Substance vs. Style in Science Fiction

Producer Jesse Alexander just wrote up an interesting guest column on website io9 recently, (which you can read here), where he talks about a couple of subjects that I've been thinking about lately: the vast difference between substance and visual appeal of the science fiction genre, particularly in movies.

In his piece, he notes that CGI-laden blockbusters have really taken over the movie theaters over the summer season, almost completely. This past summer, we've had Terminator 4, Transformers 2, GI Joe, Star Trek, and Harry Potter all costing in the hundreds of millions of dollars to produce from beginning to end, none of which were really all that great, while the two standout movies in the SF genre were Moon and District 9, both of which cost $5 million and $30 million to create, respectively. This begs the question, as Alexander does, where did these two films succeed where the others failed.

The above films all did really well at the box office, grossing back quite a bit of money (although Terminator: Salvation did pretty poorly, but it will warrant a sequel, if the rumors are to be believed) but of everything that was released this summer, only Moon and District 9 really captured the essence of science fiction on all levels. They were wholly original, influences aside, and are the ones that have come out of this summer that will be remembered for a long time as solid entries in the genre's film side of things.

One of the things that charges are laid against is the use of CGI in films, which has become far more sophisticated and prevalent in films, especially science fiction films. I'm not totally sure that CGI is really the thing to blame here, but the effect that it has on filmmaking and the entire process. CGI is a fantastic tool for filmmakers, especially in the science fiction field. The problem comes when the glamor and expanded visual field overtakes the story in terms of importance.

For me, story is everything with a film or television show, and the Science Fiction genre is a fantastic place for any number of possible stories. There have been a number of fantastic films out there that I can put forward as an example for good storytelling: Minority Report, The Prestige, Serenity, The Fountain, Pan's Labyrinth, and of course, Moon and District 9. These movies utilized special effects throughout, but did so in a way that didn't jeopardize the story to the extent that other films might have. A couple of television shows, such as Battlestar Galactica and Firefly have followed much the same philosophy with their approaches to CGI: the visuals are placed in the film/show to support the events in the story.

My favorite example is 2005's release of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Serenity. Both films with significant fanbases, but with very different approaches to the stories. Serenity was a much smaller film, with a killer story to finish up the Firefly TV series, while Revenge of the Sith was a far more bloated and cumbersome film that cost a significant amount of money to produce. Given the financial troubles and uncertainty of the next couple of years, I would bet that that type of filmmaking will continue, but there will be a rise in films such as Moon, Serenity and District 9. Each of these films received a large amount of critical favor, and while none approached the same amount of money that these larger films pulled in, they didn't cost as much as the much larger films.

One thing about these huge CGI films that I noticed is that the ones this summer were already part of a larger storyline or franchise - there were a lot of numbers after the titles, and I have to wonder if that is part of this empty storytelling trend that Science Fiction seems to have picked up over the past couple decades. I don't mind sequels - There's a number of stories out there that I love seeing more of. But, when does a good franchise become a cash cow, with more of the same to it? Transformers was reportedly like that, even up to the director's level, where more of the same, but just more intense was better. Harry Potter has largely been like this from day one, and Star Trek wasn't all that impressive after you started thinking about it. This, to me, is a sad thing for the genre, one that I've always seen as being far more creative than most of the other genres out there, if only for the exotic subject matter.

There are a couple of things that bother me about this sort of thing, mainly that people are more than happy to take any sort of mind-numbing entertainment and expect nothing more. While this is a bit of a leap, it seems like this is a problem that extends far beyond the entertainment realm, from education to politics. Moon and District 9 worked brilliantly together this summer because they were two films that had intelligent plots, good characterization and an unconventional way of presenting the stories. Despite that, I read a number of reviews that noted that the plots didn't make sense, that there weren't enough explosions and the like. These sorts of reviews usually bother me, as they did with reviews about Lev Grossman's The Magicians, where people just didn't, or couldn't understand what the stories were about, and because they didn't like them, refused to think any more about the subject.

What I am hoping will come out of this is that smaller, cheaper, genre films will become more popular, with producers who are willing to take a little more of a gamble. The films this summer proved that filmmakers could get around expensive effects, by using models, preexisting locations and actors who might not necessarily be as well known. If there are any lessons to be learned from this summer, it is that when a good story is in place, the film can succeed toe to toe with any of the big blockbusters. For me, I'm happy that there's something out there that's a little different, a bit challenging and above all, something that makes me think about what I'm watching.

The Mighty Mini: 50 Years and Counting

Fifty years ago today, in 1959, a car arrived that changed the face of motoring, with the unveiling of the Austin 7 (sometimes as Austin SE7EN) and the Morris Minor, best known as the Mini. In that half-century, the Mini has become a popular icon in today's culture, and was ranked by car experts just behind Ford's Model T in terms of overall influence to the motor industry.

The Mini got its start initially with the Suez Crisis, when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, restricting traffic and prompting military action from Britain and France. The canal was shut down, and as a consequence, fuel prices in Great Britain rose dramatically. The British Motor Corporation (BMC) chairman, Leonard Lord, asked designer Alexander Issigonis to design a small car as soon as possible. The events of the Suez Crisis only underscored the need for such a vehicle, as it was becoming apparent that larger cars that used more fuel could become very impractical in the country.

The car had only one specification: a preexisting motor had to be used, in order to cut down on costs. Issigonis opted for several other requirements: the car had to be no longer than ten feet long, four feet high, requiring the designer to maximize space inside for passengers to be comfortable. This prompted several innovations that are now widespread in the industry. The engine was mounted sideways, in the front, which allowed for the driver and passenger in front to be as far forward as possible. The wheels were in the corners of the car, and because of the size and weight, it could go rather fast - new tires had to be designed for the vehicle. The trunk could be loaded with the tailgate down for more space. The result was a car that was small, fast, minimal and above all, fairly cheap.

Just after it's release on August 26th, 1959, the Mini's sales were, well, mini. The car didn't do very well in the market, with fairly slow sales, against the larger, more flashy cars from the United States, and consumers at the time saw a small car for a very small price, and because of that, were wary of the quality of the car, as well as its very basic approach to things. (The original cars didn't have radios, rollup windows or other things that Issigonis felt distracted from driving).

However, sales began to pick up when icons in popular culture began to buy the car. Members of the Royal family bought the Mini, as well as pop stars such as members of the Beatles and so forth. Between 1959 and 1960, production went from just under 20,000 vehicles to over 100,000, and sales increased from there. In 1961, racing car designer John Cooper collaborated with Issigonis and came up with the Mini Cooper, a racing version of the car, to much success, and a Mini Cooper S version was created in 1963.

Another element of visibility for the little car was its performance in some of the bigger races, beginning in 1963, and in 1964, with Paddy Hopkirk's victory at the Monte Carlo rally. (Incidentally, the British television show Top Gear refurbished Hopkirk's Mini Cooper S as part of a phone in vote, Restoration Ripoff a couple years ago, which speaks to the popular nature of the car.) The Mini became a contender in the racing world after that point, with its agility and speed. Top Gear did a short video on the history of British Touring Car Racing (BTC), which you can see here.

The Mini had made it's mark, and the BMC continued the car by expanding its brand in a way that really hasn't been seen with a number of other cars. In 1969, the Mini Clubman was introduced, a longer version of the Mini, while its height and wheel base remained the same. By this point, the original Mini had sold over a million units, and by 1975, it had surpassed three million units. Between the 1960s and 1980s, the original version was updated a couple more times, and several additional variations were introduced, such as the Mini Van, the Moke and the Estate, but none had the lasting appeal of the original Mini.

The Mini was built through the 1990s, when it was phased out in the year 2000. In 2001, BMW brought back the Mini under the moniker, MINI, with a Mini One, Mini Cooper and Mini Cooper S, to great success. In the years since, the company has reintroduced the Mini Clubman, and today, on its 50th birthday, unveiled a Mini Coupe Concept, which you can see here. There is an additional version in the works, set to be released sometime next year, called the Mini Countryman or Crossover.

