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Index to our previous shows
July 27, 2003 - Dr. Pascal Lee
July 13, 2003 - Fred Pohl
Shows from June, 2003
Shows from May, 2003
Shows from February, 2003
Shows from January, 2003
Shows from December, 2002
Shows from November, 2002
Shows from October, 2002
Shows from September, 2002
Shows from August, 2002
Shows from July, 2002
Shows from June, 2002
Shows from May, 2002
Shows from April, 2002
Shows from March, 2002
Shows from February, 2002
Shows from January, 2002
Shows from December 2001
Shows from November, 2001
Shows from October, 2001
Shows from September, 2001
Shows from August, 2001
Shows from July, 2001
Shows from June, 2001
Shows from May, 2001
Shows from April, 2001
Shows from March, 2001
Shows from February, 2001
Shows from January, 2001
Shows from November - December, 2000
Shows from September - October, 2000
Shows from July - August, 2000
On Sunday - July 27th, 2003 - our guest on Hour 25 was scientist and Mars researcher Dr. Pascal Lee.
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A few weeks ago Suzanne and I were at the International Space Development Conference that was held in San Jose. While there I gave a lecture on Reuseable Launch Vehicles and we had the opportunity to meet and interview a number of other persons who were attending the conference.
Dr. Pascal Lee from the Mars Institute was there giving a talk on the on-going work of the NASA Haughton Mars Project. This activity involves scientists and engineers who are doing real field geology on an impact crater in a cold desert found above the arctic circle. They are not just doing good science but they're also learning about the traps and pitfalls that scientists can expect to find someday when humans go to explore Mars in person.
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So after he gave his talk I sat down with Pascal to chat with him about the exploration of Mars and the work of the NASA Haughton Mars Project. Devon Island might not be Mars, but the similarities are striking. After listening to Pascal talk about his experiences there I had a deeper appreciation for what life will be like for the first humans to set foot on Mars.
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Aerial photograph of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project Base Camp Click on this picture to go to the Mars Institute Web Site and view a larger version of this picture.
(Photo credit: NASA Haughton-Mars Project 2003 / Joe Amarualik)
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The Hamilton Sunstrand Concept Mars Spacesuit. Click on this picture to view more images from the Mars Institute Web Site.
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The Arthur C. Clarke Greenhouse. Click on this picture to view more images from the Mars Institute Web Site.
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The Rover at the NASA Haughton-Mars Project Base Camp with the Mars-1 Traverse Team (L-R) Steve Hoffman SAIC/NASA JSC; Pascal Lee, Mars and SETI Institutes/NASA ARC; Rainer Effenhauser NASA/ JSC; Joe Amarualik, Deputy Base Camp Manager.
Click on this picture to go to the Mars Institute Web Site and view a larger version of this picture and to see more pictures of the rover.(Photo NASA Haughton-Mars Project 2003/K. Cowing) |
Many of the pictures that you see here were taken by Keith Cowing, the creator of the famous - though some might say infamous - NASA Watch Web Site. He has been living and working at the Haughton Mars Base Camp. Click here to view his on-line journal of his experiences. {And if you haven't checked out the NASA Watch Web Site, you really should. It is one of my favorite places to go on the Web to find out about what is going on at NASA.}
Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright - A Forgotten Classic
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Somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere facing the Antarctic, lies the utopian country of Islandia. Closed to the outside world for centuries, this nation opens its borders to diplomats and consular officers of several countries at the beginning of 1907.
Islandia was written and set during this era. It follows the consul to the US, John Lang, on a quest of discovery that covers every aspect of the history, geography and deep rooted beliefs of all of the inhabitants of this land.
Should Islandia permanently open itself to the other countries of the world and reap the benefits that might be offered, or would the influence of other nations damage all that is precious about this fabulous world?
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I invite you to join in on this journey to one of the most fully developed utopias ever created. It has inspired numerous authors in their world-building, including Anne McCaffrey, who claimed it as a major influence for her invention of Pern. No reader of SF and fantasy has truly read utopian literature until they've visited Islandia. I'll meet you there!
Listen to this show
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- Click here to listen to the entire show. {1:59:53}
Or
- Click here for the show's intro music.{0:41}
- Click here for the show's opening. {31:21}
- Click here for our interview with Pascal Lee. {1:26:06}
- Click here for the show's closing.{1:45}
- Click here for an index of all Shows on our site.
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Click here if you have a problem hearing the show and you're using Internet Explorer.
If you enjoyed this show and would like to know when other interviews are uploaded to the Hour 25 web site, then send an email to me at wwjames@earthlink.net and I will add your name to the free Hour 25 Newsletter mailing list. That way you'll get a brief notice in your email every time a new show gets uploaded to the web.
