even much, much better, let’s just sedate all of the astronauts, the whole time that they’re in space. Wait, no, while that would work for really long voyages, the idea has already been explored in pretty much every space movie, like Alien, like Event Horizon. By the way, if you’re wondering what I was talking about earlier with space madness, watch Event Horizon, that movie was scary as hell.

Man, I actually think I took this thought experiment a little too far, I’m pretty scared now, not of space, I think I’d still be down for some space, but of Event Horizon, I’m telling you, that movie is terrifying. It’s like, while they’re all asleep, the spaceship passes through some dimensional portal to hell, but you don’t know it, because they’re still in the hell dimension, or something came back with them, and then the captain pulls his eyes out.

Jesus, some things cannot be unseen. I was like twelve years old when I saw that movie, I was alone in my bedroom, it started playing on a movie channel late at night. I was like, oh boy, I love sci-fi, I love Star Trek, this movie should be great. And here I am, a grown man, sitting here writing about how he’d be a great pick for an extended space mission, and I can’t even get through the whole thing because I’m still a little scared, every night before I go to bed I pull the covers up really tight, all the way to my neck, I try not to think about Event Horizon, but I’m telling you, if you haven’t seen the movie, watch the movie, and then you’ll know about the panic that I’m grappling with on a daily basis.

But regular space, come on, this isn’t sci-fi, it’s real life. And I can’t think of a better candidate to be a real life civilian astronaut. So NASA, if you’re reading this, and if you’ve been contemplating a civilian astronaut campaign, but you’re not sure about how you’d get it started, don’t bother. Just pick me. I’m your guy. Let’s go to space.

Higher education

I don’t know anything about stars, about astronomy. When I was a freshman in college, I remember hearing about an intro to astronomy. I like outer space. It sounded really cool, something that I thought I wanted to look into, but I remember mentioning it to one of my friends, he was like, “No way man. I heard that you have to get up really early so you can look at the stars while it’s still dark out, and there are a lot of mandatory field trips. Don’t do it, I heard the professor’s a really tough grader.”

And that was all it really took to discourage me. My first semester had been planned out for me by the school, so I didn’t have any say in the matter, a couple of eight-thirty classes, the rest at nine-thirty or ten. I look at my life now and I realize that making it to class in the morning shouldn’t have been the challenge that I made it out to be. But I had a lot of trouble, going to bed at night, forcibly removing myself from where all of my friends were hanging out, watching movies, playing video games. That first year, sometimes we would pull all nighters, but not even thinking about school work at all. We’d just stay up and shoot the shit and all of the sudden it would be morning.

So I didn’t take astronomy. Second semester, I made sure that, regardless of any other variables, I just needed to make sure that my classes were as late in the day as possible, noon, five, I think I even wound up signing up for some at like eight or nine. And what kind of stuff would I be studying so much later in the day? Who knows? It didn’t matter. It’s obvious that I wasn’t taking school too seriously. I just wanted to hang out with my friends and have a good time. Any sort of learning was prioritized at a distant second. Actually, it wasn’t even learning. It was just doing whatever I could to make it look like I was receiving some sort of education.

I got my shit together somewhat. By junior year, I was making sure that I was actually putting an effort into my schoolwork. My grades were up and I found myself involved in various on campus activities. There was the school government, the student newspaper, my part-time job driving a van around campus. Still, even though I wound up doing OK, I never really feel like I figured anything out while I was there.

Like, I was supposed to pick a major by my sophomore year. I gave it a little bit of thought, and I couldn’t figure it out. I knew that I wanted to get good grades. Why? I have no idea. I chose history as a major, because my girlfriend chose history and so it seemed like a good idea. My dad was a history major. So I took all of these classes and showed up and took notes and wrote papers.

During senior year, I realized that I had saved up all of these electives, for what? Again, no plans, so I started taking drawing classes, painting, creative writing, filmmaking. It was the best year. I had so much fun learning how to do things that I hadn’t done before, like making short movies or putting paint on a canvas.

