Monthly Archives: October 2013

Activism, General, Space participation

The new SEDS NOVA on line magazine

SEDS (Students for the Exploration and Development of Space) have revamped their NOVA newsletter into an on line resource: NOVA | The Official Publication of SEDS-USA

Fellow explorers,

We at SEDS-USA are thrilled to relaunch the NOVA as an online publication. Historically, the NOVA has functioned as a newsletter among SEDS chapters since 1996. The publication has evolved through various forms into a bi-annual magazine.

This year, we are changing things up and establishing the NOVA as an online platform for student space articles and related artistic pieces. We want to open the SEDS community to showcase work by space enthusiasts from across the globe. Feel free to explore the new site and check out our archived publications!

Ad Astra,
Ekaterina Khvostova
Editor in Chief of NOVA

Events, History, Space Policy

Conference on human spaceflight at US Naval Academy

The 2013 U.S. Naval History Conference  Past,  Present and Future of Human Space Flight is underway this morning at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. The first panel includes Jim Lovell, Bob Crippen, Bob Cabana, Ken Ham, moderator David Hartman.

Find notes on the event sessions at:

Update: Here’s another conference underway, the theme of which undermines some of the statements in the first session of the above conference about HSF deteriorating in the US: Workshop on Golden Spike Human Lunar Expeditions: Opportunities for Intensive Lunar Scientific Exploration

Space Policy

Space policy roundup – Oct.3.13

Some space policy items

Update:

 

Solar Sci-Fi, Space films and videos

“Gravity”: Mission patches and other details

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The movie Gravity starring and opens this Friday. Though the vivid trailers give the basic story, I’ve tried not to read too many stories about the film so as to avoid spoilers. Generally, it looks like the reviews from film festival and preview showings indicate that it is quite an entertaining and well made film.

The filmamaker was careful about details and even had mission patches created by famed Star Trek artist Mike Okuda: ‘Gravity’ movie mission patches shaped by real space history – collectSPACE.

I’m amazed that the whole film was first created in animation to get the lighting and composition optimized for each scene before filming it with the actors : Why Gravity Director Alfonso Cuarón Will Never Make a Space Movie Again – Underwire/Wired.com.

While there appear to be a number of Hollywood tropes  involved  (e.g.  the Shuttles have stopped flying, there are no sounds in space, etc), it looks like they kept the science and technology fairly realistic. Will be interesting to see if this space story in the solar sci-fi style will get a strong audience response.