The Great Hour 25 Disk Crash of 2002 - On-Going News
As a result of our recent hard disk crash the Hour 25 newsletter mailing list has vanished into the digital darkness. It would be very helpful if subscribers to the Hour 25 Newsletter would resend their email addresses to me {wwjames@earthlink.net} so I can reconstitute the Newsletter mailing list. {If you have done this "post-crash" then I have your email address and you don't need to do anything.} New editions of the newsletter will start coming out "real soon now".
In the same vein, if you previously sent in an entry for the Karen Willson Five Word Challenge, now would be a good time for you to fish around in your "sent mail" folder and resend your entry. Or come up with a new one and send it in. {And please put "Five Word Challenge" or some approximation thereof in the subject line of your email to make it easy for me to keep track of your entry.}
Links for more information relating to this week's show
Pascal Lee and Haughton Station
You can find out more Pascal Lee by reading his biography.
You can learn more about the work of the Mars Institute, and especially about their work at Devon Island, by going to their web site. {Information about the work at the NASA Haughton-Mars project can be found here.}
I don't know about you, but I think those tracks on the rover that was just delivered to Haughton Station are way cool. Click here to find out more about them. {I wonder how they'd look on my Honda Del Sol???}
And to learn more about the vehicle that formed the basis for that rover, be sure to check out the AM General Hummer Web Site.
Space News - Mars
For more information about the Mars Exploration Rovers be sure to check out the MER Web Site at JPL or this Mars Rover site at Cornell University.
To learn more about the Mars Express mission you can go to this ESA Mars Express Web Site, this Mars Express Web Page from JPL, this NSSDC Mars Express Web Page, or this Web Page from Mars News.Com.
For more information about the Beagle 2 Mars Lander be sure to check out the Beagle 2 Official Web Site, the ESA Beagle 2 Web Page or this article about Beagle 2 from Astrobiology Magazine.
Images of the Beagle 2 landing site as seen from the Viking Orbiter and Mars Global Surveyor can be viewed here {Part 1} and here {Part 2}.
For more information about the Exploration of Mars be sure to go to the JPL Mars Exploration Site, the Center for Mars Exploration at NASA Ames, or the Mars Missions Web Site at the Planetary Society.
Information about the data returned by previous Mars missions can be found at this Mars Web Page at the NSSDC.
For more Mars news be sure to check out the Mars News.Com Web Site.
Percival Lowell did much to shape our ideas about Mars in the early years of the 20th Century. You can learn more about his work by reading this on-line copy of his 1895 book Mars.
Space News - The Shenzhou Project
Click here to go to the Go Taikonauts! web site, an unofficial web page covering the Shenzhou project and other aspects of China's space program. {Please note that this web page has not been updated in over a year.}
The Encyclopedia Astronautica is a fabulous reference source for information about various space projects, including China's current activities. You can read more about the Shenzhou spacecraft and view many pictures of it at their Shenzhou web page. Check our their Chinese Space Station web page or their Chinese Lunar Base web page to learn about China's plans for Space Stations and Lunar exploration in the coming decades.
On-going news about China's space program can be found at this recently revised Space Daily web site.
The Columbia Accident
The Smoking Gun
Ongoing testing by NASA seems to have found the "smoking gun" in the Columbia accident. {At least as far as the technical problems go. For information about NASA's management problems, see the news item below.} Tests found that a foam impact on the leading edge of the Shuttle's wing would blow a 16 inch hole in that structure as well as cracking and damaging other parts of the Shuttle's wing. For more information check out these stories from the Orlando Sentinel, Florida Today, Reuters, Spaceflight Now and The Houston Chronicle.
The Management Problem
Be sure to read this story from the Orlando Sentinel which discusses previous Shuttle missions where foam from the ET damaged the Shuttle's TPS and NASA's approach to dealing with this problem in the future.
During the Apollo 13 accident the words of Flight Director Gene Krantz, "Failure is not an option", set the tone for what NASA would do and went a long way toward getting the crew safely back to Earth. But during the flight of the Columbia things were quite different. Linda Ham, the head of the Mission Management Team, was not interested in getting better data about the result of the foam impact or coming up with a crash program to rescue the Columbia astronauts because, as she said, "I don't think there is much we can do". Read more about this shocking revelation at this report from the Washington Post and at this story from the Florida Today Web Site .
Be sure to check out this story from the Florida Today Web Site which details a long history of unresolved safety issues affecting the Shuttle.
