Stargate atlantis: Season 2
Stargate atlantis is a spin off of the Stargate film and the Stargate: SG1 series. In the opinion of this writer, it is superior to both its predecessors. Read a review of stargate atlantis season one.
In this preview we wish to avoid spoilers as much as possible and simply give an opinion of the seasons content. The season is 20 episodes long. Now to give an over view of the season.
A very brief background of Stargate Atlantis is that there is a human out post in the Pegasus Galaxy connected to Earth By a wormhole device. They battle against an Alien Race known As the Wraith. The Wraith Eat Human beings. Do read the Stargate season one preview.
Season two starts with the City known as atlantis under intense siege from their primary enemy known as the wraith. The wraith had previously defeated the race know as the ancients by force of arms. Human forces where never going to have the force to defeat them at this time. Essentially, the writers use a device of human deceit to resolve the situation.
The season then evolves with the humans on atlantis getting to know more about the Pegasus galaxy and its inhabitants, such as the Genii who actually capture Atlantis at a point. Naturally, the situation is resolved.
continuing weakness of almost every science fiction series I have seen is the Capture , escape or recovery or rescue scenario which appears to be a staple of science fiction writers everywhere, with the notable exception off BattleStar Galactica, which is the Apex of Scifi Film today.
Atlantis continues to battle Gingerly withe the wraith, and continues to be a far more epic creation than SGI. There is plenty of decent character development of a much larger cast than SG1. There continues to be a decent focus on team development and every episode was a joy to watch.
A high light is an attempt to convert the Half human half insect wraith into full human persons by stripping out the insect element of the wraith, and what follows is a truly fascinating exploration of the possibilities of such an event.
Well, the 20 videos come to a close and the season ends on a real cliff hanger with a wraith Battle group coming to Earth to Eat us all :)
Mission Profile to Proxima Centauri
We once worked out that if we could obtain an engine/vehicle combo that could thrust at 1 gravity for 4 years, we could do a round trip to Proxima Centauri and back in about 8 years. Okay , maybe this involved a lot of bad science , wishful thinking, incomplete appreciation of the Laws of Relativity, yet it was a beguiling exercise. We our improved understanding of the science and mechanics of such matters, we hope to repeat the exercise and publish the exercise here.
Space going Power drives
The current power drives for most space vehicles are either chemical rockets or the newer ion drives. Rocket motors have always fascinated us. From the gun powder powered firework rockets through to the massive boosters that power the modern day Shuttles, NASA, ESA and Russia space vehicles being launched today.
By and large , the chemical rockets have to carry a large amount of reaction mass and thereby expend a lot of their energies lifting their own mass. Plus the fuel of the main lifting engines is usually exhausted in one burn lasting a few minutes. In this few minutes, the rocket has to shove its payload into orbit. Bye the time most vehicles have attained orbit, they usually have very little fuel left, and what fuel they’ve got left will only be used for critical maneuvering. Reading the mission profile of the first moon landing is very revealing and entrancing reading. It involved accelerating the mission vehicles to a massive escape velocity after which the main boosters where exhausted. The mission vehicles then glided powerless to their rendevous with the moon, a bit like a bullet from a gun fired with super accurate deflection shooting technique. Marvellous stuff real, really risky too.
The ion engines are a lot more complicated and we will write more about them once we know more. We shall also be revisiting rocket technology .
The Kepler Planet hunting mission
We recently found out about the Kepler Mission which launched at 0349GMT which is 2249EST on 7 March, from Cape Canaveral. The really exciting thing about this mission is that its looking for Rocky planets orbiting their star within what is known as the habitable zone of their Star. In short, these are planets that might be inhabitable.
Hundreds of planets have already been discovered outside the solar system, but they have been very un earth like. They have been Gas giants or Ice giants sometimes whizzing around their star at massive velocities. Its unlikely that life as we know it could easily exist on such planets. Then again who knows. However, when devoting immense resources to finding livable planets or extra terrestrial life, the searchers must concentrate their search on the avenues that offer them the highest probability of success. In essense they must look for planets that are as similar to Earth as possible.
For more definitive information about Kepler , visit The kepler mission homepage .
Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica, the new , re imagined series , is quite simply the best Science fiction program available on TV or film today. That actually is the reason that it will be reviewed extensively in this journal. It is not an examplar of rigorous space travel dynamics, rather its the best written Scifi series this editor has seen to date.
The original series was very entertaining , in the Star Wars tradition. However, the writers and producers clearly had very limited knowledge of Space , the vastness of space. The New series though, is much better researched and this shows in many little details. However , the main thrust of the New series is its supperlative plot and the interactions between the protagonists
An overview of the new series plot goes thus: A civilisation of twelve human inhabited planets develop a series of robots including very advanced artificial intelligence. After a while the robots, know as Cylons rebel, a war is fought and then both sides make a limited but stable peace. After decades of peace, Cylons cross the agreed boundaries to make war on the twelve colonies, without warning .Caught by suprise most of the human military is annihilated, the 12 planets are shattered with nuclear weapons. Pockets of humanity survive on the planets and about 50,000 humans enroute on space ships also survive
The military vessel “Battlestar Galactic” survives the initial assault gathers the remnant of the civilisation of 12 planets, and then leads them across the Galaxy In search of a new home . The surviving senior officers selected the Planet Earth, for them a dimly remembered historical footnote, as their destination.
Naturally, The Cylons could not miss seeing such a Vast amada heading in a uniform direction and they Give chase. Thus begins a superb chase story. This was a must buy for this editor.
Iain M Banks
Iain M Banks is a very popular writer of both Crime fiction and Science fiction. In science fiction he is famos for his “Culture” sequence novels. The focus of this novels appears to be an exploration of the consequences of a having a society where Material want has been conquered, everyone has access to as much resource as they can actually use, plus part of the society consists of artificial intelligences. Space travel is of the Instantaneous variety and only lightly touched upon. The culture novels are not why we will review ian Banks works. His Novel, “The Algebraist” is. This novel is not a culture novel, rather its a more rigorous depiction of Interstellar space travel of very high calibre.
Alastair Reynolds novels
Quiet simply the best space travel writer I have ever read. And I have read many, but non quiet match the depth of knowledge that this writer transmitts to his readers. Reading his works really gives a flavour of what space travel in the not too distant future might be like. Granted, a lot of the technologies he writes about are entirely fabricated, yet they appear tp be consistent constructs obeying if stretching the known laws of physics.
For me though, the best bit about him is that he knows his way around the stars. The routes to the stars, and galaxies are better known to him than most other writers and this really shows. Einsteins theories of relativity, the wealth of human astronomical observation data are comfortable tools for this author. Well, the author is doctorate level astonomer who worked for the European Space Agency for sixteen years.
We shall be reviewing all his fictional works in this journal as they are very much at the apex of space travel scifi
Spacecraft orbit
Hi all, the question of what orbit actually represents and what the physics behind it is, has intrigued me in the past. I a sorry to say that like a lot of folk , I assumed that if you go to a sufficiently high attitude, you eventually get into space and become weightless and can then float merrily to the Moon , or Mars or where ever you please . In fact, I read a novel which was about balloon astronauts travelling between planets whose atmospheres actually interlocked , without the planets ever colliding. Okay, that’s ridiculous, but never the less, you do often have space vehicle ideas with similar ideas cropping up.
Now, I hope I know better. Achieving orbit is certainly involves a sustained breaking of Earths gravitational pull. The object seeking to attain orbit around the Earth must generate sufficient force to neutralise the Earths gravitational pull , preferrably beyond Earths atmosphere. Using today’s technology, this definitely requires brute force, to quickly attain altitude, and thereby less drag, before then translating the forward momentum and engine power of the vehicle into lateral velocity to generate sufficient centrifugal force to keep the vehicle from falling back into the Earth. For a vehicle weighing many tonnes, this requires enormous velocity, and massively powerful engines
This is a very simplistic take on orbit. We will be exploring this topic in greater detail
Economics of space travel
Eventually, the economic incentives for space travel must be explored in order to give space exploration and travel a boost. A boost fueled by the enthusiasm of thousands of eager entrepreneurs. The resource gathering imperative is one of the most powerful drivers in human affairs, and hence, this is an obvious stating point for examining the economics of going to space.
Could there be mining operations on the asteroids, are there mountains of gold floating in the asteroid belt, can superior products be produced in space, can thousands of space borne mirrors transmit limitless power to the Earth’s power hungry users, these are possibilities to be examined . Eventually, time will tell.
Extra terrestrials, intelligent lifeforms, other lifeforms, alien mechanicals
So the question is , is the universe empty off life except on Planet Earth ? The only answer I would venture is that its improbable that life exists only on Earth, yet its not impossible. However, the sheer numbers suggest that the chances of one intelligent life form meeting another intelligent life form are very low indeed, yet once again , not impossible.
In this category, we shall be considering the various possibilities regarding Alien lifeforms and looking at the current technologies for finding them.
