It’s not hard to imagine an alien world that looked like this.

• Planetary Resources is announced, with a four-stage approach to prospecting and mining near-Earth asteroids:
1. Leo, a small space telescope placed in (appropriately enough) low Earth orbit.
2. Interceptor spacecraft (Leo telescopes with additional propulsion and science equipment) to scout for near-Earth asteroids
3. Rendezvous Prospector spacecraft to approach and gather data on specific asteroids
4. Asteroid mining (umm…yeah, this is where it gets a little Underpants-Gnome-ish)
• The Blue Origin capsule shape is revealed:

Instead of using a more traditional symmetrical capsule design, the Blue Origin Space Vehicle uses a biconic shape with one side of the capsule flattened and a split flap (most likely two) that can be used for directional control. The flap can be seen in the multicolored image above from the computational fluid design program used to develop the spacecraft. Similar designs have been developed in the past, most notably McDonnell-Douglas’ legendary Advanced Maneuvering Reentry Vehicle (AMaRV) developed in the 1970s. This vehicle also used split flaps for directional control, though it was designed to deliver weapons launched from a Minuteman missile.

• SpaceX is currently planning to launch its first flight (Dragon 2/3) to the ISS on May 7, but will have a test firing of the launch vehicle on Monday, April 30.

The Prometheus finalists for Best Novel recognize pro-freedom novels published last year:

• The Children of the Sky (TOR Books) – A sequel to Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep and in the same universe as Prometheus-winning A Deepness in the Sky, this novel focuses on advanced humans, stranded and struggling to survive on a low-tech planet populated by Tines, dog-like creatures who are only intelligent when organized in packs. The most libertarian of the three human factions and their local allies must cope with the world’s authoritarian factions to advance peaceful trade over war and coercion.
• The Freedom Maze (Small Beer Press) – Delia Sherman’s young-adult fantasy novel focuses on an adolescent girl in 1960 who is magically sent back to 1860 when her family owned slaves on a Louisiana plantation. With her summer tan, she’s mistaken for a slave herself, learning the hard way about her ancestors’ attitudes and about courage, respect, individual rights and personal responsibility.
• In the Shadow of Ares (Amazon Kindle edition) – This young-adult first novel by Thomas L. James and Carl C. Carlsson focuses on a Mars-born female teenager in a near-future, small civilization on Mars, where hardworking citizens are constantly and unjustly constrained by a growing, centralized authority whose excessive power has led to corruption and conflict.
• Ready Player One (Random House) – Ernest Cline’s genre-busting blend of science fiction, romance, suspense, and adventure describes a virtual world that has managed to evolve an order without a state and where entrepreneurial gamers must solve virtual puzzles and battle real-life enemies to save their virtual world from domination and corruption. The novel also stresses the importance of allowing open access to the Internet for everyone.
• The Restoration Game (Pyr Books) – Set in a world whose true nature is a deeper mystery, this philosophical and political thriller by Ken MacLeod (winner of Prometheus awards for Learning the World, The Star Fraction, and The Stone Canal) explores the dark legacy of communism and the primacy of information in shaping what is “reality” amid Eastern European intrigue, online gaming, romance and mystery.
• Snuff (Harper Collins) – A Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett (winner of a Prometheus Award for Night Watch, also set in Discworld), Snuff blends comedy, drama, satire, suspense and mystery as a police chief investigates the murder of a goblin and finds himself battling discrimination. The mystery broadens into a powerful drama to extend the world’s recognition of rights to include these long-oppressed and disdained people with a sophisticated culture of their own.

Ahh, landing airbags. I remember when Orion had those. Those were the days…

Looking SE, you can’t see the fire directly because it’s hidden by intervening ridges (a good thing), but you can see the plume of smoke trailing off towards Denver. Google Maps says the fire is 11+ miles away by road, so it’s somewhat less than that (say 7-8) as the crow flies.

In comparison, it’s only a couple miles west of the main Lockheed Martin facility. The office smelled like the inside of a fireplace today.

Looking S you can see Pike’s Peak – or maybe not, thanks to the lingering smoke. It should be dead center in this shot, and it is if you look closely.

Looking SW, a little reminder of how destructive wildfires can be — this is a portion of the vast scar left by the 2002 Hayman Fire, which came within about five miles of my house.

UPDATE: of course, these pics are nothing compared to the video one of my coworkers took…

UPDATE: Fire’s out as of 4/2/12, and today (4/3) we received about 6″ of snow in the foothills. Snow, where were you a week ago???

The fire is about 7 miles southeast of my house, which is reasonably safe depending on winds. On the other hand, it’s only a couple miles west of the main Lockheed Martin plant here – where my office now is. And the new outbreak mentioned in the article was visible from the gate as I was driving in at lunchtime. Stinks like a bad wood stove in the whole office building.

This doesn’t bode well for this summer, unless we get a whole lot of late-season precipitation this spring.

It’s partly amusing because they use a pretty good replica of an Orion as the “Liberty” spacecraft, and partly because they appear to be leavening the lampooning of Sarah Palin with some mockery of Obama. That suggests to me that said lampooning is done in fun and not malice, like a Hollywood film would handle it.

And yes…the space Nazis have an Autobahn on the Moon.

I hope this movie ends up being as fun as it looks, but then Dead Snow (with zombie Nazis, as it happens) looked this good in trailers and previews, too.

[Hat tip: Gina]