The Venus Transit blog hosts the latest Carnival of space.
Carnival of space #435 – The Venus Transit
The Venus Transit blog hosts the latest Carnival of space.
Video – Life On Mars: Michael Morris – leader of the Mars Ice House team
Melissa Balan and colleagues at Senior Post are creating a series of short documentary videos called Life on Mars, which “chronicles mankind’s initiatives to put humans on Mars”.
In February 2015, I posted Life On Mars: Leila Zucker about Dr. Leila Sucker, an emergency room MD, who made the cut for the final 100 candidates of the Mars One program.
In April there was an interview with long time space advocate Bob Werb, a co-founder of The Space Frontier Foundation.
The latest video in the series is shown below. It is about Michael Morris, the team leader of the winning team in NASA’s 3D Printed Habitat Challenge. The video explores the vision behind their design, which is called the Mars Ice House (see my September post here about the Ice House.)
Life on Mars: Michael Morris from Senior Post on Vimeo.
Video: Trailer for “The Last Man on the Moon”
An announcement of a new documentary about Gene Cernan:
Gravitas Ventures and Mark Stewart Productions to
Distribute the Last Man on The Moon
Documentary Chronicling Astronaut Eugene “Gene” Cernan
to Land February 2016; trailer also available
Los Angeles/London – On this day forty-three years ago, Apollo 17 Commander Eugene “Gene” Cernan landed the Lunar Module Challenger on the moon. Marking this anniversary, Mark Stewart Productions announces that its documentary THE LAST MAN ON THE MOON, which tells Cernan’s extraordinary story in his own words, will touch down in US theaters and across digital platforms on Feb. 26, 2016
Gravitas Ventures will handle the digital and Video on Demand (VOD) release of the film on the same day it hits theaters. Additionally, two premieres will take place in Washington D.C. and Houston in the days leading up to the release of the film. Previously, the documentary made its US debut at the 2015 SXSW film festival.
“This film is the story of a boy from ‘Any Town USA’ who grew up in a family of modest means and with a seemingly impossible dream to fly,” said Gene Cernan about the release. “As fate would have it I lived that dream, becoming a Naval Aviator, which in turn gave me the opportunity to call the moon my home. I do hope people will enjoy the film, but far more important to me is my desire to inspire the passion in the hearts and minds of future generations of young men and women to see their own impossible dreams become a reality.”
Director and Co-Producer Mark Craig had this to say: “It’s been a privilege to work with such a charismatic and historical figure as Gene Cernan. Many films have been made about space and going to the moon, and so I knew we would have to venture both deeper and bigger than ever before – both in human terms and as creative documentary for the big screen. I’m very proud of what we’ve done with the film, and hope that audiences will be both gripped and moved by his epic story.”
Executive Producer and distributor Mark Stewart added: “It’s forty-three years ago that Gene Cernan stepped onto the surface of the moon – and it’s tough to think of a present-day American hero who can match up to him. Gene grew up in exceptional times – and exceptional times produce exceptional men, but real life is never that simple. This film is Gene’s story – and we hope that it will inspire people as much as it inspired us. We are delighted to be working with Gravitas Ventures as we reach out to audiences at home and around the world.”
”THE LAST MAN ON THE MOON is a thrilling testimony of Gene Cernan’s life and its immeasurable impact on the nation and those around him,” said Gravitas Ventures Founder & CEO Nolan Gallagher. “Director Mark Craig has delivered a riveting documentary that will enthrall the adventurer and leader within all of us.”
THE LAST MAN ON THE MOON is powered by the same adrenalin, drama and raw emotions experienced by former NASA astronaut and Navy Captain Eugene “Gene” Cernan. When Cernan became the last man to step off of the surface of the moon in December 1972, he left his footprints and his daughter’s initials in the lunar dust. Only now is he ready to share his epic and deeply personal story of fulfillment, love and loss. Five years in the making, the documentary unveils a wealth of rare archival footage and takes Cernan back to the launch pad at Cape Kennedy (now NASA Kennedy Space Center), to the Arlington National Cemetery, and to his Texas ranch where he tries to find respite from a past that refuses to let him go. The film features exclusive interviews with former astronauts, such as Apollo 12 crew-members Alan Bean and Dick Gordon and Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell, as well as NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz and Director of Flight Operations Chris Kraft.
THE LAST MAN ON THE MOON is directed by Mark Craig, executive produced by Mark Stewart, produced by Gareth Dodds and Patrick Mark, co-produced by Mark Craig and Sara Giles, with original music by Lorne Balfe, cinematography by Tim Cragg, and editing by David Fairhead and Dan Haythorn. For more information, go to www.facebook.com/thelastmanonthemoon and www.twitter.com/lastmanonmoon.
The deal for digital rights was negotiated by Dan Braun from Submarine Entertainment, and Nolan Gallagher from Gravitas Ventures.
