Category Archives: Transhuman News

Most people would probably say yes, its quite possible there will be humans residing on the moon within the next ten years, and it will be relatively inexpensive too. Much of this is down to 3D printing, robots, and SpaceX. Whatever the reason, its a cool concept and one that deserves exploring. Out of a workshop help in 2014, came nine papers that have been prepared specifically for the task of setting up an alternative environment on the moon. Although all nine papers differ in detail, essentially they are all working towards that same goal.

But, its not the first time people have talked about setting up a base on the moon, and so far nothing, so whats changed? Chris McKay, NASA astrobiologist, says, The reason all the previous plans for going back to the moon have failed is that theyre just way too expensive. The space program is living in a delusion of unlimited budgets, which traces back to Apollo. This was a project that cost $150 billion by todays standards.Today, however, estimates from the papers suggest that we could have a base in place on the moon by 2022 and for less than $10 billion.

As it stands, NASA has no intentions of returning to the moon and instead is looking at Mars as the next place of colonization. But people such as McKay and others feel that we need to conquer the moon first before trying to take on the likes of Mars. This would allow astronauts the chance to test new equipment and habitats just a few days away on the moon rather than nine months away on Mars. My interest is not the moon. To me, the moon is as dull as a ball of concrete. But were not going to have a research base on Mars until we can learn how to do it on the moon first. The moon provides a blueprint to Mars.

Others besides NASA that are also looking to get a base set up on the moon include China, Russia, and the European Space Agency. So even if NASA didnt want to fund the mission alone, it would soon be able to partner with another source. Private investors also want to go back to the moon, even if just as a stepping stone to Mars. But, how do we even go about building a lunar base there? Well, that will vary depending on who you ask, but many proposals will include some form of robotic exploration to find the perfect site for the living. Next, lunar excavation machines would set to work leveling the area while more robots would start to set up a solar power network.

It would take a while for the majority of people to start living on the moon, and at first, only a small crew would stay for a few days at a time. The missions would be increased each time until eventually there was a permanent base established, suitable for humans to reside on. It really shouldnt be that difficult either, as we already know how to survive on the moon. Now its a case of using the technology around us to drive down the cost of a moon base. Using VR technology could help with the planning of the mission and 3D printing could be used to replace any small components that happen to break on the spacecraft.

Some of the proposals were relying on technologies that arent even in existence yet, but not completely out of this world. One idea involved SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket transporting small payloads or the Falcon Heavy taking large payloads to the moon, while another was to allow rockets to refuel in orbit. The moon lodgings are likely to be designed and manufactured by Bigelow Aerospace who have come up with a dwelling that is flexible and can be folded up to fit inside the cargo bay of a rocket, then simply expand on the lunar surface, similar to that of a pop-up tent. Test versions of the moon lodgings will be trialed at the International Space Station later this year.

The whole project doesnt come cheap, and its estimated that the cost of building a lunar base on the moon will be around $10 billion, with annual upkeep costs of around $2 billion per year. But, NASA can afford it especially if they team up with some private investors. One study last year showed that the project could even pay for itself after one year if large water deposits are found on the moon. And, whats more, is all of this could be up and running in less than ten years. How exciting!

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Will We Really Be Living on the Moon Within the Next Decade? - TrendinTech

In Syfys The Expanse, Mars and Earth are two superpowers racing to gain the technological upper hand, while those who live in the Asteroid Belt mine resources for the more privileged planets and become more and more prone to radicalization.

Sound familiar?

As we enter the miasmatic era of a Donald Trump presidency, it is impossible not to view televisionany pop culture, for that matterthrough the lens of politics. Dystopian science fiction in particular warrants comparisons to present-day society, or at least points to where it might be headed. But finding allegories in fiction isnt necessarily a bad thing, and former President Barack Obamahimself has said that fiction can be a reminder of the truths under the surface of what we argue about everyday.

The Expanse does just that, only its the 23rd century, and humanity has successfully colonized the planets in the solar system. No, there is no demagogue with tiny hands running a planet in this story, but there are other obvious similarities you can draw: Marginalized communities are pitted against the wealthy and elite, limited natural resources cause war and strife, and nations are constantly poised on the brink of war.

But The Expanse doesnt merely copy and paste current global affairs into its story. Instead, the show uses a nuanced, character-driven narrative to combat a Trumpian view of the worldone that eschews complexity by boiling down politics to simply good versus evil. Authoritarianism perpetuates the idea that nuance does not exist, only the impetus to quell opposition, and as Ruth Ben-Ghiat in The Atlantic points out, this leaves society open to the possibility of violence without consequence. The Expanse, on the other hand, manages to paint a portrait of a divided universe without vilifying one group and raising the other to god-like status, a kind of storytelling that will be essential in the coming days.