In 1969 the Mini Cooper's enduring influence in popular culture was further cemented with the release of The Italian Job, starring Michael Caine and Noël Coward. The film is centered around a gold heist by a group of thieves, who use a trio of Mini Coopers as an integral part of the heist. The cars were the true stars of the film, with one of the best car chases that I've ever seen. The cars were used once again in the movie The Bourne Identity, with another exciting car chase. With the introduction of the new Mini Cooper to the public, a remake of The Italian Job, featuring the updated Mini Coopers, was released in 2003, and was the highest grossing film for Paramount Pictures in that year. Once again, the Mini Coopers were the stars of the film. A Rebel Without Pause, a short film done by BMW looks into the popular culture aspect of the Mini.

This is where I was introduced to the Mini Cooper, and I remember pretty clearly when I first fell in love with the car. I was in my 3rd or 4th year of working at YMCA Camp Abnaki, and on a weekend trip, I caught a ride in with a group to the theaters, where I saw the Italian Job. The Minis were spunky, quirky and fast, very different than the car that you see every day. I remember thinking: I want one of those cars. Over the next couple of years, I looked at them off and on, until last fall, when I somehow got onto a website selling them, jotted down figures and decided that I could afford a new car to replace my other one. Things were starting to go wrong with that one, and the time was good. I went out and after test-driving a couple, I found my own one, and bought it that weekend, learning to drive a manual transmission along the way.

One of the things that I'm most impressed with, looking over the history of the Mini, is the appeal to popular culture that the car has endured over the years. It has been part of movies, of celebrities and races, and it turns heads where ever it goes. The interesting thing that I see is that Mini has become a brand, something that hasn't really been done with a number of cars. There is an enduring Mini-look that is easily adapted to other vehicles, such as the Clubman, the Countryman, Traveler, pickup, Cooper, etc. This helped with the re-launch of the brand, which has made it so popular in recent years. When I drive along, I see other Mini drivers who wave, and the like, which is something that the company has capitalized on with their marketing, and far beyond just building a car, have built an entire community of people who have something in common. That sounds a bit dopey, honestly, but it's true - I've never felt any sort of connection to fellow Chevy Prism or Toyota Camry owners, that I have with the Mini.

I absolutely love my car, as I've written about before. The entire experience of driving it differs from anything that I've driven before, and I often will break out into a grin when I'm driving along. I love throwing Maxine into corners at speed, accelerating along straits and simply enjoying owning a car. I don't believe that a car should be boring, or simply just to go from point A to B during commutes. That just seems dull, and that just seems like a waste.

Happy Birthday Mini. Here's to another 50 years.

Major William Wells

Earlier this month, I travelled down to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with two of our instructors, Dr. John Votaw and Dr. John Broom to prepare for an upcoming MMH program that we will be conducting a year from now. In the past couple of years, we've done two staff rides to Fredericksburg, to examine the Overland Campaign of the American Civil War.

A staff ride, briefly, is a sort of glorified fieldtrip that has been utilized by the armed forces for over a hundred years. Students travel to the battlefield, with a small amount of background preparation, and examine, from where events happened, how any given battle progressed, and look to the reasons for why battlefield commanders made the decisions that they do. The level of information that students can glean from this type of experiential learning - something, I might add, that was encouraged by Norwich University's founder, Alden Partridge - is immense, and I found that when I participated on one in Normandy, France, I gained a far better feel for just how and why the actions of the invasion happened the way that they did.

Travelling to Gettysburg will likely do all of this for those who participate. I myself learned much about the battlefield and the events that happened in July of 1863. For me, the Civil War was a major point in U.S. History, and I could tell you about the reasons behind the conflict, but very little about the actual battle, or its significance in the larger context of the war. Happily, this trip cured me of my ignorance, and brought about a couple of other surprises.

On Confederate Avenue, near Big Round Top, on our first day, we stopped at a statue of a man with a drawn sword - not a necessarily uncommon sight on a battlefield littered with memorials - memorializing the exploits of the First Regiment of the Vermont Cavalry. The man is Major William Wells, who participated in an ill-advised cavalry charge. After returning home, and looking over the pictures that I took, I began to look more into this one man.

The charge occurred on the 3rd of July, the last day of the battle, in the early evening. Wells was in command of the 2nd Battalion, and rode alongside General Farnsworth through the woods, where they made contact with the 4th Alabama Infantry and the 9th Georgia Infantry, and when they turned, ran into the 15th Alabama infantry. During the fighting that ensured, General Farnsworth was shot and killed, leaving Wells in charge of the battalion. He led his men to safety, and for his heroic actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor. Wells would continue to serve in the Union army throughout the rest of the war. Later that month, he was wounded at Boonsboro, Maryland, and again in September at Culpeper Courthouse in Virginia. By 1864, he was in command of the First Vermont Cavalry, and participated in the Shenandoah Valley campaign, and would eventually take command of the brigade and 3rd Division, and stayed with the Army until 1866, when he returned back to Vermont. Over the course of the Civil War, he had managed a successful career within the military, beginning as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1861 when the FVC was raised, to the rank of Major by the time of the Gettysburg battle, and was commissioned as a Brigadier General in May of 1865, based on recommendations from General Sheridan and General Custer.

The story doesn't end there, however. Upon his return to Vermont, Wells forged a successful business career in the state, managing a pharmaceutical company until 1872, when he was appointed customs collector for the state of Vermont by President Grant, and would return to his company, Wells, Richardson & Co. in 1885, as well as becoming the president of several other companies, such as the Burlington Trust Company, Burlington Gas Light Company and the Board of Trade for the city. He also became the director of the Rutland Railroad and the Champlain Transportation Company.

From 1865, he served in the state legislature, representing his hometown of Waterbury, and in 1866, he was elected by that body to serve as Vermont's adjunct and inspector general for the next 13 years. As Adjunct General, on July 13th, 1871, Wells travelled to Northfield Vermont, where he inspected the Corps of Cadets at 3 pm for their commencement. While this is the only reference that I could find of Well's interactions with the University, I suspect, that given his position and military record, as well as his proximity to the school, that he would have visited on other occasions as well. In 1892, Wells passed away suddenly at the age of 54, and was eulogized by the Burlington Free Press as "one of [Burlington's] foremost citizens and the State of Vermont one its worthiest, best known and universally respected citizens."

In 1913, with money raised by the state of Vermont, a monument to the First Vermont Cavalry, with Wells at the top, located near where his unit operated during the battle. With veterans of the battle present, the statue was dedicated on July 3rd, with the dedication read by Horatio Nelson Jackson (the first man to cross the United States in a car, and Well's son-in-law), and various dignitaries spoke throughout the day. A year later, a sister statue of Wells was unveiled in Burlington, Vermont's Battery Park to similar fanfare.

This is a bit of a divergence from Gettysburg, but I was interested to find the connection to the State of Vermont, and to some extent, to Norwich University through this one, remarkable figure in Vermont history. While Norwich University certainly played its part in the battle (there is a book, called By The Blood Of Our Alumni: Norwich University Citizen Soldiers In The Army Of The Potomac, 1861-1865, by Robert Poirier, which deals extensively with that subject), it is the smaller stories that require a bit of digging that makes the connection all the more worthwhile. Undoubtably, Wells will be something to stop at a year from now, when we travel to the battlefields once again.

Sources: David F. Cross, A Tale of Two Statues: The William Wells Status at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and Burlington, Vermont. Vermont History 73 (Winter Spring 2005), William A. Ellis, Norwich University, 1819-1911: Her History, Her Graduates, Her Roll Of Honor, V. 1., Google Books, accessed August 24, 2009, Page 170, William Wells Statue Inscription, Gettysburg, PA.

DONE

I just turned in my final paper, The Military Roots of Spaceflight and the Symbolization of the Cold War Arms Race, coming in at 11,220 words, 38 pages. I'm done, done, DONE with Grad School!*

*Provided I don't have this kicked back to me with more edits. Still, it's more substancial than my last draft, better worded and with more information that's far better organized.

Of Mice and Mobile Armored Assault Platforms

A number of websites have begun to herald a change in the science fiction genre recently, with the recent releases of Moon and District 9 earlier this summer. I was a huge fan of Moon - I thought that it was an absolutely fantastic film, one that captured the essence of the entire genre in wonderful fashion. However, District 9 is a worthy companion for Moon this summer.

