Lunar exploration has been in the news lately, with China’s Chang’e-5 capsule returning with rock samples, and ambitious American plans to send Artemis II around our moon (with the first ever Canadian on the mission) in 2023. If successful, it will represent the first time since the final Apollo mission that humans will fly so far from home. Artemis III is even more ambitious: humanity will return to the lunar surface.

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If you’ve been following the non-political news this last week, you know that members of the Utah Department of Public Safety, while counting Bighorn sheep, discovered a monolith in the Utah desert. It is, of course, an object strangely familiar to SF fans….
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Disney will be opening a new MCU themed land at its California park in 2020, and others will follow in other countries. While the fact of the park has been known for some time, specific details were announced at the D23 Expo that runs this weekend. The Avengers will have to miss Walter Disney World in Florida, however, since Marvel sold the rights to using most of its characters in theme parks to Universal back in the 1990s.

However, regardless of what decision gets made regarding movie rights, Spider-man will be able to swing around the California park– Disney/Marvel has full park/character rights on the side of the continent.

I hope its less confusing negotiating one’s way around the actual park.

What do you think of their plans? And what would go in your Marvel Park?

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As you’ve likely already heard, North Bergen High School in Hudson County, New Jersey, actually adapted Alien as its school play:

Believe it or not, they’ve received praise from the original Ripley, Sigourney Weaver, and director Ridley Scott!

Additional video below:

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A SpaceX Dragon Capsule docked with the International Space Station, hopefully inaugurating an era when the west can continue its space business without relying on certain problematic countries. The test flight carried no people, only a dummy named, believe it or not, Ripley.

In nerd entertainment news, the year 2020 will not only give us the next Halloween to fall on a Saturday with a full moon¹, it will see a new, animated Scooby-Doo movie, with some notable names doing voices. Mystery, Inc. will join forces with other Hanna-Barbera characters to stop…. Dick Dastardly?

Well, this could be interesting.

Click for a continued blend of science and nerd culture sightings:

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Whatever else is happening in the US, at least money remains available for NASA, and the agencies still intends to return to the moon.

Elsewhere in space, it seems our galaxy is not flat, but rather warped.

That’s some actual space news. Some SF and pop-culture related Nerd News appears below.

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Okay, I hate to post an entry promoting a commercial, especially a Wal-Mart commercial, but the company dropped an ad for their Grocery Pickup Service during the Golden Globe Awards, which features a number of classic genre cars, and a handful of the related characters. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a good deal of fun.

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.

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