TV: Houston, We Have A Growing Problem

If you are looking for something different to take your mind off of NASA's funding woes, you might enjoy an evening of television entertainment from CBS.  Tonight you can watch the premiere of the new series produced by Steven Spielberg titled Extant, where Halle Berry plays a returning astronaut from a solo space station mission.  But she has a secret, and its not the fact that she has a robotic son.  That's the normal part.  The problem is that she is also mysteriously pregnant.  Here is a trailer if you want to see more.  It is not Gravity, but we have to take what we can get in this summer season. 

NASA Cannot Do it Alone

Maybe we need Hollywood to help us to dream.  Whether it is the hopeful future portrayed by Star Trek, the encounter with a alien race in the movie Contact, or the horrible space accident in the most recent move Gravity, it always helps to have the imaginative powers of Hollywood on your side.  The same is true with the upcoming Christopher Nolan move Interstellar.  If this trailer does not get you excited about what may be out there and what we may yet do as a space-faring people, I am not sure what will. 

Dueling Versions of Space Safety

With all the drama related to repairs to the International Space Station (ISS), one can see NASA finally trumping Hollywood.  While we do not see space debris tearing the station apart as in Gravity, in this case real lives are a stake on a multi-billion dollar platform miles above our heads.  While both stories fascinate the public, I hope to use this blog (again, after a little time away) to bring together various images and ideas to build a better understanding of space science and our potential future as we use it, hopefully, to improve our future.