MOVIE: The Space Between Us

We watched this movie tonight and really enjoyed it.  It was an interesting premise that posed several interesting questions.  This post may be a spoiler.

The central character, Gardner Elliot (played by Asa Butterfield), is born on a space mission to Mars. His mother dies.  He survives and is brought up on Mars by a surrogate mother.  His birth was kept a secret.  At age 16, he escapes captivity gets back to Earth, but he is in a delicate state physically since he was born in space.

When he arrives on earth, he sought out a female computer message friend, Tulsa, (Britt Robertson) as well as the man that he thinks is his father.  Gardner and Tulsa fall love and go on an odyssey to find his father.

Gardner's body cannot take earth's gravity and is dying.  He wanted to die. He was saved and transported back to Mars.  If I were Gardner, I would have committed suicide like he tried to do.  Earth is really an awful place.  He ends up back on Mars which is home planet.  I would take a rocket to Mars in a New York minute to escape this stupid Trump/Republican world.  But alas, his love Tulsa, doesn't go with him.  The movies ends but hints that they will reunite and enjoy life on Mars.

This was an entertaining film.  I enjoyed it.  It is worth watching, if anyone is reading this.  Great cast which also includes B.D. Wong and Gary Oldman.  The end was particularly curious.  In my opinion, it suggests that Mars is a better alternative to earth.  I couldn't agree more.  Donald Trump and Republicans are the downfall of our society and our planet.

POSTSCRIPT:  I read an article online that discusses just the scenario that the movie portrayed.  It's worth a read:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4601270/The-100-mile-high-club-Scientists-study-sex-space.html

Watching HIDDEN FIGURES

I regret that I haven't seen this movie, Hidden Figures, sooner.  What a remarkable movie and timely a movie it is.  It is sad that the racial discrimination issues that the film depicts about from decades ago are forefront to our political environment theses days.

The movie is about 3 African American women working at NASA during the fledgling first of period of the space race between the US and USSR.  The film is a star-studded cast of actors which deserve kudos:   Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan, and Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson.

The movie is brilliant.  I'm going to watch it again.  It is so hopeful in these days of terror we live in.  It tells the saga of three black woman who work at NASA and ultimately become the most part of NASA's early space missions, with their mathematical calculations and ability to master the new computer systems.  Talk about pioneering!

This film tells the true story and does so with a masterful team of actors also, including actors Kevin Costner and Kirsten Dunst.

I used to watch all Academy Award nominated films before the awards.  I failed miserably this last last award season.  

This movie is fantastic.   Please see it.  I seldom find movies to watch that are interesting and worth the effort.  This is definitely one of them.

Proposed Spaceport for Houston

Houston has always been the country's space capital heretofore.   But now that the space shuttle program has ended and the future of NASA's objectives are uncertain, Houston stands to lose it's pre-immenence in Space development.

Virgin Airlines owner Sir Richard Branson will begin commercial space travel in the next couple of years (assuming no setbacks) via his Virgin Galactic company.

A spaceport has already been constructed:  Spaceport America.  It is located in the White Sands Missile Range, near the cities Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences,  located in Sierra County, New Mexico.  Spaceport America has been constructed.

Houston's bid to build the largest spaceport would help retain it's importance in the future of space exploration.  Should the city's proposal for the port be accepted it would be operational in 2024.    The project has been dubbed "Space City USA".  If built it would be the world's hub for commercial space
travel which is a consumer market that seems to be quite appealing for the 1%-ers of the world (the only percentage of the world's economic demographics that seems to be growing at a disproportionate rate).    Virgin Galactic will begin offering commercial flight for $250,000.    The flight will be about 2.5 hours, but weightlessness will be for only 6 minutes.  See the video below of the space flight:



Personally, I wish I could win a position on the one-way ticket to Mars competition.  I think any other planet would be a better alternative to this fucked up world we live in!  (IMHO)

Here's more photos illustrating Houston's proposed Space City USA.

 See more information at the following locations:

Virgin Galactic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Galactic
http://www.virgingalactic.com

Spaceport America (new Mexico)
http://spaceportamerica.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceport_America

Space City USA (Houston)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2412201/Houston-unveils-plans-America-s-largest-space-port-bid-retain-title-Space-City-USA.html

NEW YORK to LONDON in 1 hour: perhaps there is hope for our future?

