Here’s an entertaining intro to Planetary Resources and their ARKYD Space Telescope Kickstarter campaign:
As of the moment, the campaign has reached 9,307 backers $844,397 pledged of $1,000,000 goal .
Category Archives: Space films and videos
More about the International Space Orchestra
The International Space Orchestra project and the documentary about it (see earlier post) is the focus of this article: International Space Orchestra: the designer taking music into space – guardian.co.uk.
Space movies 2013
A look at three space movies coming out this summer: Futures imperfect – The Space Review
“Space Warriors” – New Hallmark movie for young people
The Hallmark Channel is debuting tonight (Friday, May 31st) the made for TV movie Space Warriors about a young man’s adventure at Space Camp that helps save the ISS: ‘Space Warriors’ Hallmark Movie Features Space Camp Training – Yahoo! News
The son of a retired NASA astronaut who lived on the International Space Station, makes his dreams of traveling to outer space come true when he competes to win a seat on the next space shuttle in this spectacular real-life look into the world of Space Camp, a Hallmark Channel Original Movie, World Television Premiere, “Space Warriors” Friday, May 31 (8p.m. ET/PT, 7C).
Here is a music video for the movie:
Video: “Elysium” – new movie to feature an orbital space colony
Huge rotating habitats, promoted in the 1970s and 80s by Gerard O’Neill and others as the best places to put space settlements, always seemed to me to provide ideal locales for exciting science fiction. However, except for Babylon 5, I don’t know of any high profile sci-fi work that has used them. Till now.
This summer the movie Elysium, starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, appears from the trailer (see below) to make in-space colonies key factors in the plot. The scenario is a future where the rich live utopian high-tech life styles in the Elysium space colony while everything is going to hell on earth. Damon plays a character on earth who is determined to reach the colony Elysium to obtain a life-saving cure. (See IMDB.com synopsis.)
This follows from a common but spurious criticism that space settlement is about abandoning earth and pursuing a feckless dream of a space utopia. This is a silly misrepresentation of what space settlement is all about. Developing space does not mean rejecting earth any more than if someone moves to Alaska it means abandoning the continental US. Alaska is extremely useful in many ways for the rest of the country, particularly with respect to resources. Thankfully there is a small but significant number of people who think Alaska is a great place to live. Space will one day support earth and provide homes for a small but significant number of people who find space a wonderful place to live. And like Alaska, it will also be a great place to visit.