One of the most iconic quotes from Star Wars is this one from Yoda himself: “Do or Do Not. There Is No Try” Would you like to learn more about Yoda? This Yoda documentary by Jamie Benning (@jamieswb) is just what you need. The story of how Yoda was brought to life on the big screen is really interesting and a lot of fun. This is well worth the watch if you’re a fan at all. Here’s a little about the project from Jamie: “During the production of my Jabba documentary short, Slimy Piece of Worm Ridden Filth, I was put in contact with Toby Philpott’s colleague and Jabba’s right hand man. Literally, his right hand man, puppeteer Dave Barclay. Dave helped us, along with Toby (Jabba’s left arm), Mike Edmonds (tail) and John Coppinger (animatronic engineer) to reconstruct just how it was inside that filthy Hutt. And of course…
Documentary
Live Streaming from the International space station
Here is a great window to Space! If this project remains open, it will allow the world witness our reality from another perpective. A beautiful one. And from time to time some wild phenomena out there, like the North Lights and meteors in Summer. I wonder if that is possible from that height. But I guess that going around the equator that must be beyond our reach…Still magnificent.! I wish they installed surround angle moving cameras and a few more. I hope this experiment succeeds and grows wider in budget and resources. The Ustream video from the station is available only when the complex is in contact with the ground through its high-speed communications antenna and NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. During “loss of signal” periods, you will see a blue screen. Since the station orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes, it sees a sunrise or a…
Documentary: Titan – A Place Like Home?
The Greeks believed the titan Prometheus gave humanity the great gift of fire. Throughout history, a select group of humans (from Thales to Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Maxwell and Einstein, among many others), have given the rest of humanity an even greater gift: science and the scientific method. No other discipline is as self-critical as science, and no other discipline is able to deliver the goods so consistently. If you don’t already love it, you’ll fall in love with it after watching this documentary. When the Voyager One Deep Space Probe (famous for carrying the golden record assembled by Carl Sagan and his team) flew by Saturn in the early 1980’s, it took the first set of detailed pictures of the ringed planet and its moons, and one moon clearly stood out: Titan. It then became obvious we had to go back. Roughly half the diameter of Earth, with its chemistry, thick…
Documentary: Alien Planet
I know it has been a while since I last posted a documentary. But Xmas and new-years have taken all my time. Now we are back with a new documentary. This time we are focusing on life on other planets, and as a product of speculative science it is pretty impressive. Using computer graphics it shows how a mission to explore an Alien Planet would be conducted by Earth employing a sublight spacecraft delivering sophisticated probes to the surface. The program explains step-by-step the mission as the probes encounter strange life forms, with frequent asides by scientists who explain how such life forms might evolve and live. Using computer animation, the program is very good. If it has a flaw it is in the asides, which frequently go back to something discussed five minutes and a couple of segments ago. I have watched this Discovery Channel program countless times. It…
Documentary: When Aliens Attack
To be honest, I’m not sure I will call this a documentary, but it fits nice in our weekend column on speculative space documentaries, and I have always liked this show. So today I present you When Aliens Attack. This was a television show that aired on the National Geographic Channel a few years back. I use to only see alien ET UFO type shows on the History Channel. Now, we have more documentaries based on truth and experiences that allow us to share in logic and inspiration for our imaginations. I enjoyed seeing the “What If” factor that the writers came up with and researched what was available to us on this planet as far as possible defense. We have military assimilations as what we call war games and this allows us to begin working models in scenarios with the various levels of our intelligence communities around the world….
Documentary: Passport To Pluto
I was so hangover after our company xmas party last week, that I didn’t get a round to post a new space documentary. I really wanted to post a story on the ” New Horizons” mission NASA is doing. The space agency launched the $700 million New Horizons robotic spacecraft from Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in January 2006 on a flyby mission to study Pluto and its moons. Reaching Pluto required New Horizons to achieve a speed of more than 36,000 mph in an earth and solar escape trajectory, which is the greatest launch speed ever recorded for a man-made object to date. In April 2006, New Horizons flew past Mars, then by Jupiter in February 2007 and Saturn in June 2008. By March 2011, New Horizons passed Uranus and is expected to arrive at Pluto around July 2015. Being the god of the underworld might not be…
Mission Juno – Great documentary on Jupiter and NASA’s Juno probe arriving at the gas giant in 2016
Following up on last weeks blog post about Mars, I wanted to stay in our solar system. Many interesting missions are already happening right now, and many more are on its way, helping us better to understand our nabor planets and our place in the universe. NASA’s spacecraft Juno is en route to Jupiter, and below is a video about why we’re headed there, and what we hope to discover about Jupiter while Juno is in orbit around our largest planet. The documentary is combined of hundreds of 1 minute videos, so the video changes style a bit and is a little long-winded. The video Features interviews with scientists and engineers working on the probe with interesting computer-generated imagery of the mission. It also Explains the science of the solar system, why this mission matters, the instruments on board and the scientists and engineers behind this mission. The Juno spacecraft…
Documentaries: Mars, All aboard for the red planet
Today I will post a recap of all the documentaries found on youtube regarding Colonization of Mars. There is a lot of speculation, reports and planning for Mars Colonies in the near future, this seems to come out of nowhere in the last few years. Not only by NASA who have always been luke warm ,but several groups and consortiums. Russia, China and now India are planning various missions to the red planet. The Dutch are planning a Big Bros House, and there was an article encouraging older people to apply for first, for possible one way trips in case they cannot come back. Colonizing Mars [HD] Robert Zubrin, author and aerospace engineer, has the blueprints to build a colony on Mars. He and NASA Ames researcher Margarita Marinova explain how and why humans will one day turn the Red Planet green, establishing the next frontier of technological innovation and seeding the universe with…