Windycon Science Fiction Convention Day 1

Yesterday was the first day of the Windycon Science Fiction Convention and a chance to see some old friends again. My friend Dave Angus, world builder extraordinaire, is in visiting from the United Kingdom and together we made the journey to Windycon.

I was a panelist on By the Light of the Soviet Moon which explored the question of what would the Solar System look like today if the Soviet space program had continued with its string of successes. Of course from my perspective the one success that really counted was the race to the Moon. If they had managed to win that, things may have progressed differently.

I later attended the opening ceremonies which had some highs, some lows, and some humor. The definite low was when actress Erin Gray of Buck Rogers fame got up and basically made a speech that was an endorsement of psychics. Okay. Meanwhile back on planet Earth...

I am off shortly for the second day. I am especially looking forward to my panel From Vulcan to Xena which will discuss the latest solar system discoveries. My friend Dave Angus will be on this panel with me as will my friend Diana Challis who currently serves as Program Manager for the Lake Afton Observatory at Wichita State University. Rounding out our panel will be author, Vatican astronomer and meteorite curator Brother Guy Consolmagno. I have had the good fortune to be a co-panelist with Brother Guy several times in the past and look forward to having yet another opportunity to learn from him.

Jim

Caller on WGN Radio Program The Cultural Significance Of Mars

This evening on WGN radio, the topic of discussion was the cultural significance of Mars. I was fortunate enough to get through and have the opportunity to get some air time. My first comment was to clarify an earlier caller's question about bacteria being found on some camera returned from the Moon. It was actually a Surveyor camera lens that was returned to Earth by the Apollo 12 astronauts. Some bacteria was found in the lens. The unanswered question is did this bacteria really make the trip to the Moon and back or was the lens contaminated with bacteria while it was being handled here on Earth.

My two questions for the panelists (Doug Roberts and Robert Markely) were based on my work with image data returned by the Mars Global Surveyor. I was specifically interested in whether they felt that various mission images of Mars had artistic merit. Both panelists responded positively about the natural beauty of many of these images. According to Doug, the folks at the Adler Planetarium last year picked one of the Mars Exploration Rover images as the best ever picture of Mars. He said it was a picture of sand ripples in the bottom of one of the Martian craters. I can't be sure but he might be talking about the same image that I found so striking and published on my web site (see Sands of Mars)

My closing question was to ask their opinion of the many more fanciful interpretations of Mars images that are to be found on the net. I think that their response can be summed up as people will see what they want to see. This turned out to be a perfect lead in for the next caller's question which had to do with a coworker who believed that the whole Apollo program was faked and that we never went to the Moon.


Jim