twincityhacker

The other day I was watching the Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways two parter - well, I skipped the end of Parting of the Ways as I didn't feel like crying - when I noticed something odd about the big reveal at the end of Bad Wolf.

( Cut for image intense geekery )

It's nice to know that there are quite a few astronmers pissed off about this Pluto busniess too. here's the article. Apparently the anti-Pluto contigent pushed the thing through after the confrene was pretty much over and almost everyone had gone home.

I'd rather have 12+ planets than having just the 8. Less "bigger is better" but more of a idea that "yes, the universe is bigger than you think." I' all for having a huge solar system, if just letting eope have a bigger sandbox for science fiction stories. Heck, I have a fictioal Soviet colony located somewhere inn the Öpik-Oort Cloud, and a fictional tradinng post in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt.

But I'm an occasional astronomy geek with the occasinal intrest in astrology, so I suppose it would be werider not to have bits and pices of of those disiplinces woven into the storytelling. Like the woefull lack of Soviets/Russians represented in science fiction. WTF is up with that? The American space program is better at going places and sending probes. The Russians are better at long-duration space travel. If you're going to say, Mars, it's better to have a workable joint venture because you want the Americans to get you up and do the exploring, but the Russians to do the actual getting there bit as a flight to Mars would be more of a slightly more dangerous extended space stay than exploring/expermienting.

The more dangerous bit would be the cosmic rays which you get considerably less of in Earth orbit. The rays being tiny bits going super face - there was one partical called the "Oh My God" Particle over Salt Lake City that had the energy of a baseball goign going 60 mph - a proton going almost near the speed of light. In the human body, a trip to Mars using current techology, would cause the subject to deterit. in the brain, this would be like the first year of Alztimers Syndrom. (I tried tying this into MST3k, but both the SOL and the Widowmaker seem to hav a small forcefield around them as if you're very close to the ship you don't need a spacesuit, as the force field simulates both gravity and keeps oxygen in. It is quite possible I think too much on making those ships work than it is entirely healthy.)