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The Dark Side of the Sun

November 18th, 2011 | Add a Comment

In Terry Pratchett’s science fiction novel The Dark Side of the Sun a search for the enigmatic galactic forerunner race the Jokers hinges on the meaning of that phrase. In the end (and this isn’t a spoiler – the novel was published 35 years ago) the “dark side of the sun” is revealed to refer to the Jokers’ return to a non-sapient state to await the evolution of other, different, minds with new perspectives. I was recently reading the science fiction encyclopedia entry on Devolution. It’s one of those words (like deceleration) which a pedant might chide you for using – it implies an inherent direction in evolution. There’s a strong subset of science fiction concerned with more highly advanced or highly evolved species than our own, or our own transcendence. But … Read entire article »

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The First Words on Mars: A List from Science Fiction

There was some discussion on Twitter about the first words that should be spoken on Mars. I’m preserving some examples I found here and will add to it periodically. “Welcome to Mars!” – Roy Rockwood (1910) Through Space to Mars. “Well, shall we go out and claim the planet in the name of Brooklyn?” – The Angry Red Planet (1959) [spoken inside the lander]. “We’re on Mars!” – Frederik Pohl (1976) Man Plus [also spoken from inside the lander]. “Christopher Columbus, you should be here.” – Philip Jose Farmer (1979) Jesus on Mars. “Well, here we are.” – Kim Stanley Robinson (1992) Red Mars. “Ya’aa’tey” (Navajo for “it is good”) – Ben Bova (1992) Mars. “… the first human feet to step … Read entire article »

Review: ‘Footprints of alien technology’, by Paul Davies

Since the search for extraterrestrial intelligence began, astronomers have been trying to answer the question “Are we alone in the universe?” in two ways: by listening for deliberate messages, and by looking for physical evidence – the products and byproducts – arising as a consequence of extraterrestrial civilization. The latter search, called xenoarchaeology on this site, has explored a number of strategies such as hunting for orbiting probes, artificial structures on planetary surfaces, and astroengineering projects such as Dyson spheres. Paul Davies of the Beyond Center at Arizona State University has just published a paper in Acta Astronautica promoting the search for more subtle traces of nonhuman civilization, and asking that the entire scientific community be on the … Read entire article »

Day of the Amoeba: Mass Hysteria in Charlotte, NC, 1965

4 August, 1965. Panic sweeps the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, when local radio station WIST broadcasts a news flash: ”An amoeba is loose somewhere on the outskirts of the city!” Terrified children tried to get home to their parents, who were jamming phone lines to the police in desperate attempts to find their children. The panic was described as “one of the worst disturbances in the city’s history”. A city of 80,000 in an uproar over an amoeba – a creature smaller than a millimeter across. A year later the Federal Communications Commission officially censured the radio station for alarming the scientifically illiterate population of Charlotte. Police phone lines were tied up for three hours, and “three times” the … Read entire article »

Review: ‘Response to Ben McGee’ by Linda Billings

Linda Billings states bluntly that Ben McGee’s “call for proactive xenoarchaeological guidelines” is not “a productive contribution to the scientific search for evidence of extraterrestrial life or efforts to communicate clearly about it.” Much of her criticism is of terminological imprecision. I agree with her about the way the term “astrobiology” is used by McGee: at different times referring broadly to extraterrestrial life, and narrowly to intelligent extraterrestrial life. On the other hand, her apparent dismissal of the term “xenoarchaeology” for not appearing in dictionaries fails for several reasons: McGee had himself defined the term in his initial paper; such a prescriptive approach would stymie neologisms of all kinds; the use of the prefix xeno- to refer to extraterrestrial specialisations … Read entire article »

Review: ‘A call for proactive xenoarchaeological guidelines’, by Ben W. McGee

A call for proactive xenoarchaeological guidelines – Scientific, policy and socio-political considerations Space Policy, Volume 26, Issue 4, November 2010, Pages 209-213. Ben McGee’s paper in Space Policy calling for the development of guidelines for use in the event of the discovery of extraterrestrial artefacts seems uncontroversial to me. The SETI mainstream has its Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence after all. However from reading his blog I know that he received a strongly negative response from Linda Billings. I’ll discuss my own thoughts about McGee’s paper in this post, and get around to the response in the next few days. My first impression is of some imprecision in terminology, particularly in use of the word … Read entire article »

10 Space Archaeology Stories You Must Read

Following on from my popular post, 10 Space Archaeology Novels You Must Read, here’s a list of ten great space archaeological short stories. Where the prior post approached a “top ten”, this list can only be taken as a number of stories that I recommend, based on my limited reading. There are literally generations of magazines and anthologies that I haven’t read and which might contain brilliant space archaeological stories. Nevertheless, I think it’s safe to say that a few stories here would count among the best, such as ‘The Red One’, ‘The Sentinel’, ‘Lungfish’ and ‘Omnilingual’. ‘The Red One’ (1918), by Jack London Set in the Solomon Islands, this astonishing tale is decades ahead of its time in its … Read entire article »

Minus Ten and Counting: Songs of the Space Age

I was putting together a blog post about space songs when I discovered this amazing collection of filk from 1983. Minus Ten and Counting: Songs of the Space Age was apparently immensely popular in science fiction circles. After the 2500 original cassette tapes quickly sold out, the album was widely bootlegged, but has never been re-released because of copyright and personality conflicts among its contributors. Enjoy! Surprise! (Sputnik) — written by Leslie Fish, performed by Leslie Fish, Roy Torley, Julia Ecklar … Read entire article »

Martian Christmas

Someone on Twitter said “Merry Martian Christmas”, and I immediately thought, “Wait a moment – Mars has a longer year than Earth, so it’s highly unlikely that an anniversary would coincide on both planets.” So I did some back of the napkin math to calculate the true date of Christmas on Mars. I began with the assumption that Jesus Christ was born on the putative date of 25 December 1 B.C. There’s lots of debate about what year or time of year Christ might really have been born, but no one is rescheduling their Christmas parties over it. To calculate the length of time since the birth of Christ seemed like a tricky proposition, what with all the … Read entire article »

Space Junk on Screen

Space junk has been in the news this week, and one of my tweeps asked if a space garbage truck might be the solution … this put me in mind of some space garbage moments from television and cinema, so I thought I’d do a quick post about them. Several shows have used the perceived lowly and degrading role of garbage collector to satirize glamorous and exciting portrayals of space exploration. Others use it to depict the dangers of space travel, or the mundane (so to speak) careers that one might pursue in a realistic future. Some just use it because it’s a cool setting, for example: Star Wars The trash compactor scene from Star Wars: A New Hope … Read entire article »

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