Inside lies a perpetual quantum neutrino synthesizer. Or wires.

But these days, we have to create our own hi-tech enigmas, as  America’s current enemies aren’t exactly the subtle technological wizard types.

Meet the new mystery.  Straight out of an elongated West Wing story arc and much more concrete than the Aurora, the Air Force has launched the X-37B.  What is it?  Other than looking like a sleeker, smaller regular space shuttle, that is open to debate.  The Air Force says it’s just an unmanned device that will do the regular space studies and experiments, just sans the diaper dandies.  Others worry it could be pressed into service as an orbital fighter plane.  (Could be a one-sided affair when the X takes on the SMULTKA COSMOBEAR weather Doppler, but maybe the Russians should have considered installing a security system before launching…)

The X probably has many capabilities.  And as long as the creative minds in the general public are kept in the dark, we can have unlimited fun thinking up the possibilities…

What hath you unleashed?

Well the good news is that the analysis of that crash cloud has determined there is indeed large quantities of water on the Moon.  Water that could theoretically be used to make future exploration and colonization more efficient.

The BAD news is that the water is very old and hasn’t been affected by the air and bacteria of earth.  Which means that there is a 125% chance that the water contains an evil alien microbe that will turn the first astronaut to explore it into a rampaging monster who at first appears normal, but later the odd eccentricities of his new personality turn into full blown mania and he eventually morphs into a ten-foot tall insectoid and is blown up in a magnificent firefight in the Grand Canyon.  But in the explosion, a part of his antennae splashes into the Colorado River, and is swept away into the water supply of a major american city…

Which was worse? Mission to Mars or Red Planet?

For those Utah readers, it’s extra good news for you, as the Ares owes its construction in no small part to the folks up at ATK in Promontory.

Here is a good read on the program itself (with pretty graphics) and below is video from the actual launch.  The side-rocket cam is easily the best part.

Contrary to the title, the MIR did not take this picture. Sorry.

Here’s NASA’s LCROSS mission page.  There aren’t a ton of great photos yet, but there is quite a bit of interesting stuff on the mission.

And speaking of that $80 million budget, that’s actually pretty cheap by space project terms.  Hasn’t NASA learned the city utility workers’ trick of just tearing up streets for no reason to justify getting a huge budget?  If the folks down at Canaveral can pull off the amazing on a shoestring they’ll never get a pimped-out ride to Mars.

Tidal pull this!

I have two questions after reading that article:

1.  Is this really the easiest way to answer the question of how much water the Moon’s soil contains?  Why not send a Moon rover up there? Or Buzz Aldrin?  If he has time to do ads for watches and Ronald Reagan coins he has time to make a return trip.  Any time your whole mission hinges on two bullets hitting their mark and on top of that hoping that the first kicks up enough dust to be of use, it seems like the risk factor would be pretty high.

2.  Why not use the Hubble as a spy satellite?  According to the article it will be watching the impact and taking photos.  So that means, not only can this telescope be used to look 11-infinity lightyears away, but it can also be focused to look at something as close as the Moon?  Given that sort of zoom-in/zoom-out capability shouldn’t it be able to count the ticks in Bin Laden’s beard?

As you know, I’m a big fan. (I started www.fireflyrpg.com a few years ago, and have a Mark II version that’s currently being refreshed with new content at test.fireflyrpg.com .) So, when Twitter friend and Geek6 reader @benhamill mentioned that he might — might — be running a Serenity-style game in the near future, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share some tips.

If you’re not a role player, you can still read up on the tips, and get a little misty for the sky that got taken away from us too early. And if you are a role player, read through these tips and tell me what I missed — what would you add as a tip to sum up the quintessentially singular ‘Verse?

Gray moral choices:

Unlike the empire in “Star Wars,” the Alliance aren’t the bad guys. They advocate helping people — all people — at the cost of their personal freedoms. Granted, the federal programs don’t quite reach all of the people they should, and there are definitely some odd goings on, but in many ways, you can draw a lot of parallels between the Alliance and ANY governmental body. There are people who mean well, and there are idealists, but there are also power-grabbing legislators and corruption. The Firefly world is painted in shades of gray — there are bad good guys, good bad guys and a million places in between.

Campaign tip: I rarely make things clean cut. I rarely have the characters playing Robin Hood, stealing from the evil rich and giving to the good poor — more often than not, they find themselves in the position of having to decide which flawed group is more flawed, and they don’t always play for the same team.

The variance in technology:

Part of making a great Firefly campaign work is changing up the setting. As evidenced by the 13 hours of footage we have, it’s NOT a “Western in space.” Sure, folks out on the rim still use covered wagons and horses, but even the marginally-civilized border worlds have hovering chandeliers and mansions. For every dusty canyon the players find themselves in, they should also be spending time in the hyper-locked down, always watched core worlds, feeling like someone’s always peering over their shoulders.

Campaign tip: Set the introductory adventure on a backwater, dusty rim-world. Then, move to civilization fairly quickly and back again, to make the differences that much more obvious.

The ship:

Joss Whedon has never been quiet in referring to Serenity the ship as “the 10th character.” The ship should be more than just a conveyance — it should be a home. It should have mass, weight and a feeling. It should feel precarious — the hallways probably aren’t carpeted, and maybe it bucks hard every time the pulse iterator kicks in. Also, don’t ever just let a player go from their bunk to the bridge without at least a cursory description: “You climb the rungs of the ladder out into the hallway and take the three steps up to the bridge in one leap.”

Campaign tip: Early on, set up a ship-bound episode where the players CAN’T leave. This gives them a chance to explore the nooks and crannies, as well as establish a cursory relationship with the space. Packing them into such a small space will also enforce the higher role-playing need of a game like Serenity/Firefly.

The relationships:

Part of what distinguishes The ‘Verse from other settings is that sense of family. The crew of the ship isn’t a “party,” a “group” or a “team.” They’re kin. The relationships shouldn’t be the same as our core crew of Big Damn Heroes, but they should be close.

Campaign tip: Joss is famous for saying “The ship travels at the speed of drama.” Make sure to write in stretches of nothing, where players are just sitting around the table while the ship is in transit. There doesn’t always have to be a stowaway, bomb, derelict spacecraft or rogue federal officer in pursuit.

The groundedness, and lack thereof:

It’s harder than I thought running a campaign completely devoid of elements of the fantastic. There are no magical powers, no bending time, distorting reality or introducing Macguffin-like alien artifacts. Instead, all of your cool ideas must somehow be rooted in reality. This can get dull, if you’re not careful. Thankfully, the show provides a tiny bit of wiggle room in River’s “psychic-style” energy, which deals more with science (a stripped amygdala and other stuff), and less in paranormal elements.

Campaign tip: Give one player a little something extra, and it doesn’t have to be magical to be cool. Perhaps she has amnesia, and was once part of an elite combat team that banished her. Or, if you really want to get crazy, perhaps he has an engineered, experimental corporate implant that allows him to see quantum fluctuations in nearby universes — which is like being able to see the future, except it doesn’t happen in our universe but 10% of the time. Oh, and it sometimes drives him so mad he can’t see straight.

Postscript — the language:

My favorite thing about the ‘verse, although not critical to playing in it, is the language — that falsely-educated improper grammar mixed with big words, big attitude and that unique patois. How can you not like a universe where the quotes sound like, “Been a long time since Patience shot me, and that was due to a perfectly legitimate conflict of interest. I got no grudge.”

Or, perhaps more appropriately, “Now, I did a job. Got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character, so let me make this abundantly clear: I do the job, and then I get paid.”

But how many people could do truly genius things with $150?  Apparently at least two.  A pair of MIT students took photos of the Earth from 17.5 miles up (”near-space”) with a benjamin and a half worth of funds.  Hubble has cost $10 billion since its debut.

What’s amazing isn’t just the cost, but the MacGyver-like list of materials used for this photo shoot.  A weather balloon, a crappy camera, hand warmers, a pre-paid cell phone… and not much else.  And it went off without a hitch.  The only problems were on the FAA’s end, and even they admitted it was legal (but wagged their finger at other would-be amateur atmospheric tresspassers).

Anyone up for a water balloon fight from 93,000 feet?

Fortunately, it’s sites like We Choose the Moon.org that makes the internet great and shed light on this historic occasion.

The website goes to great lengths to recreate, in real time, the mission to the moon. The website has a countdown to when the mission launched and will be updating the charted course as the days go on. They also have multimedia galleries, news feed for what else was going on forty years ago and it’s even being tweeted. It’s a great way to relive an inspiring part of our history or experience it for the first time.

Only 14 hours until launch. Check it out.

Conceptships.blogspot.com is an image-rich vehicle to share the best work from the conceptships.org forum. What sets this site apart from the pack is the incredibly high level of excellence involved in the work.

Where to begin? Hard to say. Spend a few seconds scrolling through the blog, and you’ll see gut-ticklingly beautiful renditions of concept art, like this one from Ken Le Bras:

Happy browsing, and try not to fritter away the whole afternoon….

Excuse me?

“What?” you might ask. “They made a musical out of ‘Star Wars?’ Why haven’t I seen it?”

Obviously, doing a live performance of anything bearing Lucas’ name isn’t exactly as easy as bulls-eyeing womp rats — thousands of pounds of attorney must be retained to even mention the name “Star Wars” without being sued. In fact, I’m pretty sure the disturbance in the force that you’re feeling right now is Lucasarts’ legal arm sending me a hefty package of cease-and-desist.

Nonetheless, the musical was completed in 1999 by a group of composers, singers and fans. A full audio recording was done, but the musical has never been performed live. A short CGI film was made using one of the musical numbers from the first act, but everything else is purely audio.

So, how is it?

I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but if you expect my attention span to hold out long enough to listen to an entire album before passing judgement, then you obviously don’t know me too well.

From what I’ve heard, it’s actually quite good, as far as musical orchestration goes. The music interweaves with John Williams’ classic score, but the numbers are all original. Most of the tracks have that “scratch your musical itch” vibe, with soaring strings and more pizzicato than an Italian restaurant.

Nothing is too complicated, disharmonious or atonal, but that’s not really what musicals are about. A good musical number is like a great cheeseburger — you know what it’s going to taste like, but when it’s good, it’s a spiritual experience.

Hey, look! It's a robot. Also C-3P0.

Some of the lyrics are a little forced, but they sound better when set to music. Outside of slash fanfic, this is the only place you’ll hear Lord Vader say, “They took my life when they took my plans — that pitiful little rebel band. / So, troops arise where you are and come with me on my Death Star.”

Give it a listen. The MP3s are right here. And here’s a link to the CGI short number. The animation isn’t awful, but you have to see past the slightly wooden character animation to hear the score. Actually, I take it back — the CGI does a remarkable job of characterizing young Hamill’s acting range.