Job Opening: Astronauts Wanted for Virgin Galactic!

Did somebody say "Astros Try Outs"?

ATTENTION SPACE JOCKEYS: It's totally legit! Brazillionaire Sir Richard Branson wants individuals with the "right stuff" (I'm going to regret that aren't I?) to join his Virgin Galactic spacefleet. The silver-maned one is looking for three space pilots to become VG flight crew for future missions. Awesomely spacey job responsibilities include:

In addition to flight duties with the WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo, Pilot-Astronaut duties will also include flight planning activities, mission control co-ordination and ground-to-air support, record keeping and training obligations.

Flight planning activities will involve route planning and airspace coordination with personnel at Spaceport America, White Sands Missile Range, the local Federal Aviation Authority Air Traffic Control and Office of Commercial Space Transportation.

Other responsibilities include manning mission control when not aboard a launch craft, training new pilots, blasting dangerous space junk and wooing hot space groupies. (Okay, some of those are really just "perks".)

Now for the important stuff--job requirements:

• Must be a US citizen – compliant with ITAR (22 CFR §120.15)
• A current FAA commercial (or equivalent) pilot license and FAA medical (you will be required to produce evidence of both at interview)
• Degree level qualification in a relevant technical field
• Graduate of a recognized test pilot school, with at least 2 ½ years post-graduate flight test experience (you will be required to produce evidence at interview)
• A diverse flying background with a minimum of 3,000 hours flying to include considerable experience of: large multi-engine aircraft and high performance fast jet aircraft and low lift-to-drag ratio glide experience (e.g. simulated flameout landings) in complex aircraft
• Operational experience of an aerospace aviation project or business
• Excellent, current knowledge on a diverse range of aerospace matters
• Ability to communicate aviation knowledge and safety related information simply, succinctly and clearly
• Previous responsibility for authorizing and implementing policies and procedures to ensure a safe and efficient operation
• Be a proven team player

You gotta be a US citizen? I thought he was from the UK? I suppose the spaceport is in US. Whatever, that seems arbitrary, and more importantly it doesn't exclude me. Though, that, and being a "proven team player" are about the only criteria for which I'm personally 100% qualified. I'm certain I could pick up the rest within a few weeks of on-the-job training. I'm a fast learner.

For the rest of you, what are you waiting for? Apply now!! http://careers.virgin.com/search/1921/

P.S. Yes, it's been far too long between actual game and/or comics-related posts. I hope to remedy that over the next few weeks. :)

UPDATE: Here's a helpful flowchart that may help you determine whether you've got what it takes to be an Bransonaut.

Exonauts no more--now it's ENDOnauts!

I've grown weary of the outer-space genre. This blog will now focus inward--that is, on the microscopic and nano-metric.

Here's what's in mind:

Just try enlarging this minuscule image!

Check out the Corpus Science Museum in the Netherlands where you get to tour and learn about the human body as if you were a teeny, tiny visitor. Pretend you're an invading germ and scoping out your host's anatomy for a cushy place to crash! From Spot Cool Stuff's travel blog:

Your Fantastic Voyage through the museum starts with an escalator ride into an open sore on your giant victim’s leg and ends among the pulsing neurons in his brain. Between those two points, you will watch cheese being digested in the intestines and explore the ventricles of the heart. Your kids can bounce up and down on the rubber tongue (they’ll love the background burping noises) while you take in various scents wafting through the giant nose. Perhaps the most unusual display is the hologram of sperm fertilizing an egg, viewed via 3D glasses.

Sounds like the makings of a great game don't it? I can see the box set promo copy now:

Take a fantastic journey through a living labyrinth, kill cancer cells--and take their stuff!

I suppose spaceships are still okay, but they must be TINY. Watch out for Zoidbergs.

Get started with some Microsurgeon skill training for your PCs:



Mix in some source material to flesh out your MINI-campaign:

• Fantastic Voyage (book and film--FYI, they're making a new on for 2013)
• Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (film, TV show, Rick Moranis FTW!)
• Innerspace (film)
• Grays Anatomy (the reference, not the soap)
• The Atom (Comics; Ray Palmer fits the bill, Henry Pym and Janet van Dyne aren't quite small enough)
• Micronauts (comic book and toys)
• Osmosis Jones (buddy-cop, animated film starring a white blood cell and a Tylenol gel-cap!)
• Giant-sized microbes (plush germs!)

Let's kick off the new blog with a little theme music!




Archived April 1

NASA wants to blast space junk with lasers!

I'm not sure if this is a plot to an Atari 2600 video game or, like, my personal dream of shooting stuff in space with lasers come true, but a research team thinks they've solved the space junk problem. BLAST IT WITH LASERS!!!

PEW! PEW! PEW!

First, the problem: space junk is accumulating at an alarming rate. Beside the risk of falling debris, it's downright deadly for anyone operating/working in space, as well as potentially catastrophic for orbiting satellites.

Wired has some details:

Simply keeping new fragments from forming can make a big difference for orbital safety, Levit said. Because objects with more surface area feel more drag, the atmosphere pulls down the lightest, flattest fragments of space junk first. When big pieces of debris break up into smaller ones, the pieces become harder and harder to remove.

Worse, the pieces left behind are often the most dangerous: small, dense things like bolts.

“If one collides with a satellite or another piece of debris at the not-unreasonable relative velocity of, say 5,000 miles per second, it will blow it to smithereens,” Levit said.

Sounds completely logical, right? "So gentlemen, how do we propose to solve the alarmingly massive accumulation of orbital detritus problem?  BLAST IT WITH LASERS!!11!!"

In the new study, the researchers suggest focusing a mid-powered laser through a telescope to shine on pieces of orbital debris that look like they’re on a collision course. Each photon of laser light carries a tiny amount of momentum. Together, all the photons in the beam can nudge an object in space and slow it down by about 0.04 inches per second.

Shining the laser on bits of space litter for an hour or two a day should be enough to move the whole object by about 650 feet per day, the researchers show. That might not be enough to pull the object out of orbit altogether, but preliminary simulations suggest it could be enough to avoid more than half of all debris collisions.

That sounds reasonable to me! Where do I sign up to be a space junk blasting jockey?  (Oh, I'm so writing up a new skill-set for X-plorers!)

SERIOUSLY. The chances of any of us being an astronaut are 1,589, 292, 874 to 1, so we they might as well let us disintegrate detritus in low orbit.

WHO'S WITH ME?

Ralphie Saves Flash Gordon

This is little link I found over Christmas and meant to post during Flash Gordon month (let's just say 2011 is Flash Gordon Year!).

Apparently in the film, A Christmas Story, there was a deleted scene of radio show junkie Ralphie listening to a Flash Gordon broadcast and daydreaming a rescue of Flash from Ming the Merciless.

In the scene, Flash is lashed to a "cobra tree" with snakeskin bark while Ming monologues on his imminent doom. The tree is supposed to awaken and devour our hero. A perfect example of injecting a little homebrew "weird" into the story! Ralph arrives with his trusty Red Rider BB gun to save Flash and well...I don't want to ruin it, so head on over to the film's legacy site to find out how it ends. Sadly, the none of the footage survived to present day.
 
If you're ever in Cleveland, you can tour the house used in the film and to see costumes, drawings, and the script.

Scalzi scores the space invaders

Award-winning sci-fi author and interplanetary badass John Scalzi wrote a great piece about alien invasion films where he grades the invaders on their success or failure.

Speaking of which, anyone going to see Battle: Los Angeles this weekend?

You know it's based on a true story, right? ;)