Newspace: Farewell ’18 and Hello 2019

Another year comes to its conclusion! Back in ’84, Isaac Asimov made some predictions for our coming year. Like all good futurists and SF writers, he got a few things right and others…. Well…. He foresaw in broad strokes where the computer/information age was heading, but he was a tad optimistic with regards to our future presence in space.

Not that we’re not involved in space.


Dr. Brian May’s just-released tribute to New Horizons

If you think you might have to travel a bit to get to wherever you’re going for New Year’s Eve, consider: just as 2019 gets underway, NASA’s New Horizons will pass the Kuiper Belt object, 2014 MU69 aka Ultima Thule.

Click for more, including some top science stories, a blue day in NYC, a strange defense for a fallen geek star, and some recent cosplay video.

Science News gives its list of this year’s Top Science Stories. You can read their picks, but we’re noting coverage around the net of a few interesting ones:

China continues to take the lead in space, and prepares for the first-ever landing on the dark far side of the moon.

Researchers in China also alleged last year that they produced the first gene-edited babies, a move which would have far-reaching implications. You can read coverage here and here, and ponder over possible unaccounted-for subjects and a detained researcher.

Global Warming remains a central concern, with global symptoms.

In subglobal news: last week, the Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access (SALSA) drilled their way in to their second Antarctic Subglacial Lake. No sign of the Great Old Ones yet, but this lake likely contains organisms more adverse to the sunlight than any hungover drunk on New Year’s Day.

In case you missed it, New York just had a bit of an SF experience, thanks to Con Edison and a Transformer:

You can also tool around and find many fun videos and comments insisting it was really a UFO, some other vague conspiracy-related phenom, or Optimus Prime.

In a bizarre footnote to the end of the year, lawyers for Allison Mack, best-remembered as Smallville‘s Chloe and now facing charges she recruited and trafficked women for an abusive sex-cult, have proffered an interesting defense along the lines of, they haven’t done anything the late L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology wouldn’t do. Ah, well, then.

Let’s hope for some positive news in 2019! Happy New Year, and enjoy some cosplay:

Various attendees took these videos at Toronto’s newest nerd event, KimiKon 2018, held back in October:

Come and Enjoy!” has Youtubed some Cosplay from Tik Tok 2019:

Some lyrics used by some cosplayers may not be appropriate for all. What? Haven’t heard of Tik Tok? This isn’t the clockwork man from Oz. China launched the platform as Douyin back in ’16. Near as I can figure (being an old guy, and all), it has become the hot new social networking/video thing for people who can’t freaking bother to film things horizontally. Kids these days….

4 replies on “Newspace: Farewell ’18 and Hello 2019”

    • Perhaps– this isn’t his strongest work. But I’ve always liked May’s songs, and I think he gets a pass for being a songwriter/guitar god/astrophysicist/ eco-activist with an asteroid named for him.

      I also understand you can have a great conversation with him about the velocity of dust in the solar ecliptic.

Comments are closed.