Saturday, June 30, 2012

ROADSIDE PICNIC


A New Translation of The One Russian Science Fiction Novel You Absolutely Must Read

By Annalee Newitz
A New Translation of The One Russian Science Fiction Novel You Absolutely Must Read

If you're going to read just one Soviet-era Russian science fiction novel, it should be Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's dark, ambiguous Roadside Picnic. Originally written in the early 1970s, it's back in print in English after 30 years, with a brand-new translation by Olena Bormashenko and a riveting afterword by Boris Strugatsky about how the book was butchered by Soviet censors. It's a seriously intense tale of a man who risks his life and freedom to smuggle artifacts out of mysterious "Zones" where aliens landed.
Red is a "stalker," a man who is one of the most successful players in the black market for alien technologies. He trades in the inexplicable objects left behind by mysterious visitors in now-contaminated Zones all over the Earth, where even the laws of physics have been warped by whatever the aliens were doing. The life of a stalker is almost always deadly, because the Zones are full of toxic gunk, gravitational anomalies, and other dangers. Plus, exposure to the Zones causes the stalkers' children to be born as inhuman mutants, and corpses buried in the Zones come back to life and shuffle aimlessly around their old homes. Still, Red thinks the whole deal is worth it — the artifacts fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars, mostly because they've allowed scientists to invent everything from infinite, self-replicating batteries to a perpetual motion machine.
Nobody has any idea why the aliens came, nor why they left. At one point, a Nobel prize winning physicist who works on the Zone technologies admits that the items may have been left behind as garbage. The aliens might have been the equivalent of humans on a picnic leaving behind foil wrap, batteries, motor oil, and other bizarre bits of junk that confuse the local animals.
The brilliance of this novel is that it doesn't matter whether you believe the Zones are garbage we animals are picking over, or a message the aliens want us to decode. The point is that you are forced to guess at the aliens' intentions, and deal with the discomfort of not ever getting a pat answer. It's the same discomfort that is wrecking Red's life, and warping everyone around him as they try to create value and meaning from what might, after all, be nothing but (literal) alien shit. Things only get worse when some of the stalkers decide to hunt down the "sphere," an artifact that supposedly grants wishes.
A New Translation of The One Russian Science Fiction Novel You Absolutely Must Read

Fast-paced and exciting, Roadside Picnic is also a compelling character study of Red and his family as the stalker's life changes them. It's a novel of disturbing ideas about both extraterrestrial life and our own pathetically puny place in the universe. Gritty and realistic but also fantastical, this is a novel you won't easily put down — or forget.
It's also one of the Strugatskys' most popular books outside Russia, partly because it inspired Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker (as well as a series of videogames). But its publishing history, according to Boris, nearly drove the brothers insane. Apparently, it took eight years to get the book past the censors, and not for the reasons you'd think. Russian authorities had no problem with the ideology of the book, which can be interpreted as anti-capitalist and depicts Western life as a horror show. Instead, they were angered by the idea that kids might be harmed by reading a book that was so dark, full of violence, drinking, crime, and cursing. They gave the brothers a list of hundreds of scenes and phrases that had to be changed before the book would be published — including turning the zombies to cyborgs (less disturbing) and making the novel's ending decidedly unambiguous in a really cheesy way.
In the afterword, Boris Strugatsky explains that there are worse things than ideological censors — there are the literary gatekeepers who want every work of fiction to be banal and reassuring, never forcing the reader to go outside his or her comfort zone. But Roadside Picnic, now restored to the authors' original version, is all about going into the Zones that are far beyond the reaches of your safe little life. To venture into the Zone is to confront who we really are, and what our place is in the universe. And the answers will disturb the hell out of you. Which is as it should be.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

