nasa
Hans-Quinn 2022 TV Draft: Round Two-Pick Six-Firefly (2002-2003)
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Hanspostcard/Quinn Maddux has a TV draft challenge. This is my Round Two pick.
“You can’t take the sky from me.”
Ok. I will say it. I am a hopeless Sci-Fi geek. I could easily do this TV Draft with nothing but Sci-Fi. I led with Doctor Who because it, by far, has the longest tapestry in my life. I would venture to say that Firefly was the shortest…and, yes, I am a Browncoat. I had an extensive list of Sci-Fi choices but, chose these two, only, because I also wanted to touch on other genres including law enforcement, drama, comedy and a couple of cartoons. ~Vic
When this came out, it struck me as being very close to the original description given to the first Star Trek series…a western in space. Fox had already scored big with the X-Files, running from September 1993 to May 2002. Firefly debuted September 2002 and, I was front and center. I didn’t find out until later that the first episode that aired was not the first episode of the series. You can thank Fox executives for that mess-up. It went downhill from there.
Created by Joss Whedon (Executive Producer, Writer, Theme Composter & Director of three episodes), it starred:
★ Nathon Fillion as Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds, the owner & Captain of Serenity, a Firefly-class, small transport spaceship. He is a former sergeant from the Battle of Serenity Valley, an Independent soldier in the war against the Alliance (a fusion of the last two superpowers, the US & China) in the year 2517.
★ Gina Torres as Zoë Alleyne Washburne, second-in-command aboard Serenity and Mal’s loyal corporal during the war. She is Wash’s wife.
★ Alan Tudyk as Hoban “Wash” Washburne, Serenity’s pilot and a bit jealous over his wife’s attachment to Mal. He is known for cracking jokes, even during horrible situations.
★ Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra, a Companion that is a blending of a courtesan, a geisha & a mistress. She has a very high social status and rents one of Serenity’s small shuttles. She & Mal are attracted to each other, dislike each other’s “jobs” and want to remain professional towards each other.
★ Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb, a 6’4″ mercenary that acts dumber than he really is. He sends much of his income back to his mother. He is excellent in a fight, has an intense fear of Reavers and has an extreme dislike of Simon and his sister, River, as she attacked him with a knife.
Deviant Art
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★ Jewel Staite as Kaywinnet Lee “Kaylee” Frye, the ship’s adorable mechanic. With no formal training, she intuitively knows mechanical equipment. She routinely talks to Serenity and has a crush on Simon Tam.
★ Sean Maher as Simon Tam, a trauma surgeon (top 3% of his class) that became a fugitive after he snatched his sister, River, out of a government research facility. He struggles with his desire for Kaylee as his life revolves around his sister.
★ Summer Glau as River Tam, an intuitive child prodigy that the Alliance experimented on, leading to psychic abilities and combat training. She suffers from PTSD and has flashbacks from the experiments. She can be delusional, paranoid and violent without warning.
★ Ron Glass as Derrial Book, commonly referred to as Shepherd Book (a 24th century version of a pastor). A devout Christian, his background is unknown but, he has much knowledge that the average pastor would not have. He has a fairly high status with the Alliance and, though he objects to violence, he is skilled in combat. Quote: “…while the Bible is quite specific about killing, it is somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.” Book is the voice of reason, spirituality and conscience for the crew.
Fourteen episodes, with a two-hour pilot, were produced but, only 11 of them aired before being unceremoniously cancelled. The Browncoat Brigade started a postcard writing campaign to Fox, and UPN but, it ultimately failed. They continued to push for the DVD release and, in 2005, the feature film Serenity was released on September 30.
Trivia Bits:
♦ The real reason it was cancelled was that the FOX executives thought it was too dark (It was very dark).
♦ Whedon proposed a Firefly plotline in which Inara injected herself with a prophylactic solution, not a birth control but, a serum that would poison anyone who raped her. Whedon’s idea was that Inara would, then, be kidnapped and gang-raped but, that the rapes would take place offscreen and, the only sign of them would be a pile of her rapists later found dead. This plotline was nixed by the network and no version of it ever appeared on the show.