Where Moon was quiet, sterile and patient, District 9 is much of the opposite. Taking place sometime around the present, the world has lived with the presence of an alien race on the planet for nearly two decades, when a massive alien ship appears over South Africa. Inside is millions of insectoid aliens, sick, dying and weakened, who are transported down to the surface, where they are first put into temporary shelters until a suitable place can be found for them. This never happens, so a slum of sorts is formed, District 9.

When the story picks up, tensions have risen in the last twenty years, so the aliens (referred to as Prawns) are being relocated to a new home - District 10. A private security company, Multi-National United, seems to have been placed in charge of their protection and keeping, and is working on evicting the aliens to their new home. An MNU employee, Wikus van der Merwe, portrayed by actor Sharlto Copley, is promoted to command the field units in charge of relocating the aliens. During the course of the day, Wikus is sprayed with a fluid by mistake, which begins a process of mutations that blends human and prawn DNA. Thus begins a nightmare for Wikus, who is in turn hunted by Nigerian gangsters and MNU security forces, who both want to study him in order to utilize the alien's weapons.

The film is shot in a very unconventional manner, partially handheld camera work, security cameras, news footage, which gives the entire film a very raw and rapid feel throughout, which really suits the tone and style of the film, and gives it a unique look and feel. The director, Neill Blomkamp, is a first time-director for a film of this scale, although he was initially attached to the now-defunct Halo film (and I think that he would be the perfect director for the project, when it comes back).

Another element that really succeeds from this film is the portrayal of the aliens. For once, aliens are truly alien, not just humans with a different appearance. The Prawns are insectoids, with a vastly different understanding of society, and the differences in cultural norms is what seems to drive much of the conflict - different values, such as property and personal possession seem to be relatively unknown elements to the aliens, and this leads to incidents. Their awareness of the surrounding events seems to be limited as well, with some exceptions, which makes them very easy to take advantage of, as MNU seems wont to do. The aliens here aren't saviors, superior or anything like that, they're just alien.

In a similarity with Moon, a big storyline with the film is Multinational United, the security firm that has more corporate motives that surpass what is ethical or moral. In Moon, the company would just clone its worker, Sam Bell. In this film, they go a step further, experimenting with Prawns to attempt to utilize their energy weapons and technology. When Wikus is transformed, one executive notes that his one body will be worth billions to the company, and they go about vivisecting him before he escapes. Corporate greed and corruption seems to be an especially powerful theme these days, with companies such as Enron, Blackwater and bailed out banks still making the news.

But what really makes the film is Wikus. He is as unconventional a main character as I've ever seen. When we first see him, he is a small, quiet man being interviewed by an unseen camera man. He stumbles over his words, fiddles with objects and is easily distractible, and seems as surprised as everyone else in the room when it is announced that he will be in charge of the field operations of the mission. He reminds me of one of the characters from Monty Python, a clueless husband who doesn't realize that his beautiful wife is having sex with the marriage counselor in the same room while having a meeting. He is, essentially a mouse in a much larger world. This is evidently seen when he comes across one of the special operations teams, and butts heads with its leader, who shoves him out of the way.

With his accident, there is an emotional, as well as a physical and physiological change within him. As he is infected with the fluid that transforms him (and thus making him a target), Wikus is forced to go on the run and go against everything that he's known. While in a position of authority over the Prawns, he is essentially xenophobic, condescending and racist towards the aliens, but without any real intent - he operates as he always has, as he's always known. His dismissal of the aliens is casual, because that's what's expected of him. During and after his physical transformation, Wikus is thrust into a role that he never asked for, and never wanted. Chased by members of the criminal underworld and his own company, he seeks refuge in the only place that becomes available to him - District 9. He allys himself with the scientist who had the fluid in the first place, who, as it turns out, is attempting to leave the planet, and the fluid was a necessary component of his ship. The story progresses logically from here - faced with this need, the two pair up and liberate the fluid from MNU, and the action picks up.

Wikus's story is not necessarily the singular purpose of the film. Throughout, there is a much darker, and highly relevant theme of racism that really puts the film on the map. In the opening of the film, there is a sequence of events that turns the public tide against the aliens. All too often, the presence of extra-terrestrials visiting humanity have a dramatic effect - they are either invading, or they are here for humanity's rescue. In this instance, they are neither, and because of this, they are not wanted, by anyone. One person in the film says that if they were from a different country, it might be different, but they were from another world. In essence, this is an immigration issue of very different proportions, but an immigration issue none-the-less, and it is fascinating that this film came out of South Africa, which has so recently dealt with apartheid. Around the world, this film can come to represent the plight of immigrants. I can see people in Palestine, South Africa, the American southwest and numerous other places around the world relating to this sort of film, or at least gleaning some message from it.

I'm at a loss to see how this film was made for only $30 million dollars. It carries itself with a much more sophisticated and good looking appearance, from the complicated CGI of the aliens to the action scenes. This has the feel of a much larger movie, and I honestly hope that this film, along with Moon, will be the start of a much bigger trend towards more original science fiction on a smaller budget. What Blomkamp has done is put together a superior movie, blending the best in character development, overall message and unconventional storytelling that really makes District 9 a tribute to the genre. Like Moon, it takes common themes and turns them on their heads, creating a different movie, and because of that, we have a film that will no doubt be looked upon as a fantastic addition to Science Fiction.

Review: The Magicians

Within the fandom genre, I consider myself a fan of Science Fiction over Fantasy. I'm more intrigued in the sheer variety that Science Fiction presents itself with as well as the notion of humanity (or whatever other race portrayed in any given story) pulling itself up on its own two feet with empirical science. Yet, I find myself coming back, time and again, to fantasy works for the absolute sense of escapism and wonder that I often feel with the books that I pick up. I tend to be particularly picky with fantasy books because it is very rare that a fantasy book will evoke some sort of feeling like that from me.

It is because it didn't do this, I think, is what I really liked from Lev Grossman's latest novel, The Magicians. In this fantastic addition to the fantasy genre, Grossman puts together a book that is radically different than just about every other fantasy novel out there, breaking a lot of the very common elements that seem to define the fantasy genre. On a first glance, The Magicians doesn't seem to be very different from any number of well known fantasy books. A boy in his teens is brought to a magical academy, where he learns the various arts of magic, in a school that is hidden from the rest of the world. Without presupposition, anyone would immediately label this as any part of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Within the modern day world that Grossman puts together, Quentin, our protagonist, and his friends, are fans of the Fillory series that sees a family of children stumble into a magical world where they often help to fight for good and right in an epic quest. Again, someone would identify this plot as that of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. While this book certainly has been influenced by these, and more - J.R.R Tolkien's epic The Lord of the Rings is mentioned a couple of times, not to mention the game Dungeons and Dragons, it cleverly turns many of the ideas and themes that defined these pillars of the fantasy genre on their heads.

Grossman's fantasy world is no different than our own. This story takes place largely in our world, with the normal staples referenced for proper placement, but with a side world of magic. Unlike the ridiculously cartoonish version that J.K. Rowling presents (which, even as a fanboying 13 year old, never made sense to me), Grossman's alternative world functions in much the same way - magic is dull, time consuming and work. The people who study at colleges for magic study (such as Brakebills, in New York), graduate and enter the dull working world and fail to see that their lives have become essentially meaningless. There is a fantastic quote in the book that stuck with me:

"This wasn't Fillory, where there was some magical war to be fought. There was no Watcherwoman to be rooted out, no great evil to be vanquished and without that everything seemed so mundane and penny-ante. No one would come out and say it, but the world wide magical community was suffering from a serious imbalance: too many magicians and not enough monsters." (Grossman, 210)

What Grossman has essentially done, was insert real life into fantasy. The mundane aspects are there, but along with that is the cynicism and skeptical nature that one feels for life the more you learn from it. This book comes at a particularly interesting point in my own life where I find the text to be highly relatable. We enter college and expect to change the world, only to find that real life is far more dull than anybody bothered to tell us. The Magicians carries with it a resentful, sullen approach to fantasy, something completely contrary to the grand themes that most fantasy novels portray. Indeed, the main action and villain in the book hardly appear at all; just once early on, and in the last quarter of the book, when the characters stumble upon their quest. Even then, their quest is not a noble one, it is scattered, disorganized and brutal, where they turn out to be pawns in a far larger story that helps to tie the entire book together.