Concerning Future Developments
For an interesting assesment of the Orbital Space Plane project, be sure to read this report by Jeffrey F. Bell. You might or might not agree with him, but his calculations certainly give you something to think about.
More information about the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) can be found here, another view about the OSP can be found here and another opinion about this project can be found here.
The Columbia Accident - On-going Coverage
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board Web Site is a good source for information about the results of the on-going investigation into the loss of the Columbia.
NASA has a web site with information about the loss of the Columbia, the on-going investigation into this accident, the crew and other related subjects.
Florida Today has a Web Site with updated coverage of the loss of the Columbia.
This NASA web page contains pictures of the crew of the Columbia along with other pictures from their mission. {Audio files from STS-107 can be found here and video files can be found here.}
You can find the Press Kit from the STS-107 mission here.
For On-Going Updates on Space News
The Reusable Launch & Space Vehicle News web site web page that is part of the Hobby Space web site is a really good place to watch for news about, well... Reusable Launch Vehicles and related subjects. I check it out just about every day and often find news there that doesn't show up anywhere else. Give it a look. {And while you're there be sure to check out some of the site's other pages. Wow! Is there a lot of information there.}
The Space Today web site is a great place to find space news from all over the 'net.
The Spaceflight Now web site carries real time information about current space missions and presents a lot of space and astronomy news. This is the place I go to when I want up to the minute information about current space missions. Do I need to say more?
The NASA Watch web site is another great place for getting information about current space missions. Check there also for news about other 'goings on' within NASA. Highly recommended.
ISS News
The Florida Today web site has a very interesting report about the causes of the ISS budget problems and their impact on the space program. It makes very interesting reading.
Click here to view the press kits for various ISS missions.
Check out the NASA International Space Station web page or the Boeing web page to learn more about this project.
A great source of news about Russian space activities, including their work on the ISS, can be found at the Russian Space Web.
Do you wonder where the Space Station is right now? You can use your browser to view real time maps showing the location of the ISS by going to this link at the NASA Space Link web site or here at the Johnson Spacecraft Center. Please note that your browser must support Java to make use of this satellite tracking software.
You can find out when the ISS - or many other spacecraft - can be seen from your location by going to this NASA web page. Please note; your browser must support Java for this application to work.
Click here for information about the audio files used for Hour 25 and for information about configuring your browser and downloading audio players.
Please note web pages from external sites will open in a separate browser window and that Hour 25 Productions are not responsible for the content of any external Web Sites.
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Return to the Index for this month's shows
On Sunday - July 13th, 2003 - our guest on Hour 25 was another one of the Grand Masters of Science Fiction, Frederik Pohl.
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Frederik Pohl is not only a Grand Master of Science Fiction, but is someone who has worked in just about every part of the field. He is well known as an author, but is equally acclaimed as an editor; having won three Nebulas and Six Hugos - some as a writer and others as an editor. He has also been an agent for many of the most well known names in Science Fiction as well as serving as editor for many magazines and anthologies. He has written about the history of Science Fiction, taught at Colleges and Universities, written non-fiction books about science and space and served as an inspiration for generations of Science Fiction readers and authors.
His background gives him insights into the world of publishing most of us will never have. Many aspiring writers view magazine editors as all powerful creatures who can make or break one's writing career by rejecting your story. But, as Fred pointed out, the magazine editor is just trying to fill his publication with stories that will induce potential readers to pick up the magazine and buy it. And if that sometimes means you have to buy and publish stories that are not quite, er... top notch, well that just means that magazine editors have to live by one unwavering rule : You can't sell many magazines that are filled with blank pages.
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Frederik Pohl has written some of the classic stories in our field and some, like The Space Merchants, have never gone out of print since they first appeared almost 50 years ago. But in a career that spans many decades Frederik is not content to rest on his laurels, and continues to produce fiction that is as fresh and new as anything being done by writers with a fraction of his experience.
It was a great pleasure when we had the chance to chat with him at the WorldCon in San Jose last fall. He had arrived a couple of hours early for his interview so he could watch his long time friend Hal Clement being interviewed and for several hours we were entranced by the stories of these two Grand Masters of Science Fiction. You got to hear Hal Clement last week. Now you'll get the chance to hear Frederik Pohl.
Enjoy.
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This is that very memorable magazine cover that we mentioned during the interview. As soon as I saw it I just had to buy the magazine and find out the story behind the picture.
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Gateway has not yet been made into a movie, but a few years ago it was made into a very satisfying computer gane.