♦ Serenity’s engine room includes the center console from a Boeing 737.
♦ When Whedon created the show, he intended for it to run seven years.
♦ Between shots, the cast preferred to wait in the ship’s lounge, instead of their trailers/dressing rooms.
♦ The Alliance officer and soldier uniforms are leftovers from Starship Troopers (1997).
♦ The pistol-sized lever action gun Zoe wears on her hip is called a Mare’s Leg. It is a cut down Model 1892 Winchester, the same gun used by Steve McQueen in the TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958).
♦ Astronaut Steven Swanson is a Browncoat and brought his Firefly & Serenity DVDs with him on the Space Shuttle Atlantis for the STS-117 mission in June 2007.
♦ The Shuttle crew of the Endeavour is awoken at 4:14pm ET to The Ballad of Serenity, played for astronaut Robert Behnken.
♦ The DVDs are in the media collection on the ISS.
♦ There are actual Browncoat Balls, held all over the US. The first one was in 2004.
Firefly Opening Sequence
50 Quotes
Our Witch
Too Much Hair
Reboot? Yes, Disney Sucks (Sorry for the ads)
Chris Thomas: Earth’s Chronological Chart
A Forum Blog Post From: The Chris Thomas Files
Photo Credit: NASA on Unsplash
[Preface from a client of Chris Thomas: My friend Chris Thomas, who is “hard-wired” to the Akashic, has produced a list of events in Earth’s history that I would like to share with you. Chris Thomas’ books go into much greater detail about the [below] but, this is quite a nice summary.]
14,376.279.386 years ago…..Creation of our Universal envelope.
100 million yrs ago…..Creation of the six non-physical races.
40 million yrs ago…..Completion of our solar system with early life forms on the outer planets.
30 million yrs ago…..Creation of the seven semi-physical races.
25 million yrs ago…..Beginnings of life on Earth (Earth’s choice).
20 million yrs ago…..Creation by earth of the Sidhe’ and the Faerie.
4.5 million yrs ago…..Neanderthal Man developed by Earth from early primate models.
4 million yrs ago…..The arrival of The Merlin on Earth.
3.9 million yrs ago…..Removal of 4 planets from our solar system.
3.8 million yrs ago…..Arrival of Cro-Magnon man’s template from Mars.
3.6 million yrs ago…..Disruptive alien race called the 14th faction burst into our Universe.
94-98,000 yrs ago…..Lemuria established.
85,000 yrs ago…..Atlantis established.
65,000 yrs ago…..Atlantis destroyed and the Sphinx constructed in Egypt.
28,000 yrs ago…..New energy matrix to support human life post Atlantis.
20,000 yrs ago…..Human resettlement of the planet begun.
12,000 yrs ago…..First use of language in the form of Hewbrewa.
10,000 yrs ago…..Construction of energy sites at Silbury Hill, Avebury and Stonehenge.
Aug 14th 1996…..New Earth energy grid activated for whole planet.
Aug 16th 1996…..A bridge between Avalon and Glastonbury Tor is made so that the Sidhe’ could counteract the threat of genetically modified organisms.
Dec 31st 1999…..Earth energies boosted to speed up human evolution.
May 30th 2000…..Earth alters her base frequency from 7.56Hz to 3,500Hz.
Jan 19th 2004…..Energies changed chakra speeds and all colour was lost from the chakras.
Aug 2nd 2004…..Earth charged up all its crystal deposits.
Feb 2005…..Another energy boost and this time, the energy level is maintained. Also, a higher-self census was taken to see who was to remain on the planet.
© Chris Thomas 2008
The Forum (One Vibration Forum/Blog August 6, 2008)
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Flashback Friday: Uranus & Pluto
It’s Friday the 13th! Eek! Everybody…RUN! Hide! Yeah, well, enough of the hysteria. We have plenty of that going on with the corona beer virus. Sugar, rice, pasta, Clorox & Lysol hand wipes, bleach, hand sanitizer and toilet paper doesn’t stand a chance. Now, we have to deal with the dreaded number 13. E-gads! The humanity!
