If this saucer shape looks familiar, that's not because this vehicle is based on something hidden in Area 51. Orion is based on the design of the Apollo spaceships that took humans to the Moon back in the 1960s. But Orion can carry 6 astronauts, twice as many as Apollo could.

The Orion, along with the Ares rocket, will replace the Space Shuttle when it goes out of commission next year. According to Reuters:

NASA plans to first take several trips to the moon, a journey of just three days. Each visit will last six months while astronauts set up a campsite and practice the things they want to do on Mars. "That's really the goal — to put humans on Mars, and going to the moon is our testing ground in order to do it," [NASA's Don] Pearson explained.

A lot of work has to be done before the Mars mission, however. That mission would take 3 years round trip, and will probably require a much more robust version of the Orion.

NASA brought a test version of the Orion out to the National Mall in Washington, DC, yesterday, after it had undergone a series of tests in the water - researchers are testing to see how it holds up after a water landing.

Images via TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images.

Very quietly, this season of Chuck has turned into quite the spy drama where the audience - and Chuck himself - doesn't know who to trust. Sure, we know that Fulcrum are bad guys, but last night we learned that the US Government doesn't want Chuck to dump the intersect from his head, and will happily ruin his life in order to keep it in there. It seemed, in fact, that Chuck's only ally was Orion, the mysterious inventor of the Intersect, who found Chuck last night, but was apparently killed before we could find out just who he actually was (Although we got a Matrix-y glimpse thanks to television internet logic; my bet is that he's not really dead, and that he's also Chuck's dad... There was something oddly Scott Bakula-esque about Orion's shadowy, pixelly figure) - although he managed to mail important information about the intersect to Chuck beforehand, just in case (which he hid inside an issue of Ex Machina... a comic about a guy who accidentally becomes part-machine. Nice shout-out, Chuckmakers).

It was easy to ignore the BuyMore B-plot in last night's episode, if only because it seemed so slight next to the slow realization of just how screwed Chuck really was (Although the near-destruction of the BuyMore by Jeff and Lester mistaking Orion's supercomputer for a flight simulation game was a nice tying together of the two plots), but the show's become very adept at using the broad comedy of the BuyMore to offset what's happening in the main storyline, and this week's rivalry between our store and the Beverly Hills BuyMore gave us some excellent Tony Hale moments, so who could really complain too much about that?

What we're left with, though, is a plot that seems to be leading to Chuck going rogue, abandoning the government and their "secret war" with Fulcrum in order to try and lose the intersect. But I have no idea where that'll end up, and that's turning out to be the best thing about the show: Having no idea where they're going, but enjoying the journey nonetheless.

I'll give the makers of Chuck this - They definitely zig when I'm expecting them to zag. The return of Cole Barker, British superspy who acknowledges his influence by telling his torturers that his name is "Bond, James Bond" when we first saw him this week, wasn't used for cheap "will they, won't they" soap operatics between Chuck and Sarah as I'd been expecting, but instead an excuse for Sarah to finally just come out and tell someone that she has feelings for Chuck.

Similarly, the "Chuck isn't moving in with Morgan after all" B-plot didn't give us the "Chuck lets Morgan down again" moment it seemed to be heading towards, but instead let Anna take over and move in with Morgan... giving him the life that Chuck wants with Sarah. Holy plot and character development that surprise, make sense and advance the overall character arcs of the season!

All of that, mind you, was secondary to the episode's main story, which saw Team Intersect discover that Fulcrum has hoodwinked scientist Howard Busgang (played by everyone's favorite, Robert Picardo) into thinking that he's working for the government instead of a shady bunch of terrorists who claim that they're patriots working for the good of America... All would be usual Chuckery, if it wasn't for the revelation that Busgang helped create the intersect, leading to an obsessed Chuck trying to save Busgang because he's convinced that he's the key to getting the intersect out of his head.

He fails, of course - and sadly, because I kind of wanted Picardo to stick around - but not before Busgang reveals that the mysterious "Orion" may be able to help Chuck, because Orion created the idea of the intersect in the first place and gathered all the other scientists together to make it happen. The episode ended - post Chuck telling Sarah that he was in love with her and her not saying anything because she is crazy and you can't have a Chuck without some soap operatic dumbness - with Chuck looking at a whiteboard of paranoia that he's made, trying to map out all the connections and people behind his current situation.

The introduction of Orion makes me a little nervous, I have to admit. On the one hand, I like that it feels as if we're definitely going to meet Orion (whoever he or she is) before the end of the season, if only to give closure to the question of whether Chuck is stuck like this forever that's been coming up with increasing regularity and urgency as the season goes on... But on the other, I can't quite shake the feeling that Orion suddenly being mentioned just before we're about to meet Chuck's father isn't exactly a coincidence, and that idea worries me greatly. While this show willingly gets fans like me to suspend disbelief on a lot of things, if we're going to be told that Chuck's dad invented the thing that "accidentally" ended up in Chuck's brain... Well, that's where we end up in Alias territory for real, and I think about checking out for awhile.

