Category Archives: Space

Of Owls and UFOs

I’ve never seen a UFO that wasn’t pictured or on video. Likewise I’ve never seen an owl, live, that I recall. But I was drawn to The Messengers by Mike Clelland about both, often in conjunction. The messengers are the owls and they bring mystery, before, during or after a UFO encounter.

I devoted the summer before my freshman year in high school to reading books about UFOs. Books from the public library as this was 1958 and no other sources were available. Books heartily debunked by my Air Force father who’d had some experience with Project Blue Book, a 1952 Air Force collection of thousands of sightings, mostly by pilots, mostly debunked.

The owls are another story. Clelland interviews scores of people who claim to have been abducted by the Little Gray Men and many had owl encounters at the same time. He treats them respectfully and doesn’t waste space gee-whizzing them, let alone debunking them. But it’s the owls that mystify.

Barbara Ellen had her own owl experience, though not (as far as she remembers) a UFO one. Like the others in the book, her owl’s appearance was preceded by an intense emotional time and followed, albeit months later, by profound change.

As Chelli, an Amazon reviewer, has it “It’s just the honest ‘truth’ as best as anyone can wrap their heads around, a flurry of phenomenon so pervasive, so unreal yet there it is, make of it what you will but don’t criticize ‘The Messenger’ for bringing it to you.” Indeed.

Blue collar space

This collection of short stories recommended by novelist Sarah Hoyt looks good so far. The theme and characters remind me of Allen Steele’s novels of men living and working in orbit. Also the rough and tumble Belters of the Expanse.

The future, as the author says, won’t just happen. Someone has to build it.

UPDATE:  The author, Martin Shoemaker, wrote Today I Am Paul, a good short story about a sophisticated android who cares for the dying. It’s free here.

The Expanse, Season 3

I still have a hard time hearing the dialogue, but the hardware and software are dazzling. So much so I almost don’t care about the story. How long can this go on? At least as long as the books I hope.

Blue Origin’s highest yet

The New Shepard capsule soared 347,000 feet Sunday above West Texas, about 66 miles, her planned operating altitude. Sixty-two miles is the accepted boundary line for space.

“Another spectacular test mission,” Ariane Cornell of Blue Origin said during a launch webcast. “Everything looks nominal from here.”

For now the capsule holds only a dummy astronaut and some commercial experiment packages. Ultimately billionaire Jeff Bezos intends to send six passengers for a spectacular suborbital ride to space. Then the capsule will land back near the launchpad near Van Horn on three parachutes while the reusable booster rocket lands vertically on the pad.

Via Space dot com

Artemis

The Martian author Andy Weir has done it again with Artemis, a police procedural on the moon. The characters are sharply drawn and engaging but the real star is the Artemis moon city and the precisely correct life therein and thereout on EVAs. Makes me want to visit, if not actually live there. Can’t wait for his next one.

Loonies won’t miss water

“The nearly ubiquitous presence of water in large and small lunar pyroclastic deposits adds to the growing evidence that the lunar mantle is an important reservoir of water,” the team writes in the study.

Yay! Let’s hear it for Lunar colonies. And get with building them ASAP.

Via ScienceAlert

Reprising The Expanse

Been rehashing the episodes of The Expanse, since I own them now. Taking them in sequence from the first to the most recent, the 12th 13th of Season 2. Liking the characters more and wondering how far the SyFy channel will take the show.

Like as far as the the sixth novel, Babylon’s Ashes, which I just finished? It’s about the Belters war against Earth and Mars. Pretty good. No spoilers here. Wondering what’s next in the novel series, more on the colonized solar systems, I presume.