There are other elements to fantasy that Grossman stumbles upon that seems to be largely untried ground, at least with some modern works, the effects of magic and power upon a magician. While books such as Lord of the Rings look to the corrupting influence of power, Grossman expands this a bit and utilizes the theme throughout the story. His characters are unhappy creatures through most of the book, and one character hits it right on the head when they note that magicians are different because they are in pain, and from that pain comes the willpower and drive to succeed and make magic. Another character looks back towards the end of the book and wonders at the sheer power that the students are exposed to so early on, and speculates as to just what type of influence that would have upon them. But, for all the corrupting influences that magic might have upon its users, it is clear by the end of the book, when Quentin has retreated from its teachings, that there is still an irresistible pull and wonder to it that makes it hard to walk away from.

I like this approach to a story, changing the entire focus. In essence, it is Harry Potter, grown up. When I first read Rowling's series, I was in the middle of high school, and couldn't have made any critical points about the book if my life had depended upon it. Now, it is as if those major elements have undergone the same sort of transformation and growth that I've gone through in the past decade or so since I first read the books. Grossman's fantasy is darker, far more adult and much more interesting from a storytelling perspective, I think, than all of Rowling's series put together.

Reading over other reviews of this book, I can see a number of critics and reader who just don't get the purpose of the book. While it does appear to be very similar to the aforementioned Harry Potter and Narnia series (there is no way to escape comparisons here), it is the themes and tone that sets this book far apart from them. The Magicians presents a far more realistic setting in a fantasy world, because that suits the characters, casting away the usual black and white morality with one that is far more gray. There are few clear cut moral resolutions here. Every character is damaged in their own way - Quentin, tired of life from early on, Alice, who has grown up with parents who are unable to see their meaningless purposes in life, Penny, who is so standoffish that he is an outsider, Janet, who is so consumed with herself that she must be the center of all problems and Eliot who is consumed with greed and lust. Throughout, the characters are often confronted not with a clear and present danger, but with the simple problem of finding their way in the world as role models and loved ones let each other down, or as childhood standbys turn out to be far more than they appear, such as what happens with the Fillory series within the book.

The Magicians is a thoughtful, interesting and dark read. Like his predecessors in the genre, Grossman has put together a highly imaginative and creative tale. While I often turn to fantasy because of its escapism, I was absolutely enraptured with its view of the modern world through a slightly different lens, one that I can not only relate to, but agree with almost completely. While I'm usually a Science Fiction fan, this book completely captivated me throughout, and is likely going to be on my list of top fantasy works.

I Think I'm A Clone Now

So, it's finally come to pass. My clone trooper is now, officially done. Earlier today, I found that the suit is 501st approved, almost a full year in the making.

This has been a far more troublesome, difficult and rewarding project over the past 12 months. A year ago next week, I decided to purchase an armor kit, with the intent to finish up a workable Clone Trooper by the time that the movie came out. Obviously, the project has been far more time consuming than I thought, and over the build period, I've gained a far different appreciation for armor and the 501st.

Armor making is hard stuff. I didn't even make the armor, I just got a rough kit. But even there, there was a lot of things that went into this. The armor needed to be trimmed. A helmet was built, then rejected and replaced. There was much gluing, then painting. Deadlines were pushed back, and I've shaved years off of my life, no doubt, because of the paint, glue and bondo fumes. Then the approval process, where numerous tweaks were needed, and the regular maintainence and improvements will undoubtably continue for some time.

Still, it was a worthwhile project. It kept my mind off of things when I had a rough year, and I'm ultimately very proud of the thing that I've put together, and I'm grateful at the praise that I've recieved for it at troops from other troopers, but also from the people who see me in the street with it on. The next step will most likely be converting the entire guy over to Commander Bly, but I don't know when that will happen.

See the entire progress here.

Summer Weddings & Growing Up

This year has been particularly weird for me, when I was asked to be the best man for my two best friends, Sam and Eric, for their respective weddings, this summer. It's not weird that they're getting married - I wholeheartedly approve of their wifes, Miranda and Marla, respectively, but I'm a little more weirded out at how this helps to point out that we're all growing up. Maybe growing up isn't necessarily the right word - we're all adults now, thrust into postitions within the working world, and we've since scattered to the wind after high school and college to our careers, lives and hobbies in our own corners of the planet.

While at Eric's wedding, I talked with a couple of friends from high school for the first time in years. I've only really kept in touch with two friends from Harwood, a larger number from college, but there is very little looking back, or effort beyond things such as Facebook, to keep in touch with people. I see what a lot of my former classmates are up to, but I rarely engage with them in any meaningful sort of conversation. I think that's good and bad, honestly. There's very few people who I want to keep in touch with from high school, and as the years go on, (Six already!) we've all changed a lot. Some people, from what I've heard, have essentially moved from student to parent, something that continually baffles me. Others have gone on to travel to other countries and do some pretty cool things.

It's a very strange feeling, looking back at my education and realizing that I'm largely out of that stage of my life, and realizing just how little high school prepared me for this sort of thing. All of my social interactions have changed with my personality and mannerisms as I've grown older, largely formed while in college, but there was just so much crap that I didn't need or have any use for, and from everything that I read and hear about, it's largely the same everywhere else. There's been very little that's prepared me for 'real life', it would seem.

I'm very happy for my friends, I think that they're embarking on some very good places in life, but jesus. We're grown up! When did that happen, because nobody told me.

Book Review: Explorers House

While growing up, a staple around my family's house was the National Geographic Magazine. I have many fond memories of paging through the magazines throughout the years, for the fantastic pictures from all around the world as well as their fantastic maps that seemed to come with every issue. Even to this day, I refuse to throw out any copies that I come across. Indeed, I have a large box in the bottom of my closest of back issues, with a handful from the early 1960s, a couple from the mid-1990s and some from the past decade. The National Geographic is a wonderful magazine, one that has both inspired and opened my eyes to the world.

This made the most recent book that I've finished, Explorers House: National Geographic and the World It Made, by Robert Poole, such a fun read over the past month. Chronicling the history of the organization, Poole examines the chain of events that helped to shape the iconic, yellow bordered magazine over the past century or so that it has been around.

In 1888, a group of men gathered in the Cosmos Club in Lafayette Square in Washington DC to organize a group that would foster knowledge, geography and an understanding of the world to members, and in doing so, launched one of the greatest organizations that has ever existed. After a short meeting in which the Society's name and bylaws were created, the group began to meet regularly, where they would host speakers, moving from place to place. The official magazine was commissioned later in that year, a collection of maps, charts and articles, and was irregularly published for the first couple of years.

Things turned around for the struggling group in 1899, when Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the Telephone, along with Edwin Grosvenor, who would take on the Society and work to expand it far beyond its origins in Washington DC. The Bells and the Grosvenors would become dynasties throughout the magazine's history, to the point where Gilbert Grosvenor, part of the fifth generation involved with the Society, is still the head of the board of directors. Poole moves through the history of the magazine largely focusing on the intertwined nature of the Grosevnor family and the National Geographic magazine, charting its rather colored and spectacular history, examining all aspects in concise, and at times, somewhat am apologetic manner, especially during eras where magazine articles reinforce racism or anti-semitism at various points throughout.

What is most remarkable is the changes that the magazine has undergone, and how it was an exemplary medium from the start. The magazine is only the most visible part of the Society, which issues grants for scientific and exploration endeavours, as well as working to educate about the world around us. The Magazine, which went from a small part of the Society, became a much more important part of the Society's growth over the years, introducing pictures, and through it, the rest of the world to the United States through the efforts of its reporters and photographers. Photography is what the magazine is known for, and this is indeed a great focus of the book, which notes how the magazine changed as technology improved. As new editors and overseers of the Society came and went for the magazine, each seemed to leave a lasting impression on the magazine, through the style of writing and reporting, photography and overall outlook for the magazine, which garnered millions of subscribers because of its quality reporting and photographs.

Going back over some of the earlier issues that I have stashed away is absolutely fascinating, especially when compared to the more current issues. The writing style of the ones from the 1960s tend to be in more depth, longer, written in the first person and tends to be far more upbeat in topic, while newer issues take on a far more critical look at the world around us, examining conflicts and problems around the world in shorter, more report-like articles. One thing that has remained constant between them is the stellar photography that helps to reveal the world.