Of course, that may just be my own brand of paranoia, and even if it's not, we've got awhile before those episodes - two weeks before the next episode at all, in fact, and that's the one where Tricia Helfer shows up to replace Sarah and prove that there's life after BSG and Burn Notice. Personally, I can't wait.

A few weeks ago, we told you about the most powerful electron microscope in the world, the TITAN 80-300 Cubed, located in Hamilton, Ontario. It turns out the most powerful wind tunnel in the world is about an hours' drive away, in a suburb of Buffalo, NY (the suburb I grew up in, incidentally). The LENS-X hypersonic wind tunnel is one of three wind tunnels operated by Cal-span University at Buffalo Research Center (CUBRC), a non-profit research company with the very io9-ish slogan, "Advantage Through Technology."

The LENS-X can handle aircraft up to 30 feet long and generate speeds above 25,000 mph. CUBRC also developed the latest equipment and software needed to actually analyze those velocities. In their words, "a suite of the most advanced aerothermal, aero-optical, spectrographic and laser-diode based intrusive and non-intrusive diagnostic instrumentation currently available." Advantage Through Technology!

The tunnel has been used to study fighter planes, new jet engine designs, space shuttle launches, spacecraft re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, and even re-entry into Mars' atmosphere. NASA is using it to work on the design of the Orion launch craft, and the U.S. ski team even uses it to tweak their downhill times (though I don't believe they go hypersonic). The wind tunnel is a major money saver. Instead of field or flight testing your design, which usually ends up destroying the prototype and costing a few million dollars, you can make a reusable prototype and test it in the tunnel for a few hundred thousand dollars. Advantage Through Technology! Image by: NASA.

Calspan-UB unveils world's most powerful wind tunnel. [The Buffalo News]

It was British agent John Jarrold who sold the title to Simon Spanton of Gollacz. Jarrold represents a spate of European SF writers, and took on the Finnish SF writer in June of this year. Rajaniemi has a PhD in mathematics, and though he's been published in anthologies, this first book of three will be his debut novel.

Jarrold told SF Scope:

After fifteen years in an editor's chair, I am very aware how unusual it is for an offer to be made for a debut novelist on only twenty-four double spaced pages—particularly at a time when many publishing executives are more interested in the opinions of their sales and marketing directors than those of their senior editors.

In addition to agenting, Jarrold has also run his own press.

Jarrold admits it was a gamble, but after reading the first chapter, it sounds like a deal got done later that day(!). Still, while this story emphasizes the importance of a stellar beginning, it may be the best recipe in the long run. If you're thinking about querying an agent or publisher, this is generally not the way to go, as Robert J. Sawyer recently noted in responding to a fan query about whether it was okay to submit without that completed manuscript:

Yes, it would be unfair — and it would be a waste. If they like it RIGHT NOW, and are enthusiastic about seeing it RIGHT NOW, then your best career move is to send the rest as soon as they ask for it. Six weeks, six months, or six years from now that agent may no longer be taking on new clients, whatever market trend the agent might have perceived your work as fitting into may have passed, and so on. You can't grouse later on, "But you SAID you wanted to see it!" If you don't have a finished manuscript ready to go to market, you and an agent have no business to do together, and it isn't fair for you to take time out of his or her day.

Also, your encouragement must be internal to you: you need to want this so badly that you can't STOP writing; if you think you will be coddled every step of the way by people patting you on the head every time you write a few pages, you are sorely mistaken.

There's some advice for you, Hannu.

Hannu Rajaniemi sells book on basis of 24 pages [SFScope]

The APA introduced their ideas at their recent convention, drawing from past studies of astronaut psychology and even records of explorers from centuries past.

1. Have an electronic psychologist on board. The APA has already developed a computer program that will let astronauts discuss their psychological issues and assist with conflict resolution. Why a computer? Astronauts don't like to tell human doctors about their issues because they're afraid they might lose flight privileges.

2. Create a home away from home. Astronauts on board the International Space Station are isolated, but they can radio down to Earth easily. Martian explorers will have a hard time even seeing Earth, which could have a profound psychological effect. Psychologists recommend a regular schedule of communications with family and friends back home, even if there's a lengthy delay between "send" and "receive." Anything that connects the astronauts to Earth will combat crippling homesickness.

