Engineer Thinks the ‘Enterprise’ can be Built in 20 Years, Fans Begin To Salivate

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Hammy starship captain not included

Sure, it’s not 2245 yet, but why let that stop us from getting a jump on building a vessel to seek out new life and new civilizations? To boldly go where only television serials have gone before? io9 talked about one engineer who thinks not only can we build our own Enterprise in the next 20 years, we absolutely should start the process right-the-frak-now.

Emily briefly touched on this last night, but this is so cool it deserves its own post.

Complete with conceptual designs, ship specs, a funding schedule, and almost every other imaginable detail, the BTE website was launched just this week and covers almost every aspect of how the project could be done. This Enterprise would be built entirely in space, have a rotating gravity section inside of the saucer, and be similar in size with the same look as the USS Enterprise that we know from Star Trek.

 “It ends up that this ship configuration is quite functional,” writes BTE Dan, even though his design moves a few parts around for better performance with today’s technology. This version of the Enterprise would be three things in one: a spaceship, a space station, and a spaceport. A thousand people can be on board at once – either as crew members or as adventurous visitors.

While the ship will not travel at warp speed, with an ion propulsion engine powered by a 1.5GW nuclear reactor, it can travel at a constant acceleration so that the ship can easily get to key points of interest in our solar system. Three additional nuclear reactors would create all of the electricity needed for operation of the ship.

Pipe dream? No doubt it is, but it certainly is fun to imagine. Hey, who knows? Maybe if we actually fund space exploration beyond low-earth Orbit, we could have something crazy awesome like this. As Neil Degrasse Tyson says, we just have to be bold.

Happy Birthday, George

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All of us would like to wish a very happy birthday to The Maker! George Lucas, aka the reason this blog is named Tosche Station, turns 68 today.

Happy birthday, George! Thanks for all the friends and memories you’ve given us over the years.

Happy Mother’s Day (and some news)

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It being Mother’s Day in the U.S., our intrepid bloggers have been spending some quality time with some very patient women who raised some really geeky kids with great grace. (I count myself doubly lucky because I not only get my mom, but I get to enjoy Shane’s mom too!)

As for today’s news, here’s what we’ve come up with.

Lucas gets revenge on Marin County residents.  When those who live in Marin County finally stopped the project to build the movie studio on George Lucas’ land, George Lucas decided to get back at them by using the land for something else: low-income housing.  From the article at Movies.com:

He’s working with the Marin Community Foundation to instead construct affordable housing for either low-income families or seniors living on small, fixed incomes.  In order to smooth along the development, he’s already given them all of the pricey technical studies and land surveys Lucasfilm spent years conducting.  And we thing that’s just great.  Because if there’s one thing rich people will hate more than having movie magic made in their backyard, it’s poor people moving in.

I’m not sure that The Great One’s motives are the purest here, but if it’s going to do something good for the community, I can’t knock it.

In other geek news, my brother sent me this link today: Buildtheenterprise.org.

Yes, you read that correctly.  It’s a site outlining the plan to build a working spaceship, based on the greatest ship ever conceived, the U.S.S. Enterprise, and is trying to show the feasibility of doing so.  Do be patient–six days into the site, they’ve had to purchase a new server because they’ve gone from 100 visitors a day to lover 60,ooo, so the site is moving a bit slow right now, but it’s worth it.

Edited to add: Also, the box office receipts are in for the weekend, and The Avengers just pulled in over 100 million for its second weekend.  That’s what most movies hope to make in their entire run.  This now brings the total for The Avengers to over 360 million dollars in two weeks.

 

‘Harry Potter’ Will Be Free in Amazon’s Kindle Lending Library

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For those of you who have Amazon Prime, your Kindle just got a little bit more magical. Time Online reports that Harry Potter will soon be available for for free as part of the Kindle Lending Library, a service offered to Prime customers that allows them to one book per month.

Today Amazon announced that it’s adding all seven of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

That means if you have an Amazon Prime membership (available for an annual fee of $79) you can “borrow” any of the Harry Potter books for free. Amazon Prime members can borrow one book per month with no due dates, plus they get free two-day shipping on most products sold directly by Amazon and the ability to stream certain movies and TV shows for free.

As if the free two-day shipping wasn’t enough to entice you to the Amazon Prime service (I swear my account pays for itself every Christmas thanks to that). The books will be available in the lending library starting June 19th.

Her Universe Teases New Gear For Girls

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Along with the new gear released on May 4, Her Universe will be selling brand new merchandise at Star Wars Weekends – for girls! I’ve long since lamented the lack of Star Wars clothing available for little girls (the only option was to shop in the boys’ sections of stores like Target and Wal Mart), but Her Universe is stepping up to the challenge with three new adorable offerings. The first is an Ahsoka-themed costume tunic, which will be great for Halloween and special events like Star Wars Weekends and Celebration VI. The other two shirts were designed by Star Wars artist Katie Cook and feature “Jedi-in-Training” Ahsoka (also available as a onesie!) and “Self-Rescuing Princess” Leia (which I might have to purchase for myself – luckily I can fit into girls’ XXL!).