THE WATERS OF TITAN



NASA finds hidden ocean on Saturn's moon Titan

Using incredibly precise measurements from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, researchers have concluded that Saturn's biggest moon is likely hiding a global, sub-surface water ocean, 100 km beneath its surface.
One of the most enigmatic bodies in our solar system just got even more intriguing.
Cassini has flown by Titan more than 80 times since entering Saturn's orbit in 2004, and its observations have confirmed that, as moons go, Titan is a weird one. It's bigger than the planet Mercury. It's the only moon with a real atmosphere (an atmosphere denser than Earth's, in fact). It experiences Earthlike weather, such as rain and snow. It's home to familiar geological features like valleys, plains and deserts — and it's the only known object besides Earth with standing bodies of liquid.
And yet these observations, while numerous, have all been skin deep. "In contrast," writes planetary scientist Luciano Iess, in today's issue of Science, "information on the moon's deep interior is scarce."
One does not simply drill into Titan, and there are no geologists on the moon's surface to measure its seismic waves. The absence of a detectable internally generated magnetic field means that everything we know about the interior of Titan has come from careful analysis of its orbit, rotation, gravity and topography. Fortunately for clever scientists everywhere, careful analysis can reveal incredible things.
Click to viewTo detect the tides of Titan, Iess and his colleagues had to get creative. Titan travels around Saturn in an elliptical orbit, experiencing the most gravitational pull as it approaches its closest point in orbit (pericenter), and the least at its farthest (epicenter). These variations give rise to tides, which squeeze at the moon's surface and cause it to flex. Tidal flexing leads to distortions in Titan's gravitational field that affect the speed at which Cassini approaches and recedes from the moon during flybys. It's this last bit — the effect of Titan's changing gravitational field on Cassini's velocity — that is ultimately measured by the spacecraft's onboard equipment.
The less dense the moon's interior, the more its surface flexes throughout its orbit, and the greater the distortions in the moon's gravitational field. Since Titan takes just 16 days to make a full trip around Saturn, Iess and his colleagues were able to use Cassini's velocity over the course of six different flybys to estimate the changes in Titan's shape throughout its orbit. The researchers calculated that if Titan were composed entirely of rock, the moon would experience bulges in its surface of up to one meter in high. Cassini's velocity measurements indicate the moon actually experiences bulges that are ten times that height.
NASA finds hidden ocean on Saturn's moon Titan

When combined with data from previous research, including investigations into Titan's mysterious orbit, the researchers claim the most likely model of Titan's interior is one like the one pictured here, which depicts a global ocean located beneath an icy shell tens of kilometers thick. "Cassini's detection of large tides on Titan leads to the almost inescapable conclusion that there is a hidden ocean at depth," said Iess.
The fact that the ocean's waters are located beneath a sheet of ice does not bode well for life; most experts contend that life is most likely to spring from places where water comes into contact with rock. Having said that, the models used by Iess and his colleagues have no way of telling whether the floor of Titan's subsurface ocean is made up of rock or ice, so Titan aliens are not entirely out of the question.
For now, however, most planetary scientists are interested in the ocean's role in maintaining the moon's diminishing atmosphere.
"The presence of a liquid water layer in Titan is important because we want to understand how methane is stored in Titan's interior and how it may outgas to the surface," said Cassini team member Jonathan Lunine.
"This is important because everything that is unique about Titan derives from the presence of abundant methane, yet the methane in the atmosphere is unstable, and will be destroyed on geologically short timescales."

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Sunday, June 24, 2012

DELTA QUADRANT



Space Age Digital Art
Space jump by wanbao
Space Age Digital Art
Space Marines by Radojavor
Space Age Digital Art
Space Cat by pekepeke0
Space Age Digital Art
Discovering Space by Matkraken
Space Age Digital Art
Suborganic Space by JoelBelessa
Space Age Digital Art
Dead Space by Farkwhad
Space Age Digital Art
Space book by Amuuna
Space Age Digital Art
Somewhere in Space by Krzyzowiec
Space Age Digital Art
Space core’s dream by MattShadowwing
Space Age Digital Art
Blue Space by Waterboy1992
Space Age Digital Art
Space Ranchers by StudioQube
Space Age Digital Art
Space Age Digital Art
Dead Space Fan Art by Zeen84
Space Age Digital Art
Just Space by JoeJesus
Space Age Digital Art
Space Station by gypcg
Space Age Digital Art
Space Age Digital Art
Space Graveyard by Ortheza
Space Age Digital Art
Space Opera by Pierrick
Space Age Digital Art
Lost in Space by Ragebringer
Space Age Digital Art
The Journey to Space by roadioart
Space Age Digital Art
Lost in Space by Nicasus
Space Age Digital Art
Space Lighthouse by FISHBOT1337
Space Age Digital Art
Attacker From Space by Galanpang
Space Age Digital Art
Space – Black Hole by InertiaK
Space Age Digital Art
Space Cargo by MaxD-Art
Space Age Digital Art
Reach Nebula by Nameless-Designer
Space Age Digital Art
Wing Nebula by Ov3RMinD
Space Age Digital Art
Cave Nebula by Ov3RMinD
Space Age Digital Art
Nebula Magic by converse-kidd
Space Age Digital Art
The Great Nebula by CommanderEVE
Space Age Digital Art
Space Age Digital Art
Dwarf Planets by Nameless-Designer
Space Age Digital Art
Planets by alwahdany
Space Age Digital Art
Epilogue by R3V4N
Space Age Digital Art

What Do You Think?

