Virgin Galactic VX01 VX03

 A picture is worth a thousand words.

NASA-TV cut between its own feed and the press feed from Unity 22.

These are all sequential as presented by NASA.

Time and Altitude stamps show actuals.

 

 

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Space is the Place: Come to the High Frontier 

The Virtues of Aviation Culture 

Armadillocon 41 Day 3 Part 1 

Entrepreneurship 

Armadillocon 41

The only people signing autographs here are authors. Armadillocon is a very literary science fiction convention for writers, editors, artists, publishers and fans of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction. The only people from Hollywood are writers (and, infrequently, agents). I attended as a "Regional Participant," presenting a lecture on “The Future of Money” on Friday night, and joining a panel discussion on “The Perfect Heist: Crime in the 23^rdCentury" on Sunday afternoon. 

After my talk on Friday night and the opening ceremonies, I went to “Lunar Fiction” which was okay and then “The Social Impact of New Technology” which was great. Dr. Robin R. Murphy (AI, robotics, and emergency response) moderated and was excellent. It was her first science fiction convention. Also on the panel were Dr. Anne V. Smith (computational biology), Paige E. Ewing (data analytics), and authors Lauren C. Teffeau and Becky Burkheart. 

The Social Impact of New Technology

When not rapid firing her .45, Burkheart races horses over 50-mile and 100-mile open country courses. (She also delivered a talk earlier on “Writing Realistic Horsemanship.”) She said that until a few years ago, a cross country race was attended by a veterinarian with a stethoscope. Now, she wears a real time monitor for both herself and her horse. My other takeaway was that “science fiction does the emotional labor of technology.” Also, it is not so much that science predicts the future (though there is that), but Paige Ewing said that she sees scientists today who were inspired by the science fiction of their youth to actually create the speculative inventions such as robots. The panel also agreed that “AI without governance is immoral” and that we need more regulation. Ewing said, “everyone here agrees…” and I said that I did not and Prof. Murphy said that we would not discuss that now, which was fine with me.

Urania Fung (blog) teaches
at Tarrant County College

On Saturday, Laurel and I attended panels from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM. The show continued but we could not. So, I had to forego “What Science has not been Used in Science Fiction?” 

Mostly following different tracks, we both showed up for “Research for Authors” at noon. Usually, they do that by reading science or history and sometimes interviewing scientists. Stina Leicht took a “Black Taxi” tour of Belfast. Thinking that she had been protected in the company of two large men, she discovered that they were happy to be safe in the company of an American. The more typical danger for a writer is going down a rabbit hole of fascinating but irrelevant research that only prevents writing. Urania Fung said that she just [brackets] the unknown and keeps writing. 

The Archive Theater delivered a presentation on sword fighting taken from a new translation of Cyrano de Bergerac running August 29-September 29. 

 

Stina Leicht blog 

The panel on “Law and Lawyers” was lively and informative. Moderator Christopher Brown is an attorney. Law pervades science fiction from the Three Laws of Robotics to the Prime Directive. She Hulk and Daredevil are lawyers. (Even Superman needs a lawyer. See Action Comics #581.) Writing as John Cambell (Naval Officer), John Hemry (LCDR USN Ret), has "JAGs in space" in his novels. Citizen of the Galaxy and Blue Mars were offered. Melinda Snodgrass (Circuit series and ST:NG "Measure of a Man") holds a law degree from the University of New Mexico. It was suggested that blockchain would allow “smart contracts” that change to meet new legal contexts. 

“How to Get the Science Right” was mostly about how not to get the science wrong. The Scientist Guest of Honor, Dr. Moriba Jah, was more tolerant of weak science in storytelling as long as the deeper methods of science are not violated. “What are some fundamental principles that you can apply?” he asked. “Consistent character development is like consistent science development. Does this science make sense? Can you predict how it will work?” So, too, with character, is it important to be able to be able to predict how they will act. He said that a good story lets the reader remove ignorance. For those reasons, despite the many flaws in Gravity, he accepted the character. He also found value in the revelation from his own field of work that orbital space is crowded with potentially dangerous junk. As for research, he recommended that authors attend science conventions to meet scientists. Rice University librarian Alexis Glynn Latner suggested graduate school poster sessions. Dr. Robin Murphy’s rules for meeting scientists were: (1) suck up to them (2) ask direct questions and (3) say thank you with chocolates. 

Dr. Moriba Jah
Wikipedia here
UT Austin here

I also attended Murphy’s presentation on “Disaster Robotics.” She displayed EMILY, a marine surface robot for rescue. Most of her presentation was about emergency response from FEMA’s point of view. (Maximizing the public good rather than reducing individual suffering.) Murphy ran videos of aerial drones inspecting bridges and said that no people were rescued from rooftops because of them. I was comfortable with all that from my own training. I think that the audience would have preferred more about AI and robotics, maybe be shown flowcharts and decision trees from a “Rescue Roomba” or something. 

Dr. Robin Murphy interviewed Dr. Moriba Jah at 5:00 PM on Saturday. About 20-25 people attended, which was pretty good considering the many tracks that were running. Jah studies non-gravitational orbital dynamics in order to track the thousands of objects orbiting Earth. After a tour of duty in the USAF, he attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and completed his doctoral work at the University of Colorado Boulder. He now works for the University of Texas Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. He suggested that the first armed conflict in space may not be between the USA and China but between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Armadillocon 39 

Armadillocon 40, Part 1 

Armadillocon 40, Part 2 

Teaching Ethics to Engineering Students 

Firefly: Fact and Value Aboard "Serenity"

This is an example of Romantic fiction as elucidated by Ayn Rand in her book, The Romantic Manifesto.  These characters act on the basis of their values.  While they each know their self-interest, for each that is different, based on their personal life experiences.  Thus, the show is about morality: beliefs becoming actions.  Those different goals bring tensions and conflicts.  

 This show ran 14 episodes in 2002 before it was canceled.  It was recommended to me by another libertarian, who is not an Objectivist. His brief mention on the Objectivist Living discussion board stressed the anti-authoritarian frontier theme.  I think that he missed the more salient perception.   This is not bootleg Romanticism, or smuggled values, but the real deal.

The hero is Malcolm Reynolds.  He owns a spaceship, Serenity, that hauls cargo and passengers.  Serenity is a "firefly" class ship, called so because the tail lights up when power is engaged.  These are sublight ships.  The story is set in the early 26th century.  FTL does not exist.  Terraforming does.  China and America have united to dominate Earth; and Earth dominates the Alliance of human worlds.  (There are no other sentient species.) Reynolds had been a "browncoat," a fighter in a sessionist faction whose revolt failed.  Now, he seeks the frontiers, not quite far enough away from the Alliance.  His crew of three consists of a former combat comrade and her husband who is the pilot, and also an engineer.  Also along for the ride are a hired gun, a non-denominational Christian "Shepherd," a professional Companion (prostitute), and two refugees, a doctor and his sister.

 Each of them has a defined self-interest.  Usually,  those coincide, thus the crew can function.  Often, however, their values are in conflict as their different goals require independent choices in each situation. 

The ship's hired gun, Jayne Cobb, was bought out from the men who hired him to kill Malcolm Reynolds.  Cobb says, and Reynolds understands, that if the deal is ever good enough, he will turn Reynolds over to the Alliance.  Yet, Jayne Cobb is there, at the ready, when he is needed because it is in his self-interest to do so. 

"... value is objective (not intrinsic or subjective); value is based on and derives from the facts of reality ... Every proper value-judgment is the identification of a fact: a given object or action advances man’s life (it is good): or it threatens man’s life (it is bad or an evil). ... since every fact bears on the choice to live, every truth necessarily entails a value-judgment, and every value-judgment necessarily presupposes a truth.  "Fact and Value" by Leonard Peikoff, Ph.D. here.

Malcolm Reynolds is a smuggler.  He achieves that by not getting caught and having the right-looking papers.  He and his crew do not need the attention that comes from having the doctor and his sister on board.  They are fleeing the Alliance because Simon Tam broke River out of a government lab that was deconstructing her super-genius mind.  But Captain Reynolds knows himself and his values.  Doctor Tam and River are his passengers, even as they endanger his mission. 

On The Atlasphere here you can find a review of Firefly that centers on creator Joss Whedon's fight to keep the integrity of his work. 

The enduring attraction of this work is evidenced by the continued "fanfic" (new fiction in the universe created by fans, usually canonic, sometimes not).  The Firefly Fan site is here.  The Firefly Wiki  includes characters, actors, a lexicon of the universe, and a guide to the Chinese spoken in the show.  You can watch the show on Hulu, TV.com, and Xfinity.Comcast.  If you watch it on DVD, you can enjoy the backstory and commentary about the struggle to create and maintain the integrity of the work.  A movie, Serenity, was released in 2005.  Much more about Firefly will be revealed by your web browser.

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
Anthem as a Graphic Novel
Redshirts: Expendable in Fiction and Fact
Reflections on Atlas Shrugged Part 1
Nerd Nation