About Mark Stewart Productions: Mark Stewart Productions is a London-based film company specializing in bringing epic true stories to the big screen. Known for Weekend of a Champion, its collaboration with Roman Polanski (Official Selection, Cannes Film Festival 2013), MSP’s recent Fabergé: A Life of Its Own (2014) picked up awards at film festivals in Palm Beach, Beverly Hills and Newport Beach and has been widely distributed in theatres across the world. MSP is currently working on a new slate of pictures, including Einstein’s Compass (NZ/USA co-production).
About Gravitas Ventures: Gravitas Ventures is a leading all rights distributor of independent cinema. Founded in 2006, Gravitas connects independent filmmakers and producers with distribution opportunities across the globe. Working with more than 500 content partners, Gravitas Ventures has distributed thousands of films into over 100 million homes. Recent releases include SXSW Grand Jury and Audience Award winning documentary PEACE OFFICER, ADDICTED TO FRESNO starring Judy Greer and Natasha Lyonne, Colin Hanks’ ALL THINGS MUST PASS, Sundance smash PING PONG SUMMER with Susan Sarandon, FELONY, starring Joel Edgerton and Tom Wilkinson, MANNY, BACKSTREET BOYS: SHOW ‘EM WHAT YOU’RE MADE OF and Spike Lee’s DA SWEET BLOOD OF JESUS. For more information, please visit www.gravitasventures.com and follow @GravitasVOD.
Sci-tech: Tri-Alpha Fusion opens up
Tri-Alpha Fusion, a spin-off from the plasma fusion program at the University of California at Irvine, has been working for more than 15 years on an innovative design for a nuclear fusion power system. The company has raised over $140M in investment from venture capital firms and notables such as Paul Allen. However, except for occasional science publications, it has been very secretive about its progress and plans.
![tae_image_update[1]](http://hobbyspace.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/tae_image_update1-1024x683.jpg)
![C-2U_Device_Illustration[1]](http://hobbyspace.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/C-2U_Device_Illustration1.jpg)
Here is the “corporate video”:
TAE says that in June of this year it
demonstrated a significant breakthrough in addressing “long enough,” the most fundamental scientific challenge: the company delivered sustained plasma performance in its C-2U machine. This milestone is indicative of indefinite plasma life, limited only by the constraints of current hardware and not by underlying physics. We believe this is a first for a compact, commercially competitive fusion technology.
They sound confident that they now have the basics necessary to produce commercial power:
TAE is determined to deliver clean fusion energy technology that can provide sustainable, commercially competitive base load power and help achieve global energy independence. We are now confident we have sufficient science and engineering understanding to accomplish our goal.
However, they need to work through at least one more iteration in the machine design before they can start developing a practical power generator:
TAE is next addressing the “hot enough” challenge. Both sophisticated modeling and actual performance data already indicate that the TAE plasma will perform better and better at higher and higher temperatures (“scaling law”). The company is currently designing new experiments and hardware (called C-2W) to validate this scaling law over the next three to four years.
TAE also has started to engage with utility and industrial partners to jointly develop a commercialization plan to license its technology. The key aspects of this plan are to determine the regulatory framework and demonstrate technology readiness. It is TAE’s vision to move as fast as possible toward a fusion-based power generation capability.
Here is a video outlining the physics of the system:
Update: I’ll note that the Univ. of Washington spin-off companies Helion Energy and MSNW LLC, both led by Dr. John Slough, a professor at UW, are using a similar FRC (Field Reverse Configuration) approach to both fusion power and fusion propulsion. These companies have less funding than TAE but still might make it a race with the financing that they do have.
Space Art: “Giant Steps” competition + Illustrating other worlds
Giant Steps is an art exhibition and competition sponsored by Vital 5 Productions in Seattle, Washington.
First proposed as an imaginary exhibit on the website w3seattle.com, Vital 5 Productions has decided to bring this concept to the international arts community as a competition and exhibition, designed to inspire the creative and technical communities to imagine and propose art projects on the surface of the Moon. While the incentive for the participating artist or team may not be the actualization of their project, there will be a $10,000.00 cash prize, determined by a jury composed of aerospace and art professionals. Beyond this monetary award, Giant Steps will yield an unprecedented bounty of art-in-space proposals, giving humanity at large an inspired and original collection of conceptual artworks previously not considered.
Find more about the program Art competition has lofty ambitions: the moon – The Seattle Times.
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Artists at NASA JPL strive to make exotic distant worlds seem more like real places to the public rather than the abstractions of dry scientific language: What does space look like? These NASA artists are trying to show you – Pasadena Star News
Dan Goods, for example, depicted what the Juno mission will see in the clouds of Jupiter with an installation that
consists of a large cloud that hides infrared lights. Infrared light is invisible to the naked eye, but is visible to many cell phone cameras. Just as the Juno mission uses special detectors to peer through the clouds of Jupiter and reveal the depths of its storms, you can “see” lightning storms underneath this dynamic surface.
A whimsical but very appealing approach by Goods’ team to take the public to exoplanets was via a series of gorgeous travel posters: PlanetQuest – The Search for Another Earth
![Kepler_16b_preview[1]](http://hobbyspace.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Kepler_16b_preview1.jpg)