3. Find out how they dealt with these problems in the past. Tomorrow's explorers will follow in the figurative footsteps of Columbus and Balboa in ships like NASA's Orion, pictured. In many ways, those explorers dealt with a lot of the same problems, such as close quarters, isolation from family and friends and potential problems with other members of the crew. The APA says it plans to study historical records from Earth-bound explorers to find out how they did it. Image by: NASA

To The Moon And Mars: Psychologists Show New Ways To Deal With Health Challenges In Space. [Science Daily]

They're the core characters behind DC's summer extravaganza Final Crisis, but that doesn't mean that you necessarily know who Darkseid, Orion, Metron or any of the rest of the New Gods actually are. Before "evil wins" in the DC Universe, here's a quick primer to let you know just what a Fourth World actually is, anyway.

There came a time when the old gods died! The brave died with the cunning! The noble perished, locked in battle with unleashed evil! It was the last day for them! An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!

Those were the words that started the first issue of The New Gods, one of three comics from the 1970s that formed the core of creator Jack Kirby's Fourth World line of books (The line had theoretically started earlier when Kirby had taken over Superman spin-off title Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen, but that book - as enjoyable as it is - is at best peripheral to the main Fourth World storyline. Although it does feature Don Rickles). Kirby, who had co-created the majority of Marvel Comics' big names - essentially, everyone except for Spider-Man, and there's even some doubt there -had jumped ship to main rivals DC in 1970 as a result of increasing frustration at lack of creative or legal control over his creations, and immediately started work on what came to be possibly his greatest achievement: One sprawling, epic, story that gave the old mythical gods new life as technological, alien creatures locked in a war that threaded through multiple comics running simultaneously and could be read on multiple levels.

The story of the Fourth World is deceptively simple: Darkseid, personification of evil and despotic ruler of the planet Apokolips, has come to Earth in order to find The Anti-Life Equation, a mythical concept that will enable him to destroy all free will in the universe and finally win the ongoing war between Apokolips and New Genesis, another planet that happens to be a utopia led by the kind and loving Highfather. There was a lot more to it, of course (Each issue was filled with new concepts - each character could travel through a Boom Tube, which created a tunnel between two points in space, and they each had living computers called Mother Box, who could understand and meet their needs without being asked - and introduced new characters, almost too quickly for the reader to make any sense of what was happening), and that's where each of the three series came into their own. Those series were:

The New Gods: Also titled Orion of The New Gods, this series concentrated on the adventures of New Genesis' greatest warrior, Orion, and his friend Lightray, as they dealt with Darkseid's latest schemes on Earth. In a move that foreshadowed George Lucas' movie franchise, Orion was revealed to be actually the son of Darkseid; he and Highfather's son had been exchanged as babies to be raised on each others' home planets as the result of a (failed) peace treaty. In many ways, this series was WWII-veteran Kirby's chance to deal with war as both an idea and a reality; as well as the sacrifices Orion has to make in order to fight Darkseid (including literally changing his face from handsome to a more natural monster-like appearance; subtlety wasn't Kirby's strong point), there are moments where a pacifist son confront his veteran father over Vietnam, or we see Highfather deal with the loss of his wife, killed as a result of the conflict with Apokolips. Kirby's strengths were always ideas and art, and so the rawness of the writing can sometimes betray the depth of the intent, but nonetheless, this was groundbreaking stuff in 1971.

Mister Miracle: The second of the three series focused on Highfather's son who, after having been given to Darkseid as part of the same pact that brought Orion to New Genesis, had run away from Apokolips to become Earth's Greatest Escape Artist... Well, you'd probably do the same thing in similar circumstances. Mister Miracle - or Scott Free, as he had named himself, mid-escape ("Let me be Scott Free - And let me find myself!") - also ran across Darkseid's plans on a regular basis as the stories demanded, but was much more of a lover than a fighter, especially when his own lover (and, by series' end, wife) Big Barda was involved (Barda had also run away from Darkseid's clutches, abandoning life as a soldier for true love). In some ways the most fanciful and whimsical of the three series - Never mind the hero called Scott Free, check out his dwarf sidekick Oberon - this was also the longest-lived; maybe there was something about series' almost Saturday Morning Cartoon "death trap of the issue" set-up that made people want to stick around, or perhaps kids just wanted to read that it didn't matter about nature or nurture - if you were a good person, it'd find a way to show through somehow.

The Forever People:, Appropriately, given such a hippie-friendly name, this series focused on. essentially, cosmic flower children who rejected the fight between good and evil altogether and just wanted to, like, just be, man. With names like Beautiful Dreamer, Big Bear and Mark Moonrider, there was no escaping the hippie nature of Kirby's intent, even though it came four years after the Summer of Love; they even tuned in and turned on thanks to their "cosmic cartridges," which gave them insight by temporarily making them one with the universe until their mellow was harshed, dude. Nonetheless, these were the only characters who actually came across the real Anti-Life Equation (more than once) in what was possibly commentary on the belief that Kirby felt in the potential of the younger generation of the day.