A German company, German Aerospace Center, has announced plans for a new hypersonic airplane, the SpaceLiner, which would fly at 24 the speed of sound, capable of flying to New York from London in one hour or from London to Sydney in one and half hour. This vehicle that they are proposing would carry 50 passengers and would include both a rocket lift into space to 50 miles above earth and a glide back to earth ending in a typical airplane landing on a runway.

One of the saddest things about last century was the fact that mankind created a miraculous supersonic aircraft (the SST and the Tupelov) in 1973 by the next century no such technology was being used at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The Concorde fleet were retired with no replacement.

This beautiful aircraft started commercial airline service in 1976 and the entire fleet was retired following a crash of a Concorde at Paris' Orly airport and downturn in airline travel as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the US.

In my opinion, it is a tragedy that, whilst mankind created such an amazing aircraft like the Concorde, that we were not capable of continuing the evolution of this type of aircraft after 27 years of commercial service. Or after it's retirement in 2003 (a decade ago no SST flies).

There have been many proposals throughout the years for supersonic aircraft. But nothing had traction enough to be the successor to the beautiful and astonishing Concorde. For almost thirty years humankind flew from New York to Paris in approximately 3.5 hours. But since 2003 we've gone back to the horse and buggy in airline service, so to speak.

Read this current proposed supersonic aircraft in an article at the hateful Republican slanted newsline (owned by the hateful, unethical, immoral Rupert Murdoch companies) at The Daily Mail at the following article: London to Sydney in 90 minutes: Hypersonic SpaceLiner that travels at 24 times the speed of sound 'to be built by 2050.'

I guess cell phones and I-pads, computers, etc were a more important evolutionary moment for our pathetic species? Somehow they seem rather small and lame next to the accomplishment of space exploration or supersonic flight. Let's hope that we begin to aspire to a more noble and higher aspirations. Not until Republicans die out though.

Can I go here? Cool new photo

I'd travel there for sure. Would you if you could?

Another Cool photo from TIME.com

Matt Stroshane / Getty
They've really had some great stuff recently at Time.com Picture of the Day/Pictures of the Week after a long period of nothing.

Here's a beautiful shot of the Space Shuttle. It's hard to imagine that these magnificent machines will be retiring soon. A bit like the Concord supersonic airplane.....nothing has been built to replace it. Sad that we don't seem to evolve much these days (but of course that's silly of me...after all look at that gorgeous 2,600 ft high new tallest building, Burj Khalafi. See my previous posts a few days ago).

Endeavour
Space Shuttle Endeavour rolls to launch pad 39-a at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/today-in-pictures/0,31511,1952100,00.html#ixzz0bz5uHo2s

Really COOL photo from TIME's 2009 Year In Pictures

Isn't this beautiful? I'd rather be there. Rather than this right-wing whacko, lonney tune country that we live in these days.

Can we please just outlaw the following: Scary Dick Cheney, the US political institution called Christianity, the Pope, Dim-wit Sarah Palin, Jon Gosselin, Carrie Prejean, Ann Coulter, the porcine Rush Limbaugh and all of the Tea Party people.

Please! SILENCE....the cacophony is too exhausting......Go away..........bury yourselves. Just don't inflict yourselves and your wretched screeching on this world anymore. It is just too torturous. And utterly devoid of any possible constructive benefit.

Sorry for venting but I just can't help myself anymore. We are literally barraged by the din of these whining, shrill, extremely limited individuals and their Über limited thought processes.

There is nothing intellectually required to exert and spew hatred and violent and myopic emotions. It takes no effort spiritually or philosophically to practice pure hatred. I'm not Christian (I'm actually an atheist) but as far as I'm concerned it takes more rigorous substance as a human being to overcome one's own hatreds and prejudices rather than to give in to them and feed them. Practicing hatred is simply laziness.

Hatred really is a "no-brainer."

Another World

The planet Saturn is captured in a photograph taken by the Cassini orbiter. Carolyn Porco, the leader of the Imaging Team on the Cassini mission to Saturn, comments, "This year we had the thrill of observing the Saturn equinox. That's the moment when the sun, seen from Saturn, crosses the equator going from south to north. The sun sets on the rings, illuminating them edge-on. The geometry revealed structures and phenomena in the rings we had never seen before. We saw this famous adornment spring from two dimensions into three, with some ring structures soaring as high as the Rocky Mountains. It made me feel blessed."

Photo: NASA/JPL

For more information and beautiful photos of the Cassini Project visit the link below: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm