and here's hoping for 50 more: a brief love letter in quotes and links, to NASA on its anniversary

[rivendellrose]

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. - Isaac Asimov

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. - Oscar Wilde

Links:

Discover Channel's tribute to NASA's past and future.

NASA's main site.

NASA image archive.

I can think of nothing more impressive that the human race has accomplished, than that we have gone beyond the boundaries of our own little planet out into the stars. Every step along that way is a trial, and we're bound to fall from time to time, but it's so much better than lying down again and giving up the universe.

Comments

[beam-oflight.livejournal.com]

Yay space! I was one of those kids that wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger, but some time before I was 11 I figred I was too short and I'd settle for astrophysics. I would just love to go into space so much!

Nice quotes, although I finally got around to reading Asimov and he's kind of annoying me so far, not that he doesn't have pretty cool ideas, just the execution bothers me.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I was, too. Between the height thing and my terrible vision, there was never a hope. I'll settle for running museums about all that stuff, and reminding myself that if we ever run into anything smart they'll need good anthropologists! ;)

Asimov is one of those guys who's brilliant... but whose writing is kind of "meh." Try some of his short stories, maybe? Some of those are really fun, and they don't get bogged down nearly as much as his longer work.

Hmm. I need to make some good space icons. *g*

[beam-oflight.livejournal.com]

I think it doesn't help that it's all back in the 70s, the science has moved on in some ways but in others it was so ingrained in society he didn't even think of changing it. I've read Foundation now, and I'm a little way into Foundation and the Empire. 10,000 years in the future everyone still smokes, Atomic power is still the big thing and in Foundation there is only one (minor) named female character, well she might be named, but she speaks a few lines and guess what the portrayal is? Whiny, silly, spoilt wife of a king (I think it's a king, some sort of leader any way). So yeah, the tech may be advanced, but society hasn't changed from 1971 to 10000 years after that.

So maybe some short stories. Have you read any Iain M. Banks? Is he any good?

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

....Okay, if you've made it through Foundation, you've got me well beat on the subject of Asimov. I tried him when I was a few years younger than you, and never made it further than his short stories and some of the light little teeny novels. o_O You win!

What you're talking about with culture, though... that's one of the biggest problems in science fiction, I think. Almost all of the old greats are totally dated by their cultural stuff, particular when it comes to women. It's a real pity. Some of these guys could imagine humankind living in the stars, and figure out all sorts of really clever scientific ways to get us there and so on... but they just couldn't seem to conceive of a woman as a real person or a valuable member of society.

I haven't read anything by Banks, no... I'm trying to think who I have read, and all I can come up with are Bradbury (Martian Chronicles and some short stories, although that was a while ago and I don't remember much anymore), Niven (even longer, and I remember less), and Heinlein ("Stranger in a Strange Land" is definitely dated, but still pretty interesting). And one writer I can't recommend highly enough is Ursula K. LeGuin - she has about a zillion books in print, of all sorts of different genres and styles, but "Changing Planes" or "The Birthday of the World" are probably good starts - both are short story collections, so they'll give you a feel for all the different kind of stuff she does. I don't usually read short stories often, but I make an exception for her. ;)

One that I've been meaning to look into is James Tiptree, Jr. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree_Jr) - who was really Alice Sheldon. ;) She wrote under the pseudonym in the 60s and 70s, and from what I've heard she was damned impressive.

(I just checked with a friend who I think is a lot like you in a lot of ways, and she says she'd highly recommend "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Heinlein. I'm too far on the soft s-f end, sometimes, so I thought I'd check with her to see what I might be missing. *g*)

[beam-oflight.livejournal.com]

Ooo, thanks, will give some of those a try :) Alice Sheldon does sund pretty epic!

I'm not really into that much hard sci-fi, only the ones I can really get into but one I do, I'm gripped like whoa, like Dune, it took me a good third of the book to get into it, it was a real struggle but then I couldn't stop. But that is alot to do with people and politics and less the science part :) I have tons of hard stuff at my disposal though - the house is full of my dad's old sci-fi books, so I don't really know much about modern sci-fi authors.

My favourite sci-fi book, and prehaps book is 'Ender's Game' by Orson Scott Card, and it's sequels. It's written in a great style, and has great characterisation.

*needs a good book icon*

[lovelies.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's true. I remember loving Clarke's non-fiction space program stuff as a kid. And then as I grew up I was so sad to see the space program run down and underfunded, and people just not caring that there's that great big space out there for us to explore. I'm ever so glad they've picked up the pace in the past decade.