An official Friendly Reminder that contactless curbside
pick-up for library materials begins June 1st. Visit the library’s website at https://www.eolib.org/curbside for
complete details.
The Genre Reading Group met last evening for an
out-of-this-world discussion of S-P-A-C-E! Take a look, see if your favorite
was mentioned, or find a new favorite among the many titles shared!
Today, NASA astronauts headed for the International Space Station
will hitch a ride, for the first time, on a private rocket (at the going rate,
of course). Central time, live coverage begins at 11am with liftoff scheduled
for 3:33pm, streamed live on NASA’s website at https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive.
BOOKS
Dune by Frank Herbert
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the
boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He
would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family - and would bring to
fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.
A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism,
environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award,
shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest
epic in science fiction. Frank Herbert's death in 1986 was a tragic loss, yet the
astounding legacy of his visionary fiction will live forever.
Frank’s son Brian – and coauther Kevin J. Anderson – are keeping the series alive. View the complete
order of novels currently available here: https://www.dunenovels.com/
Dune, as a franchise, is vast, enduring, and hard to keep
track of but Wikipedia has done their best: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(franchise)
The newest adaptations, soon
to be a companion TV series coming to HBO Max AND a major motion picture
directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Timothée Chalamet, Josh Brolin,
Jason Momoa, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, Dave
Bautista, Stellan Skarsgård, and Charlotte Rampling, is currently scheduled to
premier on December 18, 2020, though that may of course be impacted by the
COVID-19 pandemic.
View the trailer for the upcoming film here: https://youtu.be/1EI-UrAweXE
Star Settlers: The Billionaires, Geniuses, and Crazed Visionaries Out to Conquer the Universe by Fred Nadis (this title is currently
scheduled to be published August 4, 2020)
Does humanity have a destiny “in the stars?” Should a
species triggering massive extinctions on its own planet instead stay put? This
new book traces the waxing and waning of interest in space settlement through
the decades, and offers a journalistic tour through the influential subculture
attempting to shape a multiplanetary future.
What motivates figures such as billionaires Elon Musk and Yuri Milner? How important have science fiction authors and filmmakers been in stirring enthusiasm for actual space exploration and settlement? Is there a coherent motivating philosophy and ethic behind the spacefaring dream?
Star Settlers offers both a historical perspective and a journalistic window into a peculiar subculture packed with members of the scientific, intellectual, and economic elite. This timely work captures the extra-scientific zeal for space travel and settlement, places it in its historical context, and tackles the somewhat surreal conceptions underlying the enterprise and prognoses for its future.
What motivates figures such as billionaires Elon Musk and Yuri Milner? How important have science fiction authors and filmmakers been in stirring enthusiasm for actual space exploration and settlement? Is there a coherent motivating philosophy and ethic behind the spacefaring dream?
Star Settlers offers both a historical perspective and a journalistic window into a peculiar subculture packed with members of the scientific, intellectual, and economic elite. This timely work captures the extra-scientific zeal for space travel and settlement, places it in its historical context, and tackles the somewhat surreal conceptions underlying the enterprise and prognoses for its future.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
A visionary work that combines speculative fiction with deep
philosophical inquiry, The Sparrow tells the story of a charismatic
Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a scientific mission
entrusted with a profound task: to make first contact with intelligent
extraterrestrial life. The mission begins in faith, hope, and beauty, but a
series of small misunderstandings brings it to a catastrophic end.
Space by James Michener
Already a renowned chronicler of the epic events of world history,
James A. Michener tackles the most ambitious subject of his career: space, the
last great frontier. This astounding novel brings to life the dreams and daring
of countless men and women—people like Stanley Mott, the engineer whose
irrepressible drive for knowledge places him at the center of the American
exploration effort; Norman Grant, the war hero and U.S. senator who takes his
personal battle not only to a nation, but to the heavens; Dieter Kolff, a
German rocket scientist who once worked for the Nazis; Randy Claggett, the
astronaut who meets his destiny on a mission to the far side of the moon; and
Cynthia Rhee, the reporter whose determined crusade brings their story to a
breathless world.