Explorer's House is a fantastic read about a fantastic organization, one that has touched many points in history, from the discovery of the North Pole, the first ascent up Mount Everest, the first man on the Moon and almost everything in between. With magazines and newspapers around the world seeing drops in readership and advertising revenue with the introduction of new media, it will be a hard time for the magazine, but I for one am inspired to resubscribe after lapsing for years.

This Is My Bookshelf

I bought a new bookshelf today to help accomodate the vast overflow of books that I've accumulated during the past year and a half at my apartment. Since I've moved in, I've aquired a couple hundred new books in all numbers of genres. I had a number of piles, then towers of books springing up in very strange places all over my apartment, and the time was needed to find them a new home. A trip to Staples later, and I found such a home, a five-shelf, seven foot tall tower bookshelf. After a little construction, it was up and running, and a couple hours later, it became home to all of my history, biography, geek, science and space books, all now proudly on display. The piles are now gone, and the remaining shelves have been freed up a little, so I'm not too afraid of them bursting apart any more under the stress of overburdened shelves.

I love books. I can't say why or how, really, but looking at my new shelf, now neatly organized by genre, then by author and title, I've found myself sitting and letting my eyes wander across the titles and the brightly coloured spines. There's one about the 82nd Airborne in Normandy, the British Military during the Victorian era, the Spitfire aircraft, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, the Paris 1919 peace conference, Kit Carson, the origins of the US Navy, Smallpox, comic comic books, Isaac Asimov, Roy Chapman Andrews, Apollo 13, Dwight Eisenhower, Salt, the Falklands and on and on. At my fingertips is a thousand journeys, stories and personalities, bound together with some paper, glue and ink, almost beckoning me to discover something new.

I suppose that there is a pretentious nature to this display, and I'm okay with that. Some people deck out their cars with the finest of accessories or toys or mud, while others display their degrees on the wall. I guess I want to demonstrate that I'm well read, versed in a number of different fields, eras of history, people, concepts or opinions, while still realizing that I haven't read all of these. My own journey is one of learning, and looking at this shelf, I can see that there's still a lot of distance to go there.

My main concern right now is that after all of the books have been settled in their proper place, shifted back and forth, there's no more space left for the inevitable next couple hundred books that will be coming through the door to join them.

Review: Moon

Moon, the debut film by Duncan Jones, starring Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell and Kevin Spacey as Gerty, is a masterpiece of science fiction, one that is likely to achieve cult status very quickly amongst the fans of the genre. While it's only on limited release, Moon is a movie that is well worth making the time to go watch it.

Set at some point in the near future, humanity has returned to the Moon, for the plausible explanation that extensive mining operations will spell the end of most of Earth's energy problems in the form of Helium 3. Sam Bell is the sole miner on one of Lunar Industries outposts on the far side of the moon. Because of a communications error, Sam has been isolated for his entire time on the station. At the opening of the film, he is two weeks away from his return to earth, when an accident leaves him injured, when another Sam Bell appears. With this turn of events, the pair realize just what their lives are, and mean in the greater scheme of things.

The trailer, unfortunately, gives away much of what this film is, and from early reports about the plot and visuals, I was able to guess pretty much the major plot points and reveal - Sam Bell is in fact a clone, and the memories of his life back on earth are all nothing but fabrications, or copies of the original Sam Bell. While the story doesn't come off as a wholly original one, the execution alone is what turns this story into something far more interesting.

What I found the most interesting is the calm indifference to the news of their origins that both Sams (let's call the first one Alpha and the second one Bravo) feel when they come to the realization that neither is a figment of the other's imagination - there's a far more level of realism there, for people coming from a futuristic world where elements such as cloning aren't out of the realm of possibilities.

Furthermore, while the film harkens back to other films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, the plot doesn't focus so much on the greater moralistic issues around the story, such as cloning, artificial intelligence, or some of the other, lofty grand ideas that other classics might have looked to, but it takes these elements in stride, looking more towards the ethics of a major corporation, in this case, Lunar Industries, and the human side to the story. Rockwell plays a fantastic set of characters in the two Sam Bells - Alpha is lonely, tired, dying and crazy, while Bravo is young, vital and temperamental. Easily the best scenes are when the two interact, the same person, but two different people. Their reactions upon realizing just who they are absolutely brilliant, with an entire range of emotions, from anguish to anger, and this is where the film excels the most.

There is a subtle element to the storyline about Lunar Industries and their moral stance towards their workers that largely takes a back seat to the primary storyline of Sam Alpha and Bravo. Towards the end of the film, Gerty says that the two of them (himself and a third, recently revived clone, Charlie) will be back to their regular programming, where Bravo same counters: "We're not programs, Gerty, we're people." This is a profound and defining moment for this storyline, and it's something that really resounds with me when it comes to themes within science fiction. In the past couple of years, the broad themes of science fiction have shifted. During the Golden Era of SF, the 60s and 70s, there was a predominant trend (from my observations) of stories that involved an individual against a government, which tended to be the faceless antagonist. In more recent years, there seems to be far less vilification of a government, with more towards larger corporations being more of a target. Entities such as this seem to control people, viewing them far more as parts of a machine or system than as the individual people that they are. In this case, this element is brought to the extreme, where people are packaged up and replaced as needed on these mining stations.

Visually, the film is stunning, looking back to films such as 2001 for a quiet, calm, minimalist look at the future. There is a very retro, but realistic and practical feel to all of the sets, from the rovers to the mining base, which is something that I've longed to see in science fiction films of late. But while these elements are absolutely fantastic, they help to drive home a vital point when it comes to science fiction - the story is the primary element of any such film. Unlike films that are likely to gross millions of dollars, such as Terminator, Star Trek and Transformers this year, Moon is soft spoken, relying on models and physical sets, which help to supplement the story, rather than drive it. This is a lesson that far too few directors and studios are taking to heart nowadays, it would seem, relying far more on the glamour and excitement than on the story, and it shows. Moon is a film that is going to be remembered for years to come, because of its timeless feel and nature brought on by the story, rather than something else that is going to simply be known for its box office totals.

The last element that makes this movie really click is Clint Mansell's fantastic soundtrack. With films such as Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain under his belt for notable genre scores, Moon's soundtrack is a little overwhelming at times, but wonderful all the same, with a simply stunning opening track that is followed by several others that absolutely nail the feel of the film, and stands alone in its own right.

In short, Moon is a film that is Science Fiction at its best, and shows that this is the sort of movie that we need to see in the genre far more than we do. It is very rare indeed to come across a film in the SF/F genre nowadays that is truly original (homage aside) but that also provides a thoughtful and interesting story. Moon is the sort of film that needs to be made and seen far more often then it is.

Rant: Montpelier Drivers

I love driving. I love it a lot, despite the slightly more frequent fuel ups - it's about $30 to fill up my car - and the annoying price of insurance in Vermont with my type of car. However, there are elements to driving that I'm not thrilled with, namely, other drivers from Montpelier, VT.

As a population, they need a re-education when it comes to driving their eco-boxes (As Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear and the UK Times calls the Prius and other hybrids). The amount of problems that I've come across lately is just annoying, and while I don't know if it's just Montpelier drivers, I do know that it's incredibly annoying.

• While entering traffic, please look both ways before just driving into a lane. While there might be a small gap, you're most likely crap at figuring out the timing that's required to enter that gap. Most likely, it's not big enough.
• Turn Signals are used to indicate when you're changing direction, entering a new lane or a new street. Slowing down to five miles per hour a hundred feet from where you're going to turn just pisses off the driver behind you.
• There is a posted speed limit in Montpelier. Within the town, it's 25 MPH. Stick to that, because the people behind you have places to be.
• Plan ahead and know where you're going. Don't slow down and turn on your turn signal every intersection because your girlfriend thinks this street might be the right one. Don't even think about waving your hand around in a WTF gesture when I honk at you.
• When at a stop light, please keep an eye on the signal to see when it turns green. When it turns green, go, especially when there is a line behind you.
• If said signal is a red, you're intending on turning right and there is no cars coming at all, please take a right on red. It'll keep traffic moving.