March 13 has been a rather busy day in history. Curiously, Uranus and Pluto are involved.
Image Credit: mirror.co.uk
Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun. The name of Uranus references the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus, the father of Cronus (Saturn) and grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter) […]. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in [our] solar system and, […] is the only planet whose name is derived directly from a figure of Greek mythology. Uranus is similar in composition to Neptune and, both have bulk chemical compositions which differ from that of the larger gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. Uranus’ atmosphere is similar to Jupiter’s and Saturn’s in its primary composition of hydrogen and helium but, it contains more “ices” such as water, ammonia and methane […]. It has the coldest planetary atmosphere in the solar system […]. Like the other giant planets, Uranus has a ring system, a magnetosphere and numerous moons. The Uranian system has a unique configuration because its axis of rotation is tilted sideways, nearly into the plane of its solar orbit. Its north and south poles, therefore, lie where most other planets have their equators. Voyager 2 remains the only spacecraft to visit the planet.
Like the classical planets, Uranus is visible to the naked eye but, it was never recognised as a planet by ancient observers because of its dimness and slow orbit. [Two hundred, thirty-nine years ago, today], Sir William Herschel first observed Uranus on March 13, 1781 (from the garden of his house at 19 New King Street in Bath, Somerset, England, now the Herschel Museum of Astronomy), leading to its discovery as a planet, expanding the known boundaries of the solar system for the first time in history and making Uranus the first planet classified as such with the aid of a telescope.
Photo Credit: forbes.com
Pluto is an icy dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was the first Kuiper belt object to be discovered and is the largest known dwarf planet. Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 as the ninth planet from the Sun. After 1992, its status as a planet was questioned following the discovery of several objects of similar size in the Kuiper belt. In 2005, Eris, a dwarf planet in the scattered disc which is 27% more massive than Pluto, was discovered. This led the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to define the term “planet”, formally, in 2006, during their 26th General Assembly. That definition excluded Pluto and reclassified it as a dwarf planet.
It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object directly orbiting the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume but, is less massive than Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is primarily made of ice and rock and, is relatively small…about one-sixth the mass of the Moon and one-third its volume. It has a moderately eccentric and inclined orbit […]. This means that Pluto periodically comes closer to the Sun than Neptune but, a stable orbital resonance with Neptune prevents them from colliding.
[Observations] of Neptune in the late 19th century led astronomers to speculate that Uranus’s orbit was being disturbed by another planet besides Neptune. In 1906, Percival Lowell, a wealthy Bostonian who had founded [the] Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1894, started an extensive project in search of a possible ninth planet, which he termed “Planet X“. Lowell and his observatory conducted his search until his death in 1916 but, to no avail. Unknown to Lowell, his surveys had captured two faint images of Pluto on March 19 and April 7, 1915 but, they were not recognized for what they were.
Percival’s widow, Constance Lowell, entered into a ten-year legal battle with the Lowell Observatory over her husband’s legacy and the search for Planet X did not resume until 1929. [23-year-old] Clyde Tombaugh, who had just arrived at the observatory, discovered a possible moving object on photographic plates on February 18, 1930. After the observatory obtained further confirmatory photographs, news of the discovery was telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory ninety years ago, today, on March 13, 1930. Pluto has yet to complete a full orbit of the Sun since its discovery, as one Plutonian year is 247.68 years long.
The discovery made headlines around the globe. Lowell Observatory, which had the right to name the new object, received more than 1,000 suggestions from all over the world, ranging from Atlas to Zymal. Constance Lowell proposed Zeus, then Percival and finally Constance. These suggestions were disregarded. The name Pluto, after the god of the underworld, was proposed by Venetia Burney (1918–2009), an eleven-year-old schoolgirl in Oxford, England, who was interested in classical mythology.