The series achieves this feat by making us question who the real heroes in its story are. Is it Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), operative of the United Nations, which controls Earth and the moon colony? Avasarala wants to protect the citizens of her planet and uphold Earths ideals of welfare and social reform, but she does so in a way that blatantly ignores civil liberties. We see this when she tortures a Belter for information, and when she repeatedly betrays friends and allies in order to achieve her goals. She is ruthless and cold, determined and vicious. Yet we also have to wrestle with the fact that she lost her son to terrorists, and her determination to stifle insurrection comes from her loss and her fear.

What about Joe Miller (Thomas Jane), the hardboiled detective who lives in the Asteroid Belt? On the surface, it looks like hes fighting for justice by investigating the disappearance of Julie Mao (Florence Faivre), a key player in the OPA (Outer Planets Alliance, a Belter activist group). But his motives are dubiousmuch of his search is misguided by fantasy, ignoring the Belter plight and rejecting his own heritage. Is Julie Mao our hero, then? She has a humanitarian streak, seen helping miners made sick from poor living conditions. But she joined a militant organization without questioning its methods, ultimately leading to her demise. As for the Belters, its indisputable that they are an oppressed group facing severe injustice, but they are hardly monolithic. Some have chosen violent means to achieve their goals by joining the OPAs terrorist cells, while others want legitimacy through formal negotiation.

The closest we have to heroes might be the crew of the Rocinante ship. This group of disparate people came together through unforeseen circumstances, each with different motivations for investigating the brewing conflicts between Earth, Mars and the Belters. What makes us root for them is not that they are consistently morally righteous (some of them possibly have sketchy backgrounds), but that they are fiercely committed to exposing the truth, whatever the truth may be.

This is not to say that there are no clear rights and wrongs in The Expanse universe. When the Belter miners are cruelly murdered after protesting inhumane conditions, we are meant to be appalled. When we see acts of terrorism that lead to the deaths of innocent civilians, we are meant to be horrified. There is no call to empathize with bigotry, or to tolerate murder. There is, however, a call to understand the root causes that underlie the institutions and systems that run the solar systemwhat privilege looks like, why terrorism happens. We are meant to confront evil and condemn it, but also to ask ourselves, and our leaders, What is really at work here? Only then can we move forward to better humanity as a whole.

And what might that look like? The Expanse has some ideas on that, too. All you have to do is take a look at the number of women in the series, all in positions of power, all with complex personalities. Theres the graceful and cruel Chrisjen Avasarala. Theres Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper), a capable engineer and natural leader aboard the Rocinante. Theres Theresa Yao (Jean Yoon), the stern captain of a Mars military vessel. On Ceres, theres Captain Shaddid (Lola Glaudini), head of Star Helix Security, as well as detective Octavia Muss (Athena Karkanis). And at the heart of the series mystery is the enigmatic Julia Mao. Daniel Abrahams, one of the authors of the books on which The Expanse is based, said in an interview with Tor.com that [i]t was always our intention to have a future world that included women who were strong as characters.

The shows not perfect, though. For instance, it still suffers from the Smurfette syndrome by often having just one strong female character within a group, resulting in a dearth of female relationships. But its a start, already miles ahead of a lot of current television. And if it seems like the mere existence of female leaders in a show is a low bar to set, youd be right. Unfortunately, such is the reality of a country that balked at the very idea of a woman with political ambitions assuming the mantle of the presidency.

Most of these characters are played by women of color, and the showrunners are enthusiastic in their embrace of a multicultural future both in the story and behind the scenes. In an interview with The Verge, Naren Shankar explained that he was committed to the vision of the books authors: The people who make it out into space, its not just going to be Neil Armstrong, clean-cut, classically white Americans. Its going to be Indian, Chinese, Russian, a mix of everybody, every ethnicity. And thats just going to melt and mingle. The very foundation of the shows futuristic premise is immigrationthe colonization of previously uninhabited planets means that everyone is essentially an immigrant.

But The Expanse isnt simply touting the idea of celebrating diversity. Its imagining a post-racial society. Indeed, inequality doesnt seem to exist between different races, or even different genders. Instead, we see a different kind of inequality, based on which planet one is from. Although the Belters, for example, are a racially diverse people, the group itself has a unique cultural identity. They are physically different (their bodies being taller and thinner due to low gravity conditions) and possess their own pidgin language (Belter Creole, a mixture of different languages that reflect the original settlers). Because of where they live and how they look, the Belters are essentially treated by the other planets as slave labor, inhuman even.