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Metropolis - A Newly Restored Version
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Released in 1927 Fritz Lang's Metropolis was quickly recognized as a classic of the Science Fiction genre. Only later did the rest of the film community recognize its importance. The original German version of this film ran 153 minutes, but for American release it was shortened to 113 minutes. {I guess we can't totally blame MTV for American's short attention span.} Over the years the film was cut and chopped until what was left was, at best, a hint of what the director had intended.
Over the years there have been attempts at restoring this film, some good while others were restorations in name only. None of these previous restorations used the original full length orchestral score that had been written for Metropolis. Some, in fact, just slapped on whatever music they could find and didn't care that the music had nothing to do with what was happening on screen.
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But that has now changed. A newly restored version of Metropolis commissioned by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung and assembled by archivists from the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, the Munich Filmmuseum and the Deutsches Filminstitut in Wiesbaden was released in 2001 and is now available on DVD. Watching this film is a delight for the senses and your sense of wonder.
The folks who worked on this film assembled a fresh version using the best bits of film they could find, and then used digital technology to clean up the scratches and other blemishes in the now 70 year old film stock. The long faded images of this film have been brought back to their original glory and the film now looks like it was struck just yesterday from a fresh negative. In places where there was no existing film stock for missing scenes, they added brief cards to explain the missing action. And, as a delight for the ear, they have reinstated the original score by Gottfried Huppertz. {Watching this film with its intended score and comparing that experience to that of watching other versions with their 'tacked on' scores underscores the role that music plays in film.}
Watching this newly restored version of Metropolis is an experience not to be missed.
You may have seen a film called Metropolis on TV or at a convention or even on a cheap video tape or DVD. But until you have seen this newly restored version, which is being distributed by Kino Video, you haven't really seen Metropolis.
If you check out the July 2003 issue of Locus - on page 85 - you'll find a picture of Suzanne and myself at the recent BookExpo America 2003 trade show in the company of Tom Doherty and Toni Weisskopf.
Listen to this week's show
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- Click here to listen to the entire show. {2:02:22}
Or
- Click here for the show's intro music.{0:41}
- Click here for the show's opening. {26:22}
- Click here for our interview with Fred Pohl. {1:33:30}
- Click here for the show's closing.{1:49}
- Click here for an index of all Shows on our site.
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Click here if you have a problem hearing the show and you're using Internet Explorer.
If you enjoyed this show and would like to know when other interviews are uploaded to the Hour 25 web site, then send an email to me at wwjames@earthlink.net and I will add your name to the free Hour 25 Newsletter mailing list. That way you'll get a brief notice in your email every time a new show gets uploaded to the web.
The Great Hour 25 Disk Crash of 2002 - On-Going News
As a result of our recent hard disk crash the Hour 25 newsletter mailing list has vanished into the digital darkness. It would be very helpful if subscribers to the Hour 25 Newsletter would resend their email addresses to me {wwjames@earthlink.net} so I can reconstitute the Newsletter mailing list. {If you have done this "post-crash" then I have your email address and you don't need to do anything.} New editions of the newsletter will start coming out "real soon now".
In the same vein, if you previously sent in an entry for the Karen Willson Five Word Challenge, now would be a good time for you to fish around in your "sent mail" folder and resend your entry. Or come up with a new one and send it in. {And please put "Five Word Challenge" or some approximation thereof in the subject line of your email to make it easy for me to keep track of your entry.}
Links for more information relating to this week's show
Frederik Pohl
You can find out more about Frederik Pohl by viewing this Locus Interview or this scifi.com interview.
There is a Three part interview with Frederik Pohl from RoVaCon in 1988 - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 - at the Testerman Sci-Fi Site. This site has interviews with various other Golden Age authors and is quite interesting.
Be sure to check out our ConJose show for more "goings on" at the last WorldCon or our interview with Hal Clement for more stories from a Grand Master of Science Fiction.
Metropolis
The Official Fritz Lang's Metropolis Web Site is filled with information about the newly restored version of this film that is being distributed by Kino Video.
The Fritz Lang's Metropolis Web Site created by Augusto Cesar B. Areal of Brazil is wonderful compendium of information about that film and is highly recommended.
The Metropolis Connection Web Site has information about the films of Fritz Lang.
The Columbia Accident - New Postings
The Smoking Gun
Ongoing testing by NASA seems to have found the "smoking gun" in the Columbia accident. {At least as far as the technical problems go. For information about NASA's management problems, see the news item below.} Tests found that a foam impact on the leading edge of the Shuttle's wing would blow a 16 inch hole in that structure as well as cracking and damaging other parts of the Shuttle's wing. For more information check out these stories from the Orlando Sentinel, Florida Today, Reuters, Spaceflight Now and The Houston Chronicle.