I much prefer driving on B roads than I do in the city, although larger cities are fun to drive in. While in a city, what I've found is that there's a couple of priorities that drivers should take - safety of their own person and vehicle, safety of the others around them, and to ensure that traffic flows smoothly as a unit. You're not the only person on the road, you're surrounded by other people, and any actions that you take will inevitably cause reactions down the road, such as stopping suddenly, not starting off, or being efficient with your driving habits.

“Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars.”

Air Canada says it has accepted 2300 reservations for flights to the Moon in the past 5 days. - Cape Canaveral, July 24th, 1969, in the morning news report to the crew of Apollo 11.

After the successful launch, journey and lunar landing, Apollo 11 safely touched down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24th, 1969, the final successful note to one of the greatest adventures in human history. Apollo 11 was the touchstone of the entire space program, and on that day, the three astronauts on board, and the entire NASA workforce fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's mandate that had been issued eight years ago. Man had landed on the moon, and returned safely to earth, with five months to spare. Between 1969 and 1972, NASA sent six additional missions to the moon, one of which ultimately failed. On December 14th, 1972, Astronaut Gene Cernan became the last human being to set foot on the moon.

In the thirty-seven years since we last stepped on another worldly body, we have yet to break out of lunar orbit, despite the fantastic momentum that had been built up in the years preceding the Apollo program, and bringing the constant question: When will we return?

There are two major reasons for the lack of further lunar missions, one folding into the other. The first is the very nature of Kennedy's mandate. We would go to the moon, land there and return safely by the end of the decade. As far as a mission goes, it translates well into the American public - there is a where and a when, and that was it. Following the Apollo 11 mission, public interest in the lunar missions waned to the point where major news networks refused to air the crew's broadcast during Apollo 13. Far fewer people took interest in the later missions, and the planned missions for Apollo 18, 19 and 20 were scrapped, despite having the hardware, crews and support staff in place.

This lack of interest, and extra hardware moved NASA to a different direction. In 1972, preliminary funding for the Space Shuttle orbiter was announced, and in 1973, Skylab, the US's first space station, was launched, the result of the Apollo Applications Program, which was designed to modify Apollo hardware to fit other uses. With the launch of Skylab, and the move towards orbital shuttles, NASA transitioned from an agency designed to break barriers and explore new ground (figuratively) to one that was designed towards scientific endeavor and research. This mode of thinking provides an impossible environment for the planning of the types of missions that lunar or even eventually, Martian missions require.

Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were carried out in a highly logical, stepping-stones manner that allowed us to reach the moon. Unfortunately, it did not allow for us to continue returning to the moon after the initial missions were carried out. An Apollo-type program is needed for our eventual return - new rockets are under construction, as well as a new lander and spacecraft, with the intention to return to the lunar surface by 2019 with the Orion 15 mission.

What is lacking is the proper environment in which space travel and lunar missions can thrive. We reached the moon because we were attempting to beat the Russians to the surface, ending the Space Race readily. It was competition, with a sense of national pride and honor at stake that allowed for the massive budget and organization that allowed NASA to go to the moon. Now, with things such as healthcare, terrorism and other major national issues crowding the legislative agenda, there is little desire to go to the moon, it would seem, as there are pressing matters here on earth to do.

I'm often skeptical of such assertions. While yes, a lunar mission is a costly affair, (the Apollo project cost $135 billion, adjusted), the current war in Iraq has cost $669 Billion dollars. That sort of money could easily be used to spend on health care, paying down the national debt and other notable things, but it is the projects such as this that make the United States what it is, and provides a reason for people to continue to imagine, and to provide something absolutely splendid for the country to point at and look upon with pride. Apollo was an absolutely stunning national achievement, one that makes everything that we do worth living for, and to defend.

We will return to the moon, and we will eventually travel to Mars, to Io, and Titan, whether brought there by NASA or by private enterprise, but it is within human nature to travel and to explore.

Moon Retrospectives

For a couple additional retrospectives, TOR.com has a number of Science Fiction authors who remember the anniversary:

Teresa Nielsen Hayden Kage Baker Ben Bova L.E. Modesitt, Jr. Geoffrey A. Landis Robert Silverberg Robert J. Sawyer Rudy Rucker Harry Harrison Michael Swanwick David Weber Joe Haldeman Jeffrey A. Carver Charles Stross Larry Niven C.J. Cherryh Jo Walton David Brin

It Was Beautiful from Here, Tranquility

Hey Houston, that may have seemed like a very long final phase. The AUTO targeting was taking us right into a football-field size- football-field sized crater, with a large number of big boulders and rocks for about... one or two crater diameters around it, and it required a ... in P66 and flying manually over the rock field to find a reasonably good area.- Tranquility Base, minutes after the successful touchdown of the LM.

On July 20th, 1969, humanity took its first steps on a different world. Neil Armstrong's iconic words still ring true today, as the moment represented an enormous step forward for humanity. Apollo represented the pinnacle of scientific, economic and philosophical achievement for what the human race was capable of, and has transformed the world that we live in.

Four days earlier, Apollo 11 blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center, and would reach the moon just days later, following the path that had been blazed before by Apollo 8 (which had been the first human spacecraft to escape earth orbit and circle the moon), and Apollo 10, which served as a dress rehearsal for the Apollo 11 landing, with the Lunar Module coming within 8 miles of the surface of the moon, in May of 1969.

Upon reaching the moon on July 19th, Astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were able to observe their landing site, and on July 20th, Armstrong and Aldrin boarded the Lunar Module and separated from the Command Module, Columbia. After an inspection to make sure there was no damage. With this separation, a burst of air in the tunnel pushed the LM off a bit faster than calculated, which was noted by the crew. As the Eagle descended to the Lunar Surface, problems arose, with the computer becoming overloaded with information. The alarms were silenced, and the craft continued its landing. Because of the air burst, the Eagle was pushed off course, and as Armstrong looked outside, he could see that the computers that were guiding the ship in were bringing the lander towards a large boulder field. He took control of the ship and set a course that brought the ship flying over the landscape, with Aldrin calling out altitudes. Finding a spot, they landed with 25 seconds of fuel left in the tanks. The Eagle had landed.

The mission called for a five hour sleep period, but this was skipped, as the astronauts felt that they would be unable to sleep. After a long preparation period, Armstrong exited the landed and descended the ladder. A television camera captured his decent, with an audience of over 600 million people on Earth watching his first steps down onto the Lunar surface. With one step, Armstrong changed the world.

After landing, Armstrong grabbed a rock sample, and was soon after joined by Aldrin, who then planted the American flag on the surface and spoke with President Richard Nixon from the White House. From there, the astronauts collected rock samples, deployed scientific instruments for a total EVA time of two and a half hours. After their experiments and samples were deployed and collected, the astronauts reentered the spacecraft, slept and lifted off from the moon, for a total duration of over twenty-one hours. They rejoined the CM and by July 24th, they had returned home.

The Apollo mission was the fulfillment of decades of work in rocketry and spaceflight experiments, and was propelled along by the advent of the Cold War and subsequent arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. For this reason, the Apollo segment of the US Spaceflight programs was probably more detrimental for the prospects of long term spaceflight than had it happened under other circumstances. President John F. Kennedy had stated in 1961 that the US would land on the moon by the end of the decade. With Apollo 11, that was accomplished, and the subsequent lunar landings gained far less attention, and the program was ultimately scrapped, and the entire focus of NASA shifted from an exploration mode to scientific one, as demonstrated by the Skylab program and later on, the Space Shuttle.

Apollo 11 remains one of the most dramatic elements of human spaceflight history, surpassing Yuri Gagarin's historic entry into space, Alan Shepherd's followup, and the numerous achievements that made up the space race. For a brief moment, the entire world was united as we stepped on the moon for the first time, 40 years ago. In a recent documentary, In The Shadow of the Moon (not to be confused with the wonderful book by the same title), astronaut Michael Collins noted that people around the world often said "We did it." Not "You Americans did it." What the United States had accomplished was extraordinary, surpassing borders and politics. There is no modern equivalent, I think, that we will ever see in our lifetime.

I have my reservations about Apollo, especially when it comes to long term manned spaceflight, but for that one moment, with those words, Armstrong and Aldrin changed the world, which makes up for everything in such elegance and imagination. We have gone to the Moon, and I have to wonder, when will we return?