Friday, June 22, 2012

BRAVE NEW WORLDS





It takes one look at Neil Blevins 3D illustration to understand he’s a professional in this art. According to his mini auto-biography available online, he’s been an artist for as long as he can remember. The Canada-born-and-raised illustrator grew up on Sci-Fi and fantasy books, games, films and TV series, and this early influence is more than apparent in his current body of work. He first set out on his artistic journey through traditional media—painting and drawing, but then he discovered the computer. He never looked back and eventually became a professional animator for feature films, live action videos, video games, TV, ride films and has also produced album art. He is currently a Technical Director at Pixar.









Source: NeilBlevins.com

GENESIS 14

Mountains_spitzer_f800

ZAANUSSII

18

SOL PRIMUS

The Sun Gif

RIGELAN DEFENCE FORCE


BARUUL MERC

THE TWINS

http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d/www.space.com/images/h_et_planets_02.jpg

AZRIL

MATRIX 33

KELEV

STEINMAN CLASS B HEAVY HAULER

Steinman Class B Heavy Hauler

While it will never get the glory of a Crossbow, or even the quiet respect of a Starmaster, the Steinman is, arguably, the most important starship in human space. The vessel, over 70 years old, is quite simply the lynchpin in all interstellar human commerce, without which there could be no Protectorate.

Little more than a command module, a pair of engines and a cargo hold, the Steinman is a simple, but effective design that has kept colonies, core worlds, and the military supplied through peace, war, and across a hundred varying climates.

Not at all fast, and usually completely unarmed, the ship’s only defense is a powerful passive sensor system, and a negative mass drive with the shortest warm-up time of any non-military human ship in operation. Often traveling in convoys with a few escort vessels, a pack of Steinman under attack will quickly go to FTL using preset coordinates, so that there is a much shorter navigational computation time. An average ship takes 1D4 minutes to perform a jump, but a Steinman can usually do it in half that (most military ships have the same jump time).

With a crew of six, a modular cargo hold that can haul up to 500 tons, and a very reasonable price tag, it is the ship of choice for most large corporations, and is the transport of choice for the military as well. But even the military versions rarely have armaments. To keep space consumption to a minimum, the Steinman has a very small power plant. At most, it might be able to be fitted with a turret, but not a very powerful one. A much more reasonable option for arming the Steinman is to put missiles on it, which need no large power source.

Steinman haulers are most often encountered hauling food, raw materials, dry goods, water, large groups of people and military supplies. Pirates tend to avoid them because highly valuable cargo is much more likely to be on a smaller, better armed, light or medium transport. Some budget colony operations also use them to transport colonization supplies and colonists. By dividing the massive cargo bay into two decks filled with bunk beds, the Steinman can carry up to 600 passengers.

Model: C-98 Class B Heavy Hauler

Class: Freighter

Crew: 6, capable of carrying up to 600 passengers

M.D.C. by location

Sensor array – 150

Engine pods (2) – 400 each

*Main body – 2,000

Command module – 800

*Depleting the M.D.C. of the main body would disable the vessel, causing the command module to detach as a life pod. Steinmans rarely explode; usually only when they are carrying highly flammable or volatile cargo.

Speed

Maximum Sublight Speed: .2 C, or 20% of the speed of light

Maximum Acceleration/Deceleration Rate: 4 Gs per melee round

Maximum FTL: 365 x C, or one light year per day, half that speed for civilian models.

Top Atmospheric Manuevering Speed: Mach 1.5, but can attain escape velocity on a full engine burn (cannot maneuver)

Statistical Data

Height: 44 ft

Length: 210 ft

Width: 115 ft

Cargo: 500 tons

Power Plant: Fusion Reactor

FTL Drive: NMD-365 (military) or NMD-183 (Civilian)

Range: varies with supplies carried. Estimated it could travel 400 light years, but none has ever tried.

Market Cost: 2 million credits new, 1 million credits used.

Weapon Systems: None

Sensors: The Steinman has a powerful early-warning system that gives it mass and electromagnetic field sensors with a range of 1 million miles, and powerful short-range sensors with a 300,000-mile range.

Followers