Archive for the 'Mars' Category

Apr 05 2019

Book Report

Published by under Mars,T-Space,Writing

Which is to say, a report on where I am with in-progress and upcoming books, not a report on anything I’ve read recently.

The first draft of The Pavonis Insurgence, next in the Carson & Roberts series, is finished, but still requires revision (which will probably add ten thousand words or so) and final editing. So, maybe by Memorial Day? I spun up a lot of different plot threads in The Eridani Convergence and The Reticuli Deception before that, and I’m starting to tie them together.

When I came up with the whole T-Space series, I envisioned a twelve book plot arc, loosely based on a four-act structure. The Alpha Centauri series was act one. Kakuloa was supposed to bridge act one and act two, the Carson & Roberts series. Those of you mathematically inclined (if you’re also familiar with the four act structure) will be starting to recognize a problem about here. Pavonis will be the fourth of the Carson & Roberts books, and I’ve already suggested that Kakuloa itself may end up as four books (the first, A Rising Tide, came out in January, the next, The Downhill Slide is also in progress, about one-third done, with some work started on the third, Crash and Burn). And I’m only (with Pavonis) nearing the end-of-act-two plot twist. So, maybe a twenty (-plus?) volume series? We’ll see.

In my defense, these volumes are not the multi-hundred-thousand word volumes of a Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones) or Wheel of Time. (Note, I’m not comparing myself to Martin or Jordan as an author, just comparing word counts.) I grew up on much shorter novels, and I think my readers would prefer to see me publish more frequently than once every few years. So there’s that. Anyway, I’d like to have the next Kakuloa book out by Westercon/NASFiC, which is the July 4th extended weekend.

On the other hand, I don’t want to get myself pigeonholed as just the author of the T-Space series. I have a few other projects that I’d like to work on.

Two of these are set within our own solar system, and are old projects I’m looking at taking off the back burner. One is my “Great Martian Novel” (every hard SF author should write one), centered around a couple of major construction projects on Mars. The other is my “Apollo 18” book, which was about half-written when that [expletive deleted] movie of the same name came out. I think it has been long enough now, and the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 is coming up. Working title is now Apollo 18: Project Jeannie. This is set between Apollo 17 and Skylab, and has nothing in common with the movie except the mission number and the Soviet lunar lander. (No doubt we were both inspired by the revelation that there was a Soviet lunar lander, although it never flew and was kept secret by the USSR to pretend there never was a Moon race.) No promises on these. I have mentioned them in passing before and will post more when there’s something more definite.

Another one is set in T-Space, but will be YA (young adult). I’ve alluded to the fact that Jackie Roberts was born on a starship during the five-year Eta Carinae mission. I want to tell a story of her growing up ten years after that, when her parents take her on another multi-year mission. I’d like to have that one ready for Christmas, but that depends on my writing schedule and priorities.

Somewhere in there I’d also like to do a sci-fi/fantasy crossover, maybe an expansion of my short “The Gremlin Gambit” (but I have some other ideas, too).

Too much to write and too little time. What would you like to see?

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Aug 07 2012

Congratulations to the Curiosity lander team

Published by under Mars

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know that the Mars rover Curiosity successfully landed in Gale crater last night. This is quite a feat, not least because of the rather Rube-Goldberg sequence to successfully land the rover without contaminating it or the surface too much with backsplash from the landing jets. That’s been thoroughly discussed elsewhere, no need to go over it here, except to congratulate all those involved: the dang thing worked!.

With the landing accomplished, it’s now in the hands of the science teams and drivers. I wish them team all success, and hope we see Curiosity crawling around Mars for years to come. With any luck we’ll see data that pins down some of the ambiguous information we’ve been getting from previous probes.
I like to joke that the Vikinglanders, which landed on Mars back in 1976, were designed to answer the question: “Is there life on Mars?”. They landed, took their soil samples, ran their experiments, and beamed back: “Could you repeat the question?”.

The majority scientific opinion is that the Vikings discovered some very unusual soil chemistry, not life. The thing is, the results from the Labeled Release Experiment (basically, put soil on a nutrient medium labeled (chemically tagged) with isotopes and see if you detect labeled metabolic products) returned results which pre-launch criteria stated would indicate life. They changed the criteria later because of odd results from the other experiments: taken together, they didn’t indicate what the scientists believed would indicate life.

Later some of those same experiments would be repeated in relatively barren places on Earth, such as the ultra-dry Atacama Desert in Chile. They didn’t detect life on Earth, either. (More sensitive equipment will detect microbial life even in the Atacama.)

Do I believe there’s life on Mars? I have no data. I believe there could be, and that there almost certainly was once. We know (or are pretty sure) that Mars was once once wet, with a thicker atmosphere. We know that large meteorite impacts with Earth can knock off rocks which will eventually reach Mars, and, much more so, vice versa. We have strong evidence that some microbes could survive such a blasting into space, millenia long voyage, and entry into another planet’s atmosphere. In other words, it’s entirely possible that Mars was cross-contaminated from Earth (or vice versa!) in the early days of the solar system.

I feel pretty safe in predicting that Curiosity won’t answer all these questions either, but it will answer some. And I’m pretty sure it will raise a few more.

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Mar 15 2012

The Ides of March

Published by under Mars,Uncategorized

So, on this day 2055 years ago (give or take a few days for calendar reform) Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by a bunch of senators (politics was more hands-on in those days) to prevent the Republic from turning into a dictator-led Empire. That worked well. Of somewhat more relevance, the Ides of March was a festival day for Mars, although for the god, not the planet.

Me, I’m in the middle of a major crunch in the day job, counting down to the cutover to a major reimplementation of our business software in a couple of weeks. By day (and sometimes night) I’m a senior analyst/developer for a major provider of satellite-delivered entertainment. This cutover is as complex as any satellite launch, except that we do that every year or two.

Which is by way of explaining my absence here lately, and for the next few weeks to come. (And by the time the dust has settled, it’ll be tax time. Oh joy.) More sometime in April, unless something exciting happens in the meantime.

Cheers.

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Feb 09 2008

Mars

Published by under Mars,Writing

Speaking of Mars and the Great Martian Novel (see the item below), I’ve just posted an essay that talks a bit about how Jim Baen got me started on that, and where it’s at now.

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Feb 06 2008

Mars in 3D

Published by under Mars

Astrobiology Magazine reports that high resolution 3D Mars maps are now available thanks to data from the Mars Express Hi Res Stereo Camera (HRSC). This data has already been used to produce some wonderful topographic maps (click image for better view). If I ever get back to working on my Great Martian Novel (about building the Aresian Well), these will come in handy.
Mars map

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