The Road to the Moon

"Many years ago the great British Explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there." John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962, at Rice University

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first man made satellite, Sputnik 1,  into Earth's orbit, signaling the beginning of a decade long race to Earth's closest celestial body. The space race would continue on for another twelve years before the stated goal of reaching the moon was achieved on July 20th, 1969. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the lunar landings that changed the world, and makes for a good time to reflect on just how difficult the lunar landings were and just what it meant. Sputnik came at a time that was shattering to the American public - there had been much confidence in the progress that the nation was making, but that percieved lead was taken with the successes of the Soviet Union. The race to space had to be sped up, and the US was lagging far behind.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy laid down what seemed like an impossible goal for the nation: to reach the moon and land successfully before the end of the 1960s. At that point, the United State's cumulative experience with human spaceflight was a mere fifteen minutes with Astronaut Alan Shepherd's flight. In his speech to Congress in 1961, Kennedy linked the efforts in space to the the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, placing the efforts in space as a way to deter tyranny and dark nature of the Soviet Union. This was a feeling that was very much in fashion in the years following the launch of Sputnik. NASA administrators were asked before Congress if the Soviet Union would gain the ability to reach the moon before the United States, and if they would be able to color the surface red, as a constant reminder of the power of the Soviet Union. The race to the moon had become far more than mere scientific endeavor and exploration; it became a powerful tool and symbol of the might of both countries as they locked horns during the Cold War.

NASA had been formed only a couple of years prior, in 1958, and instituted Project Mercury a year later, designed to bring a human into space and back again safely. This project was the first of three projects, with the overall intent on bringing people to space, and later, to the moon. Mercury was possibly one of the most popular projects that NASA ever undertook after Apollo. The general public was riveted to news of the astronauts. The Mercury 7 astronauts were instant celebrities upon their announcement, and even more so after the publication of Tom Wolfe's book, The Right Stuff.

Mercury was the proving ground that saw the first American into space, Alan Shepherd, as well as the first American to orbit the Earth (John Glenn Jr, who would become the oldest man in space many years later) and the first US flight that would exceed 24 hours with Gordo Cooper. NASA proved with Mercury that humans could go to space, operate for an extended period of time, and then return safely. That was the first, and most crucial step that all American spaceflights have predicated on.

Mercury was only the first step. NASA proved that they could get into space, but with President Kennedy's mandate to fly to the moon and land on it, a far more complicated project was in order. Gemini was born, and was put into place to test the more advanced methods that would be required in space for a mission as complicated as a lunar landing. A new group of astronauts were brought into the fold, with notable names such as Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Pete Conrad, Jim Lovell, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and others - astronauts that would gain valuble spaceflight experience prior to being assigned to the upcoming Project Apollo.

Gemini tested a number of procedures and maneuvers that would be required for longer missions. Two crew members would fly each manned mission, rendezvous and docking maneuvers would be tested to link together the command module and landing module, Extra Vehicular Activity was accomplished for the first time by an American and numerous other scientific and practical procedures were tested out during these missions. Ten missions were undertaken between 1965 and 1966, with each mission adding on valuble experience to NASA's plans for a lunar landing, and it brought the United States further along the race to catch up with the Soviet Union, as most of these accomplishments had already been completed successfully by Russia.

Project Apollo was the project that would bring mankind to the moon. Instituted in 1961, before Gemini, this project was the followup to Mercury, and would build upon the experience that NASA gained during Gemini to reach our nearest heavenly body. There are arguments for and against the effectiveness of the three projects. With the successful landing of Apollo 11, the mission was over, and the general public began to lose interest in the launches. However, within the confines of the space race that brewed between the United States and Russia, there was an artificial sense of urgency, with a huge push from their respective governments to reach the moon for no other purpose but to plant a flag on the moon, and leave the other to look up and see this as a powerful symbol of the other's might. Apollo was to be one of the most complex projects ever undertaken at the time, but it was also the most specialized of the missions, with one end goal - to reach the moon, which would be accomplished on July 20th, 1969.

Many thanks to the fantastic site io9 for their link in!

Residency: Part 2

Norwich's MMH Residency has since come and gone, and I have to say that it was one of the best weeks that I've had in a long while. This week was particularly special to me, because I had started as an administrator with the groups that were graduating this summer, while I walked with them for graduation. I and my March 2007 cohort mates were the accelerated residency group, who essentially graduate early, while still working on our final capstone projects.

The first three days were largely consumed by lectures from the six instructors that attended along with us. This was a change from last year, because we devided to forgo the presentations that used to make up residency in years past. I went to a couple facinating ones about maneuver warfare doctrine, methodology and a rather scary presentation on PhD studies and that entire process.

Seeing and meeting all of my students have really given me some insight into the student side of things. So frequently do I speak with students on the telephone or via e-mail, but rarely (only one of the students who was here was one that I'd met earlier) in person. This provided a fantastic look at how they react to the institution as a whole, while giving me a much better apreciation for what they go through. It wasn't a huge revelation, but a timely and helpful one.

For much of the week, I met up with my cohort mates for dinner and for recreation afterwards. Someone had the brilliant idea to bring along my copy of RISK, which resulted in a couple of really fun nights of beer and board games. While that was fun, it was a great time that I'll remember for a while, and it helped me meet a bunch of people who I'll likely keep in touch with for a long time. I certainly hope so, because there were some very good minds there, and I hope that we can accomplish something in the world with that.

Graduating was weird, because I've worked with this class since I started, and still have more work to do. When I went up on stage, I got a big cheer from my classmates, something that I wasn't expecting at all, and it threw me for a moment. For all of my worries, problems and depression over the past year, I seem to have been doing a good job, and that has cheered me considerably - while I see the mistakes and problems on my end administratively, I've been praised for the work that I do. I realized at that moment that I've been far too hard on myself. It's doubtful that anything is going to change, but it's nice to know that my work has really affected and helped people in this job. I just hope that I can continue to do so.

Leaving everyone was bittersweet. The week went by far too fast, and in my experience with groups, you will never get the same groups together at any one time like this. Real life takes people away, and moments such as this are singular occurances, which makes them all the more better.

Residency: Part 1

This week, I'm finally at my residency for my Master's degree. In March of 2008, I started taking the degree through Norwich University's School of Graduate Studies, working towards a degree in Military History. It's an online school, and every day, I worked with fellow classmates, but through Internet discussion boards and through papers that I wrote and submitted online to my instructors. It's certainly a different way of learning, but I've taken to it.

For every degree, we require that students come on campus, and this week's our week. I'm finally able to meet my fellow classmates, whom I've worked with for 18 months now. Beyond that, I'm finally meeting students whom I've worked with when I first started the program. I've talked with them since day 1 of the degree, and come Friday, I'll be walking with them across the stage. I still have some work to do after this residency (I'm an accelerated student) but the bulk of the program is over. I don't have classwork, just research, which is exciting.

Residency is proving to be a highly productive and entertaining week here. While in years past, we've required students to present their capstone, we've moved away from that this year, in favor of faculty presentations which seems to be pretty popular with the students. Overall, students are enjoying the time, and meeting up with my fellow classmates has been extremely fun.

The first two days have been made up of presentations - I've sat in on ones about military doctrine, the Battle of Kursk, the IRA and the Easter Rising, Roger's Rangers and Historiography and one on how to write and eventually publish a capstone paper. The rest of the week will be some rehersals for Graduation and our Academic Hooding Ceremony, then Graduation on Friday morning. I'm quite looking forward to that.

The Year of the Moon

2009 is a lunar year. The film Moon was released earlier this month, to much critical success, the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing approaches in July, and fittingly, there is a new book that examines the history of Apollo 11, Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon, by Craig Nelson. In a wonderful PR move, the publisher, Viking, will release the book on July 13th, just days before the anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11- Just enough time to read it and know exactly what's going on for that party that you'll be out, when someone will mention Apollo 11.