The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel
In the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory
began employing women as calculators, or “human computers,” to interpret the
observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. At the
outset this group included the wives, sisters, and daughters of the resident
astronomers, but soon the female corps included graduates of the new women's
colleges—Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith. As photography transformed the practice
of astronomy, the ladies turned from computation to studying the stars captured
nightly on glass photographic plates.
The “glass universe” of half a million plates that Harvard amassed over the ensuing decades—through the generous support of Mrs. Anna Palmer Draper, the widow of a pioneer in stellar photography—enabled the women to make extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim. They helped discern what stars were made of, divided the stars into meaningful categories for further research, and found a way to measure distances across space by starlight. Their ranks included Williamina Fleming, a Scottish woman originally hired as a maid who went on to identify ten novae and more than three hundred variable stars; Annie Jump Cannon, who designed a stellar classification system that was adopted by astronomers the world over and is still in use; and Dr. Cecilia Helena Payne, who in 1956 became the first ever woman professor of astronomy at Harvard—and Harvard’s first female department chair.
Elegantly written and enriched by excerpts from letters, diaries, and memoirs, The Glass Universe is the hidden history of the women whose contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.
The “glass universe” of half a million plates that Harvard amassed over the ensuing decades—through the generous support of Mrs. Anna Palmer Draper, the widow of a pioneer in stellar photography—enabled the women to make extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim. They helped discern what stars were made of, divided the stars into meaningful categories for further research, and found a way to measure distances across space by starlight. Their ranks included Williamina Fleming, a Scottish woman originally hired as a maid who went on to identify ten novae and more than three hundred variable stars; Annie Jump Cannon, who designed a stellar classification system that was adopted by astronomers the world over and is still in use; and Dr. Cecilia Helena Payne, who in 1956 became the first ever woman professor of astronomy at Harvard—and Harvard’s first female department chair.
Elegantly written and enriched by excerpts from letters, diaries, and memoirs, The Glass Universe is the hidden history of the women whose contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.
Learn more about Harvard College Observatory’s Astronomical
Photographic Plate Collection here: https://platestacks.cfa.harvard.edu/about-collection
“America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post)
explores the irresistibly strange universe of life without gravity in
this New York Times bestseller.
The best-selling author
of Stiff and Bonk explores the irresistibly strange
universe of space travel and life without gravity. From the Space Shuttle
training toilet to a crash test of NASA’s new space capsule, Mary Roach takes
us on the surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and
space on Earth.
The Search for Planet X by Tony Simon
Published in the 1960s, this vintage work discusses how
Pluto was discovered and also provides (then current) information about other
planets.
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Millions of words poured forth about man's trip to the moon
but until Wolfe, few people had a sense of the most engrossing side of the
adventure; namely, what went on in the minds of the astronauts themselves - in
space, on the moon, and even during certain odysseys on earth. It is this, the
inner life of the astronauts, that Tom Wolfe describes with his almost uncanny
empathetic powers, that made this book a classic.
FILM/TELEVISION
(Rotten Tomatoes) "Houston, we have a problem."
Those words were immortalized during the tense days of the Apollo 13 lunar
mission crisis in 1970, events recreated in this epic historical drama from Ron
Howard. Astronaut Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) leads command module pilot Jack
Swigert (Kevin Bacon) and lunar module driver Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) on what
is slated as NASA's third lunar landing mission. All goes smoothly until the
craft is halfway through its mission, when an exploding oxygen tank threatens
the crew's oxygen and power supplies. As the courageous astronauts face the
dilemma of either suffocating or freezing to death, Mattingly and Mission
Control leader Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) struggle to find a way to bring the crew
back home, all the while knowing that the spacemen face probable death once the
battered ship reenters the Earth's atmosphere. The film received an
overwhelmingly enthusiastic critical response and a Best Picture nomination,
but lost that Oscar to another (very different) historical epic, Mel Gibson's
Braveheart. In 2002, the movie was released in IMAX theaters as Apollo 13: The
IMAX Experience, with a pared-down running time of 116 minutes in order to meet
the technical requirements of the large-screen format. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
(Rotten Tomatoes) Covering some 15 years, this film recounts
the formation of America's space program, concentrating on the original Mercury
astronauts. The film relates the dangers and frustrations facing the
astronauts, the various personal crises involving their families, and the
schism between their squeaky-clean public image and their sometimes raunchy,
earthbound shenanigans.