All three titles were cancelled midway through their planned runs due to claims of low sales, but the characters refused to go away, being revived and making guest-appearances in other series for years afterwards, but all without their creator's involvement; Kirby became disillusioned with DC in the mid-70s following the commercial failure of these and other books, and returned to Marvel.

By the mid-80s, a new market had opened up to comic publishers - A niche "direct market" that would pay more for comics, and could support smaller print-runs. As a result, DC started offering higher-quality reprints of fan-favorite books, and one of those was New Gods. To celebrate this - and also tie-in with the Fourth World characters appearances in the Super Friends TV show of the time, Jack Kirby was invited back to DC to complete the story the way he had originally planned for this series. He accepted and ended up creating a standalone graphic novel, The Hunger Dogs, which... wasn't really what anyone expected. Instead of bringing everything to a pulse-pounding, explosion-filled conclusion, Hunger Dogs is a sad story about technology corrupting everything, even the nobility of war, that ended with no one side truly victorious but everyone having lost, in some way. It's a wonderful book, but hardly likely to sell more Super Powers figures.

Despite having been revived multiple times since - and even having a series called Death Of The New Gods published last year - the entire Fourth World concept has essentially remained in a holding pattern since Kirby's involvement until this year's Final Crisis series, which started with the discovery of Orion's corpse and promises to finish with some kind of resolution for all of the New Gods. The story centers around Darkseid - now hiding in human form as "Boss Dark Side" - finally finding the Anti-Life Equation, and it allowing evil to finally "win," although it remains to be seen just what will happen after that; writer Grant Morrison and others at DC have talked about the series re-examining Kirby's characters and creating the "Fifth World" for them to live in, after all.

Perhaps Kirby had it right the first time; gods clash, die, and always find themselves reborn, doing the same thing over and over again, just looking somewhat different each time.

Jack Kirby's Fourth World [DC Database Project]

It might be an inferiority complex. Soyuz capsules aren't renewable, but the Russians have been running them reliably into orbit for over forty years. NASA's space shuttle program's been going since 1981 and has had two major disasters.

But as The Washington Post's Marc Kaufman points out, they may also be nervous about relying on a program that's looked a little shaky of late:

Two consecutive chaotic and dangerous landings by Soyuz space capsules, including one with an American astronaut aboard, have NASA and space experts concerned about the spacecraft's reliability in ferrying astronauts to and from the international space station.

The worries are compounded by the fact that starting in 2010, when the space shuttle fleet will be retired, the United States will be entirely dependent on Russia's Soyuz capsules and rockets for transporting all astronauts and most cargo to the station — until at least 2015.

There's discussion later on in the article of additional funding to get NASA's new Orion capsule up and running before 2015, and that's a good idea. Way better than complaining about the one program on Earth that's reliable enough to keep human spaceflight going while it's American counterpart takes half a decade off.

Source: The Washington Post

It's a depressing time to work in crewed spaceflight at NASA. After the space shuttle ends its service in 2010 there figures to be a five-year hiatus before the new Orion vehicle is ready. Once that happens our grand plans for space exploration include going back to the Moon and using Orion to ferry people and supplies back and forth from the International Space Station.

Are you tingling with anticipation yet? Neither were David Korsmeyer, Rob Landis and Paul Abell, so they recently published "Into the beyond: A crewed mission to a near-Earth object" in the journal Acta Astronautica (sub required, but you can read the abstract). The mission would take humans out of the Earth-Moon system for the first time and allow field tests of technologies that could eventually be used to go to Mars.

Yawn. This type of argument smacks of compromise and half-hearted ambition. We all know that NASA's facing budget cuts, and to their credit they've done amazing things with their robotic missions around the solar system. But should the coming-out party for the next generation of human spaceflight really be a mission to a cold, dark, almost certainly lifeless pebble? There's a reason the term "Moonshot" entered the vernacular as a phrase meaning "hugely ambitious project with great risk and great reward."

If we're going to reinvigorate the exploration of space, we need a Mars-shot. I want to hear less "Well, we could find out interesting things about the evolution of our solar system if we went there," and more "We're going to Mars, bitches!"

Image: Cornell University

John Berkey is one of those old-school concept artists whose work doesn't look hyper-realistic like Photoshop on steroids. He uses an old school smeary oils approach that look both futuristic and retro at the same time. Berkey has done numerous pieces of freelance futuristic artwork featuring ships in battle above our world and others, and also did some of the original concept and poster artwork for Star Wars.