Additional Reading:
Voyager 2 in the Uranium System (Zenodo site)
Uranus (NASA site)
Uranus (MIRA site)
Bath Preservation Trust
Eleven Awesome Facts About Pluto (geek.com)
Chris Thomas: An Update On Nibiru
A Blog Post From: The Chris Thomas Files
Research Triangle Park
01-07-2015
Introduction
I don’t know about you but, I like looking at sunsets. It doesn’t seem to matter how bad a day it has been for me, or for anyone else on the planet, taking a few minutes at the end of the day to watch the sun drop below the horizon just calms the nerves and renews my sense of well-being. During August, I have paid particular attention to the sunsets, attempting to catch a glimpse of the “new sun”, the one we are assured is called “Nibiru” that has been travelling through our solar system dragging its seven planets along with it. As I sit at my keyboard, I realise that I am, actually, sitting at my keyboard. I am not sitting at another keyboard in some alternate universe. I have not been vapourised by the bow “shock-wave” that this sun Nibiru was reputedly pushing before it, destroying all life in the solar system. Funny that. But, on the other hand, it looks as though the HGF (Human Gullibility Factor) has been working overtime.
For several months, we have been warned by those who claim to have insider knowledge from the NSA, CIA, NASA, and the Vatican, telling us that Nibiru is on its way through our solar system, wreaking its destruction, despite any evidence that could support these claims. Oh, how I long for the time when humans finally wake up and re-integrate their souls back into their bodies because, then, we wouldn’t have to put up with any more of this c**p.
A History of Nibiru
The name Nibiru is most usually associated with the translations of the Annunaki material by Zecharia Sitchin. Sitchin was acknowledged as the world’s leading expert at translating ancient Sumerian “Cuneiform” writing into English. In the 1960’s, Sitchin began translating a collection of clay tablets that were reputed to be about 5,000 years old. These tablets state that the story they tell was dictated to a Sumerian scribe who, accurately, recorded the story being dictated to him.
*Note: The story was dictated to a scribe, therefore, it had to be dictated by “someone”. This someone is never identified in the story the clay tablets tell. If, as claimed in the story, the information was the actual history of humanity, then, the history would have been recorded as it happened. In other words, the history was common knowledge amongst all of the people. So, why was it necessary for a story to be dictated to a scribe? The answer is, that, it is just that…a story and not reality.*
I have commented on the lack of truth, and the lack of validity, of this dictated story many times in my books and essays, so, [I] am not going to repeat the story here. Enough to say is, that it is a complete fantasy, deliberately designed to mislead people in the current times into believing that our “creators” are an alien race, known as the “Velon”. Within this dictated fantasy story is the “legend” of the planet Nibiru. Please note the word planet. The Velon/Annunaki fantasy story claims that Nibiru is a “travelling” planet that enters our solar system every 3,600 years.
Variable Star
Erroneously portrayed as an approaching planet or brown dwarf on a collision course with Earth
Image Credit: wikipedia.org & hubblesite.org
Several of its orbits have caused problems within our solar system, destroying one planet with the Earth and, the asteroid belt being made from the debris of this collision. According to Sitchin’s translations and calculations, the last time that this fictitious planet entered our solar system was about 2,200 years ago (about 200 BC). This means that the next orbit is not due for another 1,400 years from now.
Are there any human traditions that have a record of a “travelling planet”? No, there are not. Chinese records, Egyptian records, Celtic traditions, Native American traditions, Aboriginal traditions, Inuit traditions, Eskimo traditions…not one of them tell of a planet that travels in and out of our solar system. Is there an ancient Earth people who speak of a planet called Nibiru? Yes, there is. This is the ancient Assyrian Empire centered around the ancient city of Babylon. Except, as far as the ancient Assyrians are concerned, the name Nibiru was their name for the planet Jupiter in our own solar system although the Assyrians possibly spelled it “Neberu”, meaning “The Ferry”.
However, the fear-mongering that has been going on over the past few years, especially in recent months, refer to a sun called Nibiru that has entered our solar system, destroying all in its advance. Quite why Nibiru had changed from a single “travelling planet” to a sun with seven orbiting planets has been impossible to track down. There does not appear to be any reason, whatsoever, to explain why Nibiru has changed from a single planet to a whole solar system…at least none that I have been able to find. The only explanation seems to be that a fictitious travelling whole solar system engenders far more fear in people than a fictitious single travelling planet does.
Why Try To Make People Afraid?
For the last 1,700 years, there have been those on the planet who see themselves as an “elite”. In order to control the population and to make them believe what this elite wants them to believe, the elite have found that, by far, the best way is to make people afraid. By creating situations of fear, especially the fear of things that do not exist, the elite have created a society that is made up of individuals that are extremely gullible and can be forced to act in ways which go against their intrinsic nature. There are many, many examples of this behavior throughout human history, both in the past and in the present.
To continue reading (it’s ten pages), download the PDF version HERE.
[Note: This PDF was originally posted on the One-Vibration Forum Blog on August 12, 2013.]
Throwback Thursday: Kathy D. Sullivan & Space
October 11, 1984, Kathryn Dwyer “Kathy” Sullivan became the first American woman astronaut during the STS-41-G mission to perform an EVA or an extravehicular activity (3.5 hours worth), which freely translates to a “space walk”. This was NASA‘s thirteenth flight in the Space Shuttle program and the sixth flight of the Challenger. She was the Mission Specialist 1 and had just turned 33 years of age eight days prior.
She received a Ph.D. in geology from Dalhousie University in 1978, became an Adjunct Professor of Geology at Rice University in 1985 and joined the Navy Reserves in 1988 as an Oceanography Officer, retiring after 18 years at the rank of Captain.
April 24, 1990, she served on board the Space Shuttle Discovery as a Mission Specialist 3 for the STS-31 mission that launched the Hubble Space Telescope. March 24, 1992, she served as Mission Specialist 1 during the STS-45 mission on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis. She was part of the Group 8 NASA Astronaut selection on January 16, 1978. She left NASA in 1993.
Other October 11 space-related trivia:
1957…..Operation Moonwatch scientists calculate Sputnik 1‘s ‘satisfactory orbit’ with an IBM 704.
1958…..NASA launches the lunar probe Pioneer 1 (Pioneer Program). It falls back to Earth and burns up.
1968…..NASA launches Apollo 7, the first crewed flight.
2000…..NASA launches STS-92, the 100th Space Shuttle mission to the ISS via Discovery.
Throwback Thursday: Hurricane Ike 2008
While we are on the subject of hurricanes, ten years ago, today, Hurricane Ike struck Galveston, Texas, at 2:10am CDT. It was recorded as a Category 4 on September 4 as it moved near the Leeward Islands. Though it had lessened in strength from its prior Cat4 status to Cat2, this was a bad storm in costs, damage and death. Ike’s storm surge went right over the Galveston Seawall, a ten-mile wall built for protection after the devastating Galveston Hurricane of 1900.
Ike claimed 195 lives…74 in Haiti, six in Cuba and 113 in the US. As of August 2011, 16 are still missing. This was a huge storm that also damaged the Bahamas, the Turks & Caicos, the Florida Panhandle, Mississippi and Louisiana. It is the most expensive storm to ever hit Cuba and, at $38 billion, was the second-costliest storm in US history until 2012.
I was living in Texas when Ike hit. I was too far inland to be affected by more than some rain storms. The terrain in Texas is quite different from North Carolina and even though the Austin Area is roughly the same distance from the Texas coast as the Piedmont/Triangle is from the NC coast, my native Texan friends told me that Austin had never been hit by a hurricane.
I was employed by the very agency that responded to the disaster…The Texas General Land Office, though I was not working in the Coastal Management Unit. I was working for the Veterans Land Board but, I remember the teams going down to help with the clean up and the pictures of the damage that were posted to our intranet. The stunning images of the debris that littered I-45 and the heartbreaking photos of the flooding to downtown Galveston. NASA’s Johnson Space Center (Houston, we’ve had a problem…) suffered roof damage to Mission Control and my beloved Lone Star Flight Museum wound up with $18 million in damaged planes and had to be moved inland to Ellington Field. ~Victoria