Solaris (First film debuted in 1976 and was remade in 2002)
(1976) Based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem, Solaris centers on
widowed psychologist Kris Kelvin (Donata Banionis), who is sent to a space
station orbiting a water-dominated planet called Solaris to investigate the
mysterious death of a doctor, as well as the mental problems plaguing the
dwindling number of cosmonauts on the station. Finding the remaining crew to be
behaving oddly and aloof, Kelvin is more than surprised when he meets his
seven-years-dead wife Khari (Natalya Bondarchuk) on the station. It quickly
becomes apparent that Solaris possesses something that brings out repressed
memories and obsessions within the cosmonauts on the space station, leaving
Kelvin to question his perception of reality. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at
the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, Solaris was remade by Steven Soderbergh in 2002.
(2002) A therapist travels to a distant space station to
treat a group of astronauts traumatized by mysterious entities -- and ends up
having to deal with an entity of his own -- in this second film version of
Stanislaw Lem's philosophical sci-fi novel. Solaris stars George Clooney as
Chris Kelvin, a psychologist still mourning the loss of his wife Rheya
(Natascha McElhone) when he's implored by a colleague named Gibarian (Ulrich
Tukur) to investigate the increasingly weird goings-on at the Prometheus space
station. By the time Kelvin gets there, Gibarian has committed suicide, leaving
only the cryptic, babbling Snow (Jeremy Davies) and the paranoid, guarded
Gordon (Viola Davis), both of whom are holed up in their respective rooms. As
Kelvin interrogates the skeleton crew, he learns that they've had unwanted
"visitors," apparitions of long-dead friends, family, and loved ones
who are apparently being generated by the interstellar energy source Solaris.
The doctor is dubious of their claims until one night he, too, is greeted by
his wife Rheya (Natascha McElhone), whose death still torments him. At first
skeptical of the new Rheya, Kelvin gradually becomes obsessed with her -- and
with the guilt that he feels over their troubled marriage -- to the point where
the others begin to fear for his sanity. Produced by James Cameron, Solaris
represented director Steven Soderbergh's first screenplay credit since the
independently financed Schizopolis in 1996. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi
Elon Musk: The Real-Life Ironman (2018)
Discover the meteoric rise of Elon Musk, the man who is
transforming the way we think about travel technology through electric cars,
the Hyperloop, and revolutionary ideas on how we live through artificial
intelligence and colonizing Mars. Check your preferred streaming subscription for availability. View the trailer here: https://youtu.be/Hrhe5kZBa28
AstronaugtWally Schirra oral history interview on C-SPAN
Spaceflight
Episodes of this 1985 PBS series are available full-length on
Youtube.
Episode 1: Thunder in the Skies https://youtu.be/IqK-QN7iP98
Planets BBC/NOVA available on PBS
1998 HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon”
From executive producer Tom Hanks, this 12-part miniseries
explores the origins and milestones of the Apollo lunar landing program, its
history-defining mission, as well as those whose lives and careers were
affected by NASA’s journey into space. https://www.hbo.com/from-the-earth-to-the-moon
Science Channel’s “Truth Behind the Moon Landing”
CURRENT NEWS
“Chunks of China’s Powerful Rocket Fall Back to Earth,
Narrowly Missing New York City”
Asteroids float around and are tracked by NASA for close
approaches, see the table here:
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