In the spirit of nuance, we should recognize that there is a danger in the aspiration for a post-racial world. Belters dont want to give up their identity so much as gain civil rights that are afforded to all humans on other planets. Its a multiracial society we need, not a homogenous one. Perhaps the lesson here is that inequality will always exist in some form or another when the privileged dont recognize marginalized groups. Perhaps this is the story that progressives want to be able to tella story that does not pit the white working class against the black working class, for instance, but instead unites both against the same system of economic oppression.

The Expanse shows us a possible future, a future in which women can be leaders without the bat of an eye, in which racially diverse groups can unite in common cause. But it is also a warning about keeping institutions in check, about recognizing inequality wherever it might exist, in order to avoid past mistakes. Whether it provides lessons on how to deal with autocracy, or simply provides hope and relief from our current situation, The Expanse is must-watch television for our time. And I didnt even mention the mysterious glowing blue stuff

Elena Zhang is a freelance writer based in Chicago. Follow her on Twitter at @EZhang77.

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In Syfy's The Expanse, Nuance Is the Antidote to Authoritarianism - Paste Magazine

"The Space Between Us" is apparently a large divide when it comes to describing this silly, romantic, mixed-up movie.

It's an interplanetary adventure as a science-fiction flick with a race against time.

It's a teen romance (involving a girl named Tulsa!) formed around a fish-out-of-water story.

It's a morality play, and it's a redemption story.

It's a mess, more than anything, that goes from a convoluted, boring first hour to a second half that is such a heart-on-its-sleeve love story, aimed so squarely at tween girls, that your 12-year-old daughter may walk out of the theater swooning.

That may be the one group of people whose space between their ears will really appreciate "The Space Between Us."

Initially set in the very near future, NASA sends a shuttle of astronauts to prep Mars for colonization, but there's a problem: One of them is pregnant. The baby is born on Mars, and the mother dies in childbirth.

That makes Gardner Elliott the first human not born on Earth, and that makes him different.

No. 1: A full gestation in zero-gravity atmosphere means his organs are different than our own, endangering his ever coming home.

No. 2: Sentencing him to live on Mars is a bit of a public-relations nightmare, so his existence is kept a secret from the public.

I know what some may be thinking, but no: The moon landing was not faked.

This whole snafu leaves Gary Oldman, as the architect of this Mars mission, fretting and yelling at people about this massive cover-up, and it leaves a motherless boy stuck with astronauts inside a small space station for the first 16 years of his life.

Asa Butterfield ("Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children") already proved his sci-fi teen mettle in "Ender's Game," and now as Gardner he gets an upgrade to romantic lead.

But it takes forever to get him there in the hands of director Peter Chelsom ("Serendipity," "Hannah Montana: The Movie").

Between Oldman's rants down on Earth, Mars mother-figure Carla Gugino's sentimental concerns for the boy and Gardner's repeated questions What's Earth like? What's your favorite thing about Earth? Will I know how to act on Earth? that the only thing that kept me from snoring was thinking out loud: When are you going to get this boy on Earth?

The movie never really takes off until we get Gardner in front of Tulsa, the teen girl in Colorado he's been secretly future-texting from Mars, where the wi-fi is red planet-hot.

Tulsa is played by Britt Robertson, who was the one good thing about "Tomorrowland" and who, at 26, is so pretty that she can make us believe she's still in high school.

It turns out that she was abandoned at age 4 in Tulsa, and the orphan girl adopted the city as her nickname.

So we can see that bond start to form: Both Gardner and Tulsa grew up without parents, forced to live with strangers who didn't always tell them the truth.

Butterfield brings an awkward, goofy, somewhat cute manner to his discovery of Earth things both large and small, from crawly bugs to homeless people to Robertson's lips.

Robertson, playing the street-smart girl who can steal a car as easily as she takes off in a crop-dusting plane, brings a blushing sweetness to her tough chick, whose defenses weaken in the presence of a true innocent.

After a sloooow-developing period of great length, it's remarkable that the final act is as moving in a sappy kind of way as it is. Admittedly, my 12-year-old daughter may have coaxed that feeling along.

She and her friends are the audience for "The Space Between Us," and those accompanying them will just have to grin and bear it.

Michael Smith

918-581-8479

michael.smith@tulsaworld.com

Twitter: @michaelsmithTW

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Movie review: "The Space Between Us" is aimed squarely at teens - Tulsa World