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Wherein I ramble about books, movies,
music, TV shows, my life, and occasionally, hot emo boys.
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Monday, July 23, 2007
Space -- the final frontier junkyard
I write science-fiction, so obviously I'm interested in space exploration. I love reading about new technologies.
I mean, holy crap, I invented a weapon in Grimspace, which I called a disruptor. The way it works is simple and grotesque. I theorized that, like they're doing now, scientists had worked on developing technology that would permit people to beam around, as envisioned in Star Trek. However, in my world, they never experienced any success in transporting human beings intact to their new location. The targeted person wound up hideously scrambled, their flesh turned inside out, and the result was a horrible, agonizing death.
They, of course, immediately turned this research failure into a weapon. Thus, the disruptor was born. It's based in the science of teleportation; the disruptor has been attuned to the flesh frequency, and it literally rerranges all your molecules. So if you're shot in the stomach, it puts your guts on the outside, and you die of shock. Talk about gruesome and painful. I love my job!
Imagine my excitement when I found this article.
However, one thing I didn't include (and maybe I should) is space junkyards. I'm rather pissed about this article. It ticks me off when I catch people dumping the ashes and cigarette butts out of their car and into the parking lot. "Hello, the world is not your ashtray, asshole!" I feel the same way about NASA and its 1400 pounds of ammonia from the space station.
Haven't we fucked up our own world enough? Do we have to start sending shit into space? "The U.S. space agency calculates the odds of the debris hurting or killing a person at one in 5000." Fantastic. So now we have to worry about being killed by falling garbage?
This really riles me up. Do I need to write about giant floating trash heaps, close to Old Terra? I think I might. Because that's the way we're headed. I laughed my ass off at that episode of Futurama, where the professor builds the Smelloscope, which locates the giant trashball that they launched into space in 2052.
I'm not laughing now.
I mean, holy crap, I invented a weapon in Grimspace, which I called a disruptor. The way it works is simple and grotesque. I theorized that, like they're doing now, scientists had worked on developing technology that would permit people to beam around, as envisioned in Star Trek. However, in my world, they never experienced any success in transporting human beings intact to their new location. The targeted person wound up hideously scrambled, their flesh turned inside out, and the result was a horrible, agonizing death.
They, of course, immediately turned this research failure into a weapon. Thus, the disruptor was born. It's based in the science of teleportation; the disruptor has been attuned to the flesh frequency, and it literally rerranges all your molecules. So if you're shot in the stomach, it puts your guts on the outside, and you die of shock. Talk about gruesome and painful. I love my job!
Imagine my excitement when I found this article.
AUSTRALIAN physicists have discovered a method that could see atoms being teleported between Sydney and Perth and pave the way for possible Star Trek-like travel in the future.Doesn't that lend credence to the science behind my disruptor? It could happen. I've tried to create a future based off what is possible today. I don't say it will happen the way I've written, but it could. That tickles me.
The method involves cooling down a group of atoms and shooting lasers at them, making them "appear to disappear" before using transporting them along optic fibres at light speed to another location where they can be reconstructed.
The "simple" way of transporting atoms was developed by physicists Murray Olsen, Ashton Bradley, Simon Haine of the Australian Research Council Centre for Quantum-Atom Optics, and and Joseph Hope of ANU.
Dr Olsen told NEWS.com.au the method was very much like the Star Trek characters' favourite way to get back onto the ship.
The atoms are cooled to almost absolute zero, or -273C. At a billionth of a degree above this temperature, a quirk of physics makes all the atoms start behaving in the same way. Then the scientists zap them with two lasers.
However, one thing I didn't include (and maybe I should) is space junkyards. I'm rather pissed about this article. It ticks me off when I catch people dumping the ashes and cigarette butts out of their car and into the parking lot. "Hello, the world is not your ashtray, asshole!" I feel the same way about NASA and its 1400 pounds of ammonia from the space station.
Haven't we fucked up our own world enough? Do we have to start sending shit into space? "The U.S. space agency calculates the odds of the debris hurting or killing a person at one in 5000." Fantastic. So now we have to worry about being killed by falling garbage?
This really riles me up. Do I need to write about giant floating trash heaps, close to Old Terra? I think I might. Because that's the way we're headed. I laughed my ass off at that episode of Futurama, where the professor builds the Smelloscope, which locates the giant trashball that they launched into space in 2052.
I'm not laughing now.
am i the first to post?
linda b
Space exploration is important, but I hate to see so many needs going unmet on the planet, and for us to start polluting the galaxy. Something has to give.
oh, dude, you gotta read this short story by Stephen King. fuck if I can remember the title. It might be in nightmares and dreamscapes. but it's about this guy trying to invented teleporters and realizes you have to be asleep when you go through because "it's like forever in there"
You know, the way I've envisioned it, Old Terra is an urban sprawl, totally raped of natural resources.
New Terra is essentially its farm colony, lots of wide open spaces, with only a few cities here and there.
A ring of garbage around Old Terra would almost make sense.
ps - i loved hearing how you got your idea you used in your book. can't wait to read it.
I've always wondered what happens to space probes, etc. that go off orbit never to be seen again. And whether it's polite, if you believe in extraterrestrial beings, to let our crap float on forever. Then again, at least the universe is expanding so maybe it can accommodate a few bits of garbage strewn here and there. Or maybe they get swallowed up by black holes eventually? In science fiction, perhaps we can have a system of garbage collection where each planet parks their garbage outside, and it's collected and dumped by collectors into the nearest black hole. Would that work?
Of course, I have major beef with this 'quest to find intelligent life' anyway. Given our track record on this planet, what are the odds that we won't kill whatever life we find out there? The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Given our history, it doesn't bode well for other species.
Especially that part about past behavior. You've influenced me. I may have to list you in the acknowledgments, because I took something I hear you say all the time and adapted it for use in Grimspace -- skin privilege.
I thought about that and decided it made perfect sense, given our history, that human beings would consider themselves superior to any lifeform they encountered out there, and would react accordingly.
I'm glad you didn't let the jerkball get away with that.