Eccentric Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa plans to travel on Elon Musk’s SpaceX ’round the moon, and he’s seeking eight artistic and creative types to join him. Will you go to the moon?
Meanwhile, here on earth, a cuttlefish has passed a delayed-gratification cognitive test designed for human children. “Iä! Iä!
Today sees the landing of the most advanced Martian exploration device thus far, the Perseverance Rover. Information on how to follow the event may be found at NASA’s official site.
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James Doohan, best-known as the Enterprise’s Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, died in 2005. His ashes made it to the International Space Station three years later, a fact only . Entrepreneur and “private astronaut” Richard Garriott, with the backing of Doohan’s family, smuggled the ashes onto the ISS in 2008, thus fulfilling a final wish of the Star Trek actor.
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.
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?
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:
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:
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.