The thing is- this book really isn't about Apollo 11. The front of the book states this, it's a fairly comprehensive look at the mission, but this book accomplishes much more than simply looking at this extraordinary story in vivid detail: it looks at the entire sequence of events that lead up to that moment when Neil Armstrong uttered those famous words: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. This is an incredibly important thing, I believe, because not a whole lot of people know about anything beyond those words, and that some old guy walked around on our nearest satellite. Armstrong and that other guy (Buzz Aldrin, who deserves just as much, if not more credit to the space program than Armstrong) are mere footnotes in this story, just two people out of the 400,000 people who helped to bring them to that point.

In order to fully understand the first lunar landing, one must go back to the start. While there are other books out there that cover the space program in far more detail - University of Nebraska's Outward Odyssey series, for example - this book does the remarkable job of doing it in a single volume, getting all of the important details that went into NASA, but also pulling in the smaller peripheral details that gives the book a bit more interest. Nelson has done an incredible job of balancing the technical and human sides of the story, allowing neither to really overwhelm the reader, and is able to deliver a fantastic history. The story of Apollo is scattered throughout the book, at all levels of the production, design, training and preparations that went into the mission, starting all the way back to the Second World War, with the first military rockets developed by the Nazis and by Werner Von Braun, who would later turn himself over to the United States forces. From there, he leads a team that worked with the United States military until 1958, when NASA was commissioned by President Eisenhower. We meet the Mercury 7 astronauts, and look quickly to the missions that brought us into space, and the missions that would lead us to the moon, which were just as important as the actual landing itself.

This is where the book shows its true colors. Rather than being just examining the history of American space flight, there is a genuine look to how this all fits together in American history, as the Cold War raged onwards. The entire space race was a byproduct of the arms race that very nearly brought about our self-destruction at various points in the 1960s. Interwoven throughout this story is the delicate balance that the United States and Soviet Union rested upon, and it is quite clear that while the plaque that rests on the Tranquility Base landing strut proclaims that we came in peace for all of mankind, this is a particularly ironic statement, considering that much of the space program had roots in military technology.

For all of my bluster about this book being most than a reiteration of the Apollo mission reports, this book is quite possibly one of the most engaging and one of the better reads about the Apollo 11 mission. Details are numerous, and I get the impression that this was a rather hard task to accomplish, something that was largely glossed over in my own education. This was an enormously difficult and complicated program to pull off, and after this read, I am rather astonished that we were able to pull it off. This was a task that engaged hundreds of thousands of people, with enormous yields that go unappreciated by the general public, with amazing advances in communications, medical and engineering technologies that we use every day.

Recently, I've heard people say that all we got back from the moon was a sack of rocks (and offered up a free bag to taxpayers). While I'm astonished at the lack of vision that seems to be permeating the public when it comes to the space program - the book cites that 27% of people in my generation find it unlikely that we actually landed on the moon - I will remind you that the benefits are there, and tangible. Something that Nelson mentions early on in the book has stuck with me, where he notes that not a single dollar was spent on the moon - it was all spent on Earth. Hundreds of thousands of people were employed by NASA and the aerospace industries that helped to make it a reality. That number undoubtedly increases when all is said and done. The scientific findings alone are also astonishing, and have provided new insights to the birth of our planet and solar system. Even beyond that, there are numerous implications for utilizing the moon as a source of energy, from either the mining of Helium-3 from the surface or from Solar energy (where, as Mr. Nelson notes, a lack of cloud cover and a fairly constant view of the sun will come in handy), which could potentially help with the coming energy problems that we're going to face in the coming decades.

Apollo was more than just bringing back rocks. It pushed the boundaries of what was possible, helped to unite the world for one extraordinary, singular moment in our history when we most needed it, and showed us what was possible. This book does a fantastic job of explaining it all in an engaging manner, but like Apollo 11, it is all about the stepping stones and wonderful couple of hours that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spend on our nearest neighbor, and essentially ends with that mission. Sadly, after Apollo 17, the lunar missions ended, and NASA changed gears to the Shuttle program and low orbit missions to save costs. Nelson reserves the end of the book for a quick look at the past couple of years, and brings out his soap box to explain exactly why we need to return to space, for the fuel crisis, to beat the inevitable landings of China and India, but because it is in our nature to explore. We will return to the lunar surface someday. I can only hope that it is sooner, rather than later, because this is what the country and the world needs right now, something far more important than all of the technical and scientific accomplishments that came with Apollo: Hope.

Exploration vs. Scientific Modes of Spaceflight

Now that I've since finished my last seminar of classwork for my Master's, I've begun to switch gears and begun work on my Capstone Paper, the final paper before I get my diploma, should I pass. I'm very excited to begin this mode of work, because I've gotten a topic that I've gotten really interested in - the Space Race. Originally, I'd intended on studying something with the comic book industry and the Second World War, but there's a huge lack of sources. Since then, I've switched gears, and will be looking to the early days of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, and the military roots and implications that the American space program represented to the United States during the Cold War. I'm still working to narrow down my sources, and will likely spend the weekend working through sources to get a comprehensive bibliography put together, along with a tighter thesis.

While talking with my program director earlier today, I came across a realization about the space program that I hadn't realized or considered before - the current Space program will never, ever be as successful as the Mercury - Apollo era, for one simple reason - there is no certain, end all goal for the current plans for space travel. This is in no way trying to say that what we're doing up there is useless, far from it. The difference between the two is that in 1961, President John F. Kennedy set an end goal for American space ambitions. Americans would reach the lunar surface by the end of the decade - an extraordinary declaration that left many at NASA and the nation stunned, as the cumulative United States spaceflight experience amounted to a mere 15 minutes with Alan Shepherd's Freedom 7 flight earlier in the year.

From that point forward, there was a clear point to work to, and the space missions that came afterwards followed a specific path to reach the moon. The Mercury missions were designed to get mankind to space and into orbit, the longest time in space amounting to just over a day, with Mercury 9. Project Gemini followed with a slate of missions that were designed to test space flight, where the first docking and EVA on the US's part took place. Finally, the Apollo missions are most noted for the Apollo 11 mission that landed on the moon. This was the validation of the efforts of the US, but leading up to that saw other specialized missions that saw humanity to the moon and back, testing the Apollo hardware in each of its phases.

While reaching the moon was the most visible goal and most dramatic part of the space race, it is far from the most important aspect. The space race did a number of things, but everything was done with an overall goal in mind, one that was contested early on by mission planners who felt that we should skip the moon all together and head for the other planets. What the early missions provided was structure and essentially, building blocks that helped to bring the lunar landings from science fiction to reality.

Following the Apollo missions, there was a lull. The space shuttle program was approved, as well as Skylab, and the entire mission and focus for space shifted from an exploration model to one of scientific discovery. Skylab was essentially the turning point, utilizing leftovers from the Apollo missions for something new entirely. However, there has been no overarching goal for space since the Apollo years. The public has turned away from space and NASA's efforts up there, I suspect because of a perceived lack of purpose. The Space Shuttle, while a wonderful machine, has not really full filled any sort of plan to reach the next inevitable stage, missions to Mars, beyond scientific experiments that require a zero-gravity environment, servicing space stations and satellites. The information gathered about living in space for extended periods of time has been incredibly helpful and will no doubt be utilized in a future mission, but these experiments were not expressly conducted for a martian mission.

Mars is the next logical step for future space flight missions beyond the International Space Station (which, looking at it, is a good goal that has brought together nations, but has largely failed to capture the public's imagination like the Lunar landings did. Let's face it, walking around on the moon is a lot cooler). What is required of the United States is a large, overarching series of missions that will begin to pave the way for heading to Mars. The technology is certainly there, as is the willpower, but what is needed the most is guidance from up on high. Kennedy's statement in 1961 was a powerful catalyst that set everything in motion, and any further trips to Mars, and indeed, even the Moon, will require such a thing, but will also require a comparable plan.

Now is also the best time for such a project, when one thinks about it. At the peak of the Apollo program, NASA employed around four hundred thousand people, and that does not count the other multiple hundreds of thousands that would have worked in the defense and aerospace industries during that time designing, building and supporting the missions leading up to the space program. In a book that I've been reading, it was noted that not a single dollar was spent on the moon - it was spent on earth, and provided a massive boost to the economy during that time by supporting those industries. This is exactly what will be needed in the coming years, and I hope that with China and India beginning space programs of their own, this will provide an acute sense of urgency for US mission planners and policy makers to begin to really consider such an endeavour.