My Windycon 40 Schedule

I'm back in the U.S.A. To my delight, the Lufthansa flight home had an episode of Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion on its video jukebox. Though my feeble German skills are wholly inadequate to follow actors speaking rapid, colloquial German, it was nonetheless interesting to watch episode 1, "Angriff aus dem All" (Attack from Space). The set designs are terrific, and the special effects reasonably effective.

What really sold me on this show was the way it livened up a simple "two spacemen talking in a bar" scene. The bar's window offers a view of the giant fish cavorting above the underwater city-- nice touch. Then, unexpectedly, THIS happens:

Friends, the future is going to be different.

Anyway, it's good to be home.

Next up: Windycon this weekend. Forty, and I've attended thirty-seven of them. Wow.

Colonizing Space
Saturday, - 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm - Jr Ballroom A

Will space travel ever be safe enough and cheap enough to really colonize other planets? Can a moon or Mars colony really work? Will space colonization be government sponsored or private citizens? What happens if we can’t leave Earth?

Steve Collins
Phyllis Eisenstein
Bill Higgins (M)
Jim Plaxco
Catherine Shaffer


Gravity: Film v. Science
Saturday, - 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm - Jr Ballroom A

The Alfonso Cuaron film Gravity certainly looks beautiful and makes full use of 3D technology, but how accurate is it? Cuaron has admitted that scientific accuracy was allowed to float out the window for the needs of the story, but Astronaut Mike Massimino has praised the film and Neil de Grasse Tyson has tweeted about its inaccuracies.  Our team of technogeeks dissect, celebrate, and go fanboy over the film.

Steve Collins (M)
Bill Higgins
Robert J. Trembley
[This should be a hoot! Beware, there will be SPOILERS at this panel.]

The Future of Private Space Exploration
Sunday, - 10:00 am to 11:00 am - Lilac A

Now that NASA is out of the space business private developers are stepping in. Can private space exploration really give us the future sf predicts? How can we help get there?

Bill Higgins
Ross Martinek
Jim Plaxco
W. A. (Bill) Thomasson (M)

Vandals of the Void: Damaging Meteorites from Chelyabinsk to Chicago
Sunday, - 11:00 am to 12:00 pm - Jr Ballroom B

A window-shattering shock wave injured 1100 Russians and startled the world a few months ago. Meteoric violence is rare, but it can be devastating-and meteorites have assaulted Chicagoland at least twice. Bill Higgins reviews the Chelyabinsk blast, reveals our local impacts.

Bill Higgins