Deeply plotted with engrossing character development, The Expanse is truly great science fiction. It was recently canceled by SyFy for obscure reasons. Sign the petition to show Amazon (or somebody else) the value of picking it up. And if you haven’t tried it, do yourself a favor and check it out on Amazon Video.
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The first is the mission badge for the colony in which the kids live. The colony calls itself Dawn, signifying the beginning of a new era in human development. The motto, “Ut melius faciat”, translates as “To do better”, a noble and ambitious sentiment for these first humans on Mars as they go about developing an entirely new culture.
The second is the official series logo. It too is a mission badge. Initially created by the younger sister as a gift to her older sibling, the parents liked the idea so much that they formalized it to be the official badge for kids born on Mars. The arms open to the sun, reflected in the helmet visor, signify this generation’s embracing of their future in this new era.
Both badges were developed by Graham Blake, illustrator extraordinaire.
Viking imagery redux
Some really nice reprocessing of old Viking imagery.
“I am fond of the Viking missions. Their orbits took them far above Mars (as far as 56,000 kilometers from the surface), giving them the ability to take sweeping images of entire hemispheres. Modern missions mostly don’t stray so far from Mars’ surface, and can’t fully capture the same sweeping vistas captured by the Viking Orbiters. ”
The Planetary Society Space war
I don’t intend Generation Mars to be a dystopian saga. That doesn’t suit the target age range and, even if it did, there are too many of those around already. So I don’t see armed interplanetary conflict as part of the series. However, it is interesting to think about the physics of such conflict in space and just how wrong most sci-fi movies get it. And there is a lot to be learned from such thought experiments. The discussion of heat transfer in this video is a good example.
https://www.facebook.com/Nerdist/videos/1909008429409923/?hc_ref=ARSUXPh4WM3PMyLE-5WdBBQkAdlioRmU8UAzKi1S5gfVaPr5RyKQEtl-I3N1o2PAXjo
NASA Posters
Here are some fun promo posters from NASA
2001
Ok, not Mars-related, but I cast a wide net here and… wow. Wow!
“The studio announced the landmark film’s return to theaters in a widely-circulated release, saying the goal is to give today’s moviegoers the same “cinematic event audiences experienced 50 years ago.””
