Showing posts with label space suit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space suit. Show all posts

2021-04-02

NaPoWriMo - 2021 - I - Across the Universe

 Across the Universe



"Even light, which travels so fast that it takes most races thousands of years to realise that it travels at all, takes time to journey between the stars."  -- Douglas Adams

And you should take the time
to travel, really travel I mean
not just down the road to the chemist
but look at the light,
the light!  Tunnelling
through the black, so fast
that it has no time in which to travel
no time to experience the journey
no time at all
as it hurtles through the frozen universe
because the speed of light
which can be considered the rate of propagation of events
the rate at which the Universe Itself (tm)
carries information from place to place
the rate of recalculation
underpinning everything
but look at the light
watch it set off on a journey of a billion years
not fearing the reaper
or anything at all
light
born at the wall
at the edge of what is possible.




2019-07-23

WWSotM: Golden age reasoning

A lot of contemporary politics insists on harking back to one or other golden age.

Q. Was there ever a golden age?

A. Of course there was not.

Except in Science Fiction.  The Golden Age of Science Fiction is well documented as running from from 1938 to 1946 and is superior to all other golden ages in three important respects:
  1. it actually happened
  2. it was limited, mostly, to the production of pulp novels and magazines; so we didn't overreach
  3. when it was over, we didn't go into decline, we started right in on the Silver Age
Another plausible candidate for a Golden Age might be the space race, an age of great promise and progress... however with my hardest engineer head on, I am going to call that a fools-golden age, because.
  1. it was politically motivated, there's not actually so much reason to go to the moon
  2. although a lot of useful technology spun off from the space race, it wasn't enough to completely enable a further phase: the technology that got us to the Moon does not scale to getting us to Mars
  3. we never went back
So, although eventually the Moon might be useful as a staging point on the way to other places (although Earth orbit is handier) I wouldn't say that getting there in 1969 was fundamental...

Unlike I, Robot which is fundamental, because, if I recall correctly, it contains the short story which finally addresses the question What is a human? (which matters because Asimov's laws forbid: harming a human, or through inaction allowing a human to come to harm...) and reaches the conclusion, that, to paraphrase another famous Sci-Fi author:

Any sufficiently advanced robot is indistinguishable from a human being.

Which gives us a different possible future for future space exploration.  We happily drop increasingly advanced robots on various heavenly bodies.  If the robots get more and more sophisticated, and if, at the same time, the people become more and more robotic (c.f. 'cyborg'), then we could arrive at people on Mars by a strange and unexpected back door:

Q. Is there life on Mars?

A. First let's define 'life'.

There was a point to this discussion but it is a bloody hot day and I have derailed my train of thought...  have a poem instead.









Golden age reasoning


Golden Age reasoning knows aliens
in the fabric of the air.  The tiny hints
of Chlorine breath are there for those who sniff
and have not bleached their washing recently.

Golden Age reasoning has to believe
that there's a real behind this real and you
can get there if you have that kind of mind
of course the trip back can be more complex...

although Golden Age reasoning does not
sweat the details: how does your aircar stay up?
Why do the robots rebel?  And hell, if I
know why the Fleed have got it in for us.

The Golden Age, a precious, dangerous
and brightly coloured place, but turn to face
it now and check the charge in your ray-gun
the seals on your power suit, the gleam in your eye.




2019-07-22

WWSotM: Space

"Space, is big..." says The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and then it goes on to give some stunningly bad advice about holding a lungful of air in order to survive in a vacuum.  DO NOT DO THIS...

If you ever find yourself needing to walk out an airlock without a spacesuit then you must let all the air out, no matter where in your body it is: lungs, ears or digestive tract.  Otherwise parts of you may burst.

Then, also, just try to (a) be quick and (b) have a bit of cloth or something for grabbing the metal handle of the other airlock; and you may be fine...  If you grab metal in space with unprotected fingers then you may freeze or burn them, depending whether the metal is facing the Sun or not.

Anyway, that is that, and this is a poem about a coffee table.









Space


Between my two raised hands
I show just how much width
the coffee table takes
and that is space

not a huge amount of it
something approaching three foot six
but the same stuff
that separates us from the Moon.


You're on the far side
of the coffee table now;
no matter how I manoeuvre
I can't bring you close...

...you say you need more space;
beyond you is the window,
kites flying in the park,
and beyond that, the Sun.




2019-07-21

WWSotM: The Red Planet Blues

David Bowie never toured Mars [citation needed]...

Edgar Rice Burroughs sent John Carter to Mars several times, but due to time-skew John landed on a fictionalized planet where the women were strangely attractive...

Curiosity landed on the real Mars, or rather Curiosity landed on a Mars that is inhabited only by machines.  This Mars will cease to exist the moment a human sets foot on it.

However, to this day, no human has ever set foot on Mars.  There are good reasons for that.  One is that that human would probably not be coming back, another is that even getting there alive is really hard [citation needed].

It would also be very expensive, and you might say we have better things to spend our money on...  However, as long as we are limited only to Earth, we're vulnerable.  One decent sized rock falling out of the the sky and it is all over.

We're not quite ready to colonise Mars yet.

We really should be working on it more.









The Red Planet Blues


Ziggy played guitar,
     jammin' good with Weird and Gilly...


There are no spiders
on Mars, spinning
in bone-cold canyons
to trap unwary space cadets.
There are no great domed cities, shining
pale in the brave red sunset. There are no get
of Edgar Rice Burroughs;
no green, six-limbed warriors
riding thoats or laying eggs
in odd moments
out there in the rusty desert. No Martians for the chronicler
to document their steady decline
after the Earthmen came.

Earthmen must come.
It is necessary.
Pick up the pickaxe.
Start digging a canal.