Currently Her Universe offers two shirts for girls: the Ahsoka Chibi and Daddy’s Little Girl.

Star Wars Weekends begins May 18 and concludes June 10. I will be there every weekend to report on the festivities for the blog!

Chewie and Ackbar Confirmed for Celebration VI

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The official site has details of more guests confirmed for Celebration VI. The headliner this time around is Chewbacca himself, Peter Mayhew. Other confirmations include:

Tim Rose: “It’s a Trap!” The performer behind Admiral Ackbar, Tim Rose, will be at Celebration VI. The puppeteer also performed the iconic Sy Snoodles and Salacious Crumb.

Trevor Butterfield: Butterfield performed a variety of roles, including an Imperial Officer and Lt. Blount in Return of the Jedi.

Nick Maley: A make-up artist in The Empire Strikes Back, Maley was involved with Stuart Freeborn in the creation of Yoda.

Paul Springer: Mime artist and puppeteer, Springer portrayed a Gamorrean guard and the character Ree Yees in Return of the Jedi.

Mayhew joins Carrie Fisher and Jeremy Bulloch as the early confirmations for the convention to celebrate all things Star Wars. I do hope they’ll let Peter and Carrie do a panel together. One of the highlights at last year’s Dragon*Con was watching the two of them riff off each other for an hour.

 

Star Wars Books Teases What ‘New Jedi Order’ Might Have Been

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Pablo Hidalgo is at work on an all new Essential Reader’s Companion, but he had the time to send an interesting behind the scenes note to Star Wars Books regarding an early premise for the New Jedi Order series.

The story arc was to very closely hew to the myth structure of the Hero’s Journey as outlined by Joseph Campbell, a huge influence on the creation of the Star Wars cinematic story. With that as its basic framework, the plot underwent much evolution and exploration. Its earliest descriptions had Luke Skywalker sending the three Solo children on an epic quest, upon which they encounter a new female character from the invading species sent to infiltrate the galaxy. This unnamed female corrupts Anakin, nearly turning him to the dark side, but she falls in love with him and Anakin instead redeems her. In a fit of intense sibling rivalry, Jacen and Jaina turn on Anakin, and in the resulting conflict, Jacen dies.

You know. I think I might have preferred this setup to what we got. The undercurrent of redemption plays much more true to the philosophy and tone of Star Wars, and this would have been a clear passing of the torch to the next generation.

Via Star Wars Books

Allston, Zahn, Stackpole, Young, and Spendlove Team Up For Origins Exclusive Anthology

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Heading to the Origins Game Fair in Columbus this month? You may want to check out a nifty little project Expanded Universe author Aaron Allston announced yesterday.

Time-Traveled Tales is an experiment by GAMA, the organization that runs Origins — it’s the first fiction anthology produced as a souvenir for that convention. Similar anthologies produced for events like the World Fantasy Convention tend to become collector’s items. We’re hoping that the same will come true of this book, and that it will persuade GAMA to produce more in the future.

You can help them with that decision, of course, by buying one…

Time-Traveled Tales is being produced in a limited print run. In the event that the print run does not sell out at the convention, individual authors may have copies for sale in the future. But picking up a copy early at the Origins Game Fair, or asking a friend to pick one up for you, is the only way to be sure of getting a copy. At this moment, we have no idea whether the anthology will be reissued in the future.

Wish us luck with this experiment, and I look forward to seeing you at Origins.

Just who is involved with this project? There’s Allston, of course. Authors and all around cool people Janine Spendlove and Bryan Young have entries in the paperback. Then there’s Tim Zahn and Mike Stackpole, who you just might be familiar with.

I’ll definitely be looking out for a copy when I head down to Columbus later this month. For more information, visit Aaron’s blog.

Pete Morrison Breaks Down The EU Gender Numbers

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There’s been a whole lot said in the last week or so about the need for better developed female characters in Star Wars and the Expanded universe. Over at Lightsaber Rattling, Pete Morrison decided to look at EU novels since 2006 and crunch some numbers.

Some figures Pete unearthed:

  • Male Character Per Novel Average: 9.9
  • Female Character Per Novel Average: 5.13
  • Ratio of Male to Female Characters: 1.93 to 1.

It’s important to note that this isn’t a look at the quality of female characters written into these books (which is another topic entirely), just the quantity. However, it seems that even on the strict numbers front, fans asking for more to be done with female characters have a point. Female characters are nearly outnumbered 2-to-1 in the Expanded Universe since 2006.

In addition to breaking these numbers down further by year, Pete has also written a great editorial to go along with this piece. Go to the link above and read through his excellent post.