The Management Problem
During the Apollo 13 accident the words of Flight Director Gene Krantz, "Failure is not an option", set the tone for what NASA would do and went a long way toward getting the crew safely back to Earth. But during the flight of the Columbia things were quite different. Linda Ham, the head of the Mission Management Team, was not interested in getting better data about the result of the foam impact or coming up with a crash program to rescue the Columbia astronauts because, as she said, "I don't think there is much we can do". Read more about this shocking revelation at this report from the Washington Post and at this story from the Florida Today Web Site .
Be sure to check out this story from the Florida Today Web Site which details a long history of unresolved safety issues affecting the Shuttle.
Concerning Future Developments
For an interesting assesment of the Orbital Space Plane project, be sure to read this report by Jeffrey F. Bell. You might or might not agree with him, but his calculations certainly give you something to think about.
More information about the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) can be found here, another view about the OSP can be found here and another opinion about this project can be found here.
The Columbia Accident - On-going Coverage
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board Web Site is a good source for information about the results of the on-going investigation into the loss of the Columbia.
NASA has a web site with information about the loss of the Columbia, the on-going investigation into this accident, the crew and other related subjects.
Florida Today has a Web Site with updated coverage of the loss of the Columbia.
This NASA web page contains pictures of the crew of the Columbia along with other pictures from their mission. {Audio files from STS-107 can be found here and video files can be found here.}
You can find the Press Kit from the STS-107 mission here.
Space News - Mars
For more information about the Mars Exploration Rovers be sure to check out the MER web Site at JPL or this Mars Rover site at Cornell University.
To learn more about the Mars Express mission you can go to this ESA Mars Express Web Site, this Mars Express Web Page from JPL, this NSSDC Mars Express Web Page, or this Web Page from Mars News.com.
For more information about the Beagle 2 Mars Lander be sure to check out the Beagle 2 Official web Site, the ESA Beagle 2 Web Page or this article about Beagle 2 from Astrobiology Magazine.
Images of the Beagle 2 landing site as seen from the Viking Orbiter and Mars Global Surveyor can be viewed here {Part 1} and here {Part 2}.
For more information about the Exploration of Mars be sure to go to the JPL Mars Exploration site, the Center for Mars Exploration at NASA Ames, or the Mars Missions Web Site at the Planetary Society.
Information about the data returned by previous Mars missions can be found at this Mars Web page at the NSSDC.
For more Mars news be sure to check out the Mars News.Com Web Site.
Percival Lowell did much to shape our ideas about Mars in the early years of the 20th Century. You can learn more about his work by reading this on-line copy of his 1895 book Mars.
Space News - Other
You can learn more about the discovery of a Solar System with characteristics similar to our own at the Astrobiology Magazine Web Site. {Note, this web page has many good links for finding out about Extra-Solar Planetary Systems.}
Information about the discovery of a planet that may be older than our Solar System can be found here.
For On-Going Updates on Space News
The Reusable Launch & Space Vehicle News web site web page that is part of the Hobby Space web site is a really good place to watch for news about, well... Reusable Launch Vehicles and related subjects. I check it out just about every day and often find news there that doesn't show up anywhere else. Give it a look. {And while you're there be sure to check out some of the site's other pages. Wow! Is there a lot of information there.}
The Space Today web site is a great place to find space news from all over the 'net.
The Spaceflight Now web site carries real time information about current space missions and presents a lot of space and astronomy news. This is the place I go to when I want up to the minute information about current space missions. Do I need to say more?
The NASA Watch web site is another great place for getting information about current space missions. Check there also for news about other 'goings on' within NASA. Highly recommended.
ISS News
The Florida Today web site has a very interesting report about the causes of the ISS budget problems and their impact on the space program. It makes very interesting reading.
Click here to view the press kits for various ISS missions.
Check out the NASA International Space Station web page or the Boeing web page to learn more about this project.
A great source of news about Russian space activities, including their work on the ISS, can be found at the Russian Space Web.
Do you wonder where the Space Station is right now? You can use your browser to view real time maps showing the location of the ISS by going to this link at the NASA Space Link web site or here at the Johnson Spacecraft Center. Please note that your browser must support Java to make use of this satellite tracking software.
You can find out when the ISS - or many other spacecraft - can be seen from your location by going to this NASA web page. Please note; your browser must support Java for this application to work.
Click here for information about the audio files used for Hour 25 and for information about configuring your browser and downloading audio players.
Please note web pages from external sites will open in a separate browser window and that Hour 25 Productions are not responsible for the content of any external Web Sites.
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