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SCI FI MOVIE 'CURSE' MAY HAVE KILLED OFF AMERICAN AIRLINES' FUTURE

 By David Todd

 As American Airlines files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, it may well be suffering from the "sci-fi movie curse of the airlines".  As science fiction film makers have found, predicting the future is fraught with hazard as those companies that are strong now may not be so in the future.  This curse usually results in such airlines which do appear usually not having any future at all.     For example, American Airlines appeared in the well regarded eco-science fiction drama Silent Running (1972) which starred Bruce Dern, some very sweet robots, and a lot of trees.   Of the airline, robots and trees....now it looks as if only the trees will survive.

 American Airlines is not the only victim of this curse.  In Stanley Kubrick's 2001 - A Space Odyssey (1968) the Orion shuttle which carried space passengers to the rotating Earth station was seen in the livery colours of the then great, but now defunct, Pan American World Airways (PanAm).  Perhaps PanAm was asking for it when it even actually took bookings for flights to the Moon.   

 It was not just this film that got it wrong about PanAm.  The dystopian vision of what future cities will be like in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) had massive illuminated advertising hoardings with PanAm featuring prominently.  It was not just Pan Am that was apparently cursed, some of the other companies that featured in the film such as Atari and Cuisinart also suffered financial difficulties.

So which airline/spaceline will actually be around to fly you to the moon?   Obviously, given its plans for suborbital spaceflight Virgin Galactic has to be a contender.  But whichever airline does make it into this brave new future, we do hope it is not one of the low cost airlines.  Let's face it, none of us want to have to pay for our oxygen as a surcharge.

 

 PanAm will now never be an orbital spaceline despite this colour scheme on the Orion III Space Clipper. 

Sometimes, it's best to let things speak for themselves. Read on, friends (our highlights):

The First Vibrator in Space   
     
Los Angeles, CA - September 27, 2011 -- On October 8, 2011, online sex toy sales leader SexToy.com, will lead a team to launch the first adult sex toy vibrator into space. The space craft will be equipped with a still and video camera that will send images of its best selling vibrator back to Earth.
 
Through rigorous experimentation, the group has developed a way to send the vibrator into space. The toy will have to withstand temperatures of -75 degrees Fahrenheit and conditions 10 times over normal cosmic radiation. The vibrator will be fully exposed to the elements, reach an altitude of 100,000 feet (~20miles) above the Earth's atmosphere, which is three times the cruising altitude of a typical jet plane. The team hopes to retrieve the vibrator in fully functioning order.
 
SexToy Dave, CEO of CNV.com Inc., says of his inspiration behind the project, "I have always been into firsts and that is how I made my money. I was one of the first on the web selling sex toys, first to have an adult affiliate program, the first to make three appearances on Bravo's hit show Millionaire Matchmaker and now the first online adult business with a space program."
 
The sex toy will be carried into space by a partially solar-powered, partially helium-filled balloon 8 feet wide, armed with a 1080p HD video camera, a 10MP still camera, two consumer cell phones running tracking software, and an experimental GPS unit. The balloon and vibrating bullet will travel through Jet stream winds of up to 100 miles per hour for 1-3 hours and achieve a total distance of up to 100 miles. Sextoy.com will publish the photos on its new blog, "Chew On This" at www.sextoy.com/blog http://www.sextoy.com/blog

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One of many media channels to report it, watch NBC's bulletin above about the open letter sent to the White House Tuesday by Apollo mission commanders Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan and Jim Lovell and a second such letter from other Apollo veterans all criticising president Barack Obama's NASA plan

Go here for spacepolitics.com report on the White House's reaction to the Apollo astronauts' criticism. How much worse can the PR get for Obama's day at Kennedy Space Center?

According to the above video in 1976 Goddard Space Flight Center was a "kaleidoscope of extremes". Is that still so Goddard workers of today? Hyperbola wants to know. But more importantly this video was about the center's celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first liquid rocket engine flight, care of its name sake Robert H. Goddard. I think 1976 was the 200th anniversary of some historically significant event as well but for the life of me my British mind can't recall what it was...

Next year will be the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight and space.com's report about Bolden's speech at the 26th National Space Symposium doesn't really provide any sort of idea of what NASA 2011 will be like. It's not space.com's fault but Bolden said so little, making one wonder why he even bothered to add to his carbon footprint and hot foot it all the way to Colorado for a morning chit-chat

While in the Sunshine state we have learnt today, care of the Orlando Sentinel, that Obama will now not check out the X-37 during his visit. As if making a speech about a plan that cancels a vehicle whose building your standing in at the time isn't ironic enough, standing by the Space Shuttle look-a-likey X-37 might just be a bit too much for anyone

If you're a young American looking for a vibrant space programme perhaps India is the place to go? According to Aviation Week the Indians are just getting on with it, it being a manned space programme. And Bangalore owes the USA a few jobs...

Anatoly Perminov head of Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) speaks today, the 49th anniversary of the first human spaceflight, to the Russia 24 news channel. For those of you who can't speak Russian he tells tham that people could fly to Mars as early as 2020 and that Russian scientists are developing a nuclear energy source that could reduce the travel time to the Red planet by 20 times

While this report on Roscosmos' website is the first this blogger has seen that mentions an activity planned for next year on the 50th anniversary of humanity's first flight into space, thanks to Yuri Gagarin, his Vostok 1 capsule and the Soviet space programme and its leader Sergei Korolev

Today Hyperbola is calling on the UK space industry, advocacy groups and political parties to back the idea of television programming from the European Space Agency and NASA to be broadcast in the UK via all means available. Outreach was highlighted as an area of importance for the recently launched UK Space Agency (UKSA)

Through a partnership of ESA, UKSA and the British Broadcasting Corporation (which is required by law to educate) a channel consisting of ESA output, past and ongoing BBC science programmes and perhaps special co-productions from industry (Virgin Galactic?) and UKSA could be broadcast via the terrestrial and satellite Freeview (and later Freeview HD) services, the internet (perhaps from UKSA's website) and cable and satellite providers should be legally required to carry the channel - as Sir Richard Branson has his Virgin Media cable company he should be enthusiastic to support an ESA/UKSA/BBC "Space Exploration channel"

A few days before Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo had its first captive carry flight the first US Air Force pilot to fly into space in an aircraft passed away on 17 March

US Air Force Major General Robert White flew his North American X-15 on 17 July 1962 to 59.6miles (95.9km), the USAF's designation for space is 50 miles making him the first USAF pilot to reach space. He was later awarded USAF astronaut wings. White was also the first pilot to fly at Mach 6, again in the X-15 testing velocities that were simply unknown to man

A command pilot astronaut, his military decorations and awards include the Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star with three oak leaf clusters, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross with four oak leaf clusters, Bronze Star Medal, Air Medal with 16 oak leaf clusters, and the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award Ribbon with "V" device. For his achievements in the X-15 aircraft, White received the Harmon International Aviators Trophy, the Collier Trophy and NASA's Distinguished Service Medal

This video appears to have been taken during a presentation that was screening a film with no apparent sound from the 1970s showing what seems to be a lunar lander simulator. This video's Youtube page, provided by someone called easynow, has a long description but does not state who the persons are that can be heard speaking during the presentation, one of whom sounds like they must be an Apollo astronaut because they are talking about what it was like to fly the lander over the lunar surface. The Youtube webpage blurb says

What you are seeing there is not a LM landing simulator, but rather that footage is showing the SMK-23 Flight Simulator at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

With over a year to go before the 50th anniversary of the beginning of human spaceflight on 12 April 2011 the Russian Federal Space Agency (aka Roscosmos) has already started a Yuri Gagarin 50th anniversary webpage to collect Gagarin memorabilia and then showcase it on the website. The first flight of a human being into space is celebrated every year around the world on 12 April under the banner of "Yuri's night", no doubt the celebrations will be bigger and better than ever on the 50th anniversary. The video above is in Russian and also shows Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, mastermind of the Soviet space programme

A US space agency has undertaken a major manned Moon programme, a new administration is not prepared to fund it any further, vehicles are being cancelled and a report provides options for what happens next, sound familiar? It should it is what NASA has gone through over the last year and it is what happened, more or less, in 1970

Or it is if this history blog is correct in its re-telling - discovered by this blogger via English language Indian tweeter Pradx - of that key moment in US space policy when the Richard Nixon administration ended Apollo

According to the Beyond Apollo blog site Nixon's NASA was presented with five options for what the agency could do next as the Moon programme was wound down