2019-07-20

We Were So on the Moon

We Were So on the Moon in 1969 and everybody, but everybody, is producing documentaries, video game patches, t-shirts and "special edition" coffee flavours.

I had no plan to join in.

But I was paging through my old poems, looking for something good I hadn't shared recently, and the first thing I found was a moon poem.

Well who am I to oppose the workings of fate.

So please consider this the title page for a specially assembled micro-collection.

This is going to be seven poems over seven days, starting today, and focused on, not so much of the moon landings themselves, but more the areas around that: space exploration in general; our changing attitude to it; what, if anything, we might have learned in the last fifty years.



We Were So on the Moon

Contents:
  1. That's No Moon
  2. The Red Planet Blues
  3. Space
  4. Golden Age Reasoning
  5. Fast Woman
  6. Earth-like Planets
  7. Cassini Explains Perspective




Page one follows shortly: 10, 9, 8...





2018-04-18

NaPoWriMo - 2018 - Day fifteen - Elevation


Elevation



Sublime it is to wait up here, so far beyond
the slightest thing that I might call a care.
Sometimes somebody speaks and I respond
the only way I can.  Oh yes, I dare
if daring's what we still call it these days?
Oh there's another number passing: nine.
There is no heroism here.  Oh you say
that you would never take the role that's mine:

well fair enough and more fool you!  Now eight.
So many little lights I can see here;
all green, fortunately.  Not long to wait.
Seven the stars have never been so near.
I've complete faith in all the tech guys' arts.
Six.  Now the distant roar.  Main engines start.





2017-12-17

Walking to Alpha Centauri

Walking to Alpha Centauri




This is not exactly a Christmas track, but Hallam and I have not released anything for a while.  We just finished this and we were each struck with the idea of making it a demo track.

This features not only the usual combination of my words with Hallam's wonderful voice and music, but also my own voice, speaking the part of the interstellar traveller.

Consider it our gift to you...










2017-08-27

U.F.Ocracy

Alternative Forms of Government
(an occasional series)

Number 3



U.F.Ocracy


The Air Force issues an official statement that government does not exist, however leaked documents show that they were seriously investigating the possibility in the 50s and 60s.

A video surfaces on the internet which purports to show the autopsy of a political candidate recovered from a crashed campaign bus near Roswell, New Mexico in the late 1940s.  The picture quality is poor, and grainy, and filmed in low light with a hand-held camera, but whatever the creature is, it is hard to believe it is human...

Many people report close encounters with political parties.  Some claim to have even been taken inside the party, exposed to "unearthly logic", and in some cases unlikely sex acts.  Political organisations (or "saucers") are reportedly able to accelerate far faster than any conventional vehicle and change direction suddenly to avoid embarrassingly close investigation.

On election nights, voters gather with cameras and flasks of soup on hillsides where political encounters are rumoured have occurred.  Everybody stares at a patch of sky slightly to the left, or slightly to the right, and later swears they were paralysed by an unearthly beam that confirmed their pre-existing beliefs.

All those in favour, raise your right hand to greet the humanoid silhouettes walking out of the blinding light; all those opposed, mutter something about weather balloons and ignore the sunburn acquired in the dead of night...





2016-05-02

Releasing a single!

Or rather Hallam London, my musical collaborator, is releasing our song To the Sky, which we dedicate to David Bowie because, as often the case, we didn't realise quite what we had until it was gone.

As usual Hallam wrote the music and I provided the lyrics.  He also got other friends and professionals to contribute, see the bandcamp page for full credits...

This is the song I wrote about last week, explaining its creation story (no radioactive animals were involved, somebody may have fallen to Earth) and also see here for the lyrics.

Anyway, please enjoy the song and if you feel inspired to contribute a small sum to this enterprise, please buy it (for as little as 1€; for American friends 1€ is roughly $1.15 at today's prices...)

Please also share this song promiscuously.  You remember how Andy Warhol promised everybody 15 minutes of fame in the future?  Well it's been the future for over 15 years now and my fame still hasn't arrived...









2016-04-29

To the sky - artwork update

I have to start with a small version of the image, because that is what Facebook and other semantic content scrapers will pick up.  So that's the one on the left...  but I'll include a full sized version as well.

This is the cover which Julia Eichhorn has drawn to accompany Hallam's forthcoming single: To the sky

We now have a firm release date of "next week, as early as we can manage."

While I have your attention, let me leak a preview of the lyrics (below.)






To the sky

(Lyrics by Ian Badcoe, Music by Hallam London)


Those were our days
we would space-walk in the park
I made you laugh
we kicked the grass
I didn't float home until the dark.

And you never grew cold
but you grew distant, never told me why.
I was a clown
said I'd be around
I was a fool to let you fly.

Got my space suit on...
I've got dotted arrows drawn upon the night
as the countdown runs
all the systems hum
I can follow arrows to the sky.

When the engines run...
I've got green lights right across the board
I locked everyone out,
but I do not doubt
and now it really seems
as if a man can touch the sky.

I lost those days
and how the vacuum's more complete
you are not there
not anywhere
that I can reach on aching feet.

I will not let it end
I've watched the wall clock since you're gone.
My head tilts back
to view the black
and you're a pale star in the dawn.

Got my space suit on...
I've got dotted arrows drawn upon the night
as the countdown runs
all the systems hum
I can follow arrows to the sky.

When the engines run...
I've got green lights right across the board
I locked everyone out,
but I do not doubt
but now...

Houston, I have a problem
it has to be there's love in outer space
but there is too much junk beyond the place
where all the blue turns black
and how can one man in his tiny can
have ever hoped....


I had a space suit on...



(This is "Rock Music Description Language" again, verses on the left, choruses in the middle, break on the right...)