What had I been doing the previous three years? Why wasn’t I getting the same satisfaction out of any of my other classes? Probably because I didn’t challenge myself. I took history in large part because I knew that I could get away with putting in minimal effort in exchange for decent grades. Good enough, right? That’s what you’re there for, to get good grades.

But what else did I miss out on? I always think back to that astronomy class, every time I happen to look up at the sky on a clear night, I see the Big Dipper, the North Star, and that’s it. I don’t know anything else about any other constellations. I couldn’t tell you anything really, I’m trying to list all of the other random astronomic facts in my head, but there’s nothing. I said Big Dipper already, right?

Movie Review: Riddick

I remember seeing Pitch Black when I was a sophomore in high school. I had never heard of Vin Diesel before. In fact, I don’t even think I knew what the movie was about when I bought my ticket. But it was amazing, a sci-fi thriller, a prison transport ship goes down on an isolated planet overrun with alien monsters that rule the night.

Diesel starred as Richard Riddick, a convict with special eyes that could see in the dark. His exploits gave way to a sequel, or a prequel, The Chronicles of Riddick, I’m not sure about the specifics, because I never saw the film. But Riddick’s at it again this time in Riddick, which, without ever having seen part two, it feels like almost a direct sequel to Pitch Black.

There’s no f’n around. Right from the beginning we find what appears to be a corpse’s wrist sticking out of the ground. Diesel’s monotone voiceover explains that, “This isn’t the first time I’ve been counted out,” as the hand springs to life, strangling an alien vulture that got a little too bitey with Riddick’s fingers.

And that choke scene, as the lizard/bird thing squirmed and died in Riddick’s blood-caked hand, it was obvious that whoever financed this picture didn’t really care about springing for the premium package with the CGI studio. It’s kind of a thing throughout the film. For a movie that relies so heavily on computer generated effects, I’m surprised that the quality was so shoddy.

It’s a superficial complaint, but it’s the backdrop for most of the movie. At one point Riddick and some other guy are on space motorcycles riding through the desert, and I barely had to use any imagination to picture the green screen taking up a majority of the shot.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself. For a while, it’s just Riddick. He’s in bad shape, first unburying himself, then setting his own broken bones. There’s a pack of wild space dogs looking to turn him into a quick lunch, but not only does he successfully fight them off, he then adopts one of their pups and raises it to be his trusty sidekick.

After setting off a beacon at a mercenary supply station, he attracts the attention of two rival space gangs, each looking to cash in on the outstanding reward for Riddick’s head. These dopes are no match for Riddick, but as our protagonist lets everyone know, “It ain’t me you’ve got to worry about.”

No, just like in Pitch Black, this planet has its own alien monsters that only attack during specific conditions, in this case, rain. And guess what? There’s a storm coming. And that’s basically where we get left off at the end of the trailer. It’s a race to get off the planet.

For all of its cheesiness, its lame special effects and two-dimensional plot, I really enjoyed Riddick. The pacing of the action was pretty smooth, and they kept the story simple. They could have riddled the secondary characters with pointless subplots and bad dialogue, but for the most part, everything was strictly business.

I like movies like this, these epic space operas, because there really aren’t too many out there. There were occasional allusions to what must have gone down in the second movie, something about an intergalactic empire, betrayal, some villain with scars on his face whose presence was never explained at all. But that’s what made everything compelling, those little tastes that reminded me that this layover on a hostile planet was but a minor stop along an interstellar epic. This is the type of actual sci-fi that Stephen Colbert pokes fun at with his Tek Jansen cartoons.

I’ve got to say, I always underestimate Vin Diesel. Every time I go to see one of his movies, I walk in the theater expecting to be disappointed. But the Fast and Furious franchise, XXX, and now Riddick, I’m impressed. There’s an unpretentiousness about his acting and his movies. He knows what he’s supposed to give and he delivers.

Riddick will probably be on the SyFy channel in a couple of weeks, so I guess there’s no rush. Still, I really enjoyed it, I loved watching it on a big screen. I hope they keep making Riddick movies, forever, cruising through space, getting stranded on planets, battling mercenaries and leading empires. It’s all so f’n cool.

Blast off

Send me on a spaceship to the nearest star. Let me be the emissary for the people of Earth, the bearer of good will, the one who will foster relations, build bridges towards our neighbors in space. Put me in a deep sleep, pack me in that rocket ship, bound for the heavens, on a course towards the nearest inhabitable solar system. I’ll take everything with me, everything that represents us, the planet Earth, the human race, all of our flags from every nation. Even the crazy nations. Even North Korea and Zimbabwe and Bahrain. Get me out there.

Just shoot me out there and schedule my cryogenic pod to wake me up every hundred years or so. If I get to a planet and there’s no sign of life, I’ll have a snack. Send me with snacks. Send me with enough snacks that if I get to a thousands stellar systems and there’s no sign of life, I’ll at least get to have something good to eat until the ship’s on board computer shuts off life support and forces me to go back into my frozen slumber. Try to send something good. Try to send the McRib. Try to get McDonald’s to freeze dry a thousand McRib sandwiches. If I can’t find alien life, at least let me have a McRib.

Launch me up there with a care package fit for representing the entire Earth’s population. Make a giant Earth flag. Take one square out of every country’s flag and sew them all together to make one giant flag. And then take that giant flag and make that the blue part of an even more giant American flag. Because I’m assuming that the United States is going to be the only country capable of getting me out there, out to the stars, out to our neighboring planets.

I’ll say something like, “We mean you no harm!” I’ll proclaim, “We seek peaceful coexistence!” Send me to Mars first. Get me to Mars and I’ll walk around that red ball of rust and I’ll pretend like I’ve reached somewhere habitable. Make me a spacesuit that looks like I’m not actually wearing a space suit. This will be my trial run. It’ll be one last chance for the people of Earth to see me before I blast out of our solar system for good.

Send me with a dog. A pet. We’ll name him Astro, not after the Jetsons’ dog, although they had a dog named Astro too, but we’ll be naming him after space, after astronomy and astrophysics and astronauts the Astros and the astral plane. Go back into the vaults of cartoon TV history. Go find all old episodes of the Jetsons. Edit all existing footage to change Astro the cartoon dog’s name to something else, like Spacely. But the boss’s name was Spacely also, wasn’t it? So go back and change his name to something else too, like Johnson, or Richards. Something else. My dog Astro probably wouldn’t be able to be woken up as much as I would be, because dogs only live like thirteen years, and then even though our lives will have been extended with all of the stasis induced slumber, still, I’ll outlive him, and he being my only companion, I’ll be devastated to see him die before we’ve reached any destination worthy of our journey. Actually, I kind of like the name Spacely also. OK, so yeah, now I’m probably just ripping off the Jetsons outright, but whatever, we’ve got the resources to send me to space, to send a dog to space, go back to the footage, change Spacely’s name to something else, like some other dog name, or whatever, just get rid of the Jetsons entirely, because it’s a bullshit show that didn’t even come close to predicting how the future would turn out. Send me with two dogs. Three or four dogs. Two Spacelys and two Astros. Just in case some die. Or even better, alternate how they get woken up, so that way they’ll all last longer.

Don’t forget the guns. Don’t forget my space weaponry. I’m not one to back down from a space fight. What if I get boarded? What if some aliens deactivate my ship while I’m in stasis? Make some sort of a decoy stasis machine. Get a duplicate, not a duplicate, another person, a patsy, somebody to come along for the ride, but never to be woken up. Design the ship so that way if we get boarded, the aliens will see this guy’s pod first, and make it so if his pod is tampered with, mine will automatically wake me up. Also, put me to sleep with a space gun in each hand, that way I’ll sneak up behind the alien and I’ll tell him something like, “Friend! Relax! I come in peace. I seek peaceful coexistence,” and as the alien lowers his weapon I’ll raise mine and fire without hesitation.

Get me off of this planet. Let me be the first to travel out there, past the moon, past Mars, I’ll take pictures of that Methane moon off of Saturn and that other frozen moon off of Jupiter, not in that order, obviously, that would be a little counter productive. I’m the man for the job. I’ve got what it takes. Blast me off. I’ll sit back and count back from ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, all the way, blast me off, seriously, do it, come on.

Space vacation

Interplanetary travel would be so cool. But the ship would have to be really big, big enough that I’d forget that I’m on a spaceship. And it would have to be very comfortable. And I’d want the option to turn on some sort of artificial gravity, because I hate the idea that astronauts lose all of their bone density and muscle mass while floating weightlessly in zero g. It’s like, you finally get to the other planet, but you can’t enjoy it because you’re too weak. And there might be a threat to deal with. Aliens. Space volcanoes. And what are you going to do, ask them not to chase you so fast because your body is still recovering from all of that interplanetary travel? Also, why do they call US space explorers astronauts while the Russians are cosmonauts? It doesn’t really make any sense. It’s the same job, right?

There was some article in the newspaper about space tourism, about how it’s right around the corner, for the super rich anyway. For a ridiculous amount of money you can get in some tiny vehicle and enter the earth’s orbit. Maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t sound like any fun at all, even if I had the money. Why would you want to be one of the first space tourists? I would want to be like the two thousandth. Everybody else can go first and make sure everything is safe. I can’t imagine what it was like to be one of the first passengers on a commercial airline. There’s no way I would have done that. There were so many more crashes than there are today. Plus, these current space vehicles seem pretty rudimentary, especially compared to what I’m used to when thinking about space travel. Sure that stuff’s all science fiction, but it has to be where we’re headed. Look at the cell phone. Star Trek called that in the 1960s.

But here’s another thing. I’ve heard stuff about orbital hotels. About trips where you could spend a week on the space station. Why would you want to spend a whole week on the space station? Hasn’t anybody seen any pictures of the inside of that thing? It looks really uncomfortable, more claustrophobic even than the Alien movies. And then you get there, and you’re supposed to be on vacation, right? When I’m on vacation, I like to eat really nice meals. In space I think you’re only allowed to eat freeze dried supplements. And who’s serving you these meals, the astronauts? Don’t you think they have more important things to do than serving you snacks? And then entertainment. Are you supposed to just watch the scientists do their analysis and experiments? That would be cool for maybe five seconds, and only if some really entertaining personality like Bill Nye or Neil DeGrasse Tyson were explaining everything to me in a way that wouldn’t be super boring. And who’s going to pay for their tickets? You guessed it, me. I doubt they let you drink, another vacation staple. And then there’s the whole issue of taking a shower or even just going to the bathroom. I’m sorry, but that’s got to be gross without gravity.

No, the kind of interplanetary space adventure I’m interested in is something a lot more comfortable. I want to be able to walk down giant space halls and look out of giant space windows and see sweeping space views of the galaxy. I want food replicators to instantly materialize any type of food or drink that I wish. I want to be wearing really cool futuristic outfits, like silvery metallic suits that are padded on the inside with layers of cashmere.

And when I get to whatever planet I’m travelling to, I don’t want to be a pioneer, I want a thriving space colony to already have been established. And I’ll get there and the sky will be purple instead of blue and the grass will be, well, I guess the grass could still be green, but maybe it will be like a deep forest green instead of just a regular green. And the gravity will be a lot less so I’ll be able to jump really long distances and slam dunk and do all of these crazy gymnastics that I’d never be able to do on Earth. That’s a vacation I’d book. All these current space vacations seem like a huge rip-off.