TVSquad

This news is a big damn deal to die hard fans of Firefly and Serenity (we call 'em 'Browncoats'). Apparently there are some Browncoats at NASA and they have managed to get DVDs of Joss Whedon's television show and movie up to the International Space Station. Astronaut Steven R. Swanson is the fan who just returned from the ISS after delivering the DVDs (oh yeah, and other important astronaut/survival supplies).

There's a fan page that blogs about it called Breaking Atmo. The most recent posts has all sorts of photos of Firefly and Serenity DVDs floating in space. One of the blog posts says that "Swanny" got the other astronauts addicted to Firefly while they were all in quarantine for five hours before the shuttle Atlantis launched earlier this month.

I've also heard that there are a number of astronauts at NASA who are addicted to Battlestar Galactica. Can you blame them?!?

[Via Pop Candy]

Do you like space? Of course you do, you're floating around in it right now.

Despite the fact my brain is clogged with cartoon trivia and the words to that old Tootsie Roll jingle, I love anything having to do with space and space exploration, even if i don't always completely understand the science behind it. If you share my love of space-y things, and if you happen to get the Science Channel, tune in starting tomorrow for Space Week. Here's some of what's on tap:

It's been almost two years since James "Scotty" Doohan passed away, but his ashes have finally been sent into orbit.

Some of the Star Trek actors' ashes were launched from the New Mexico desert today with the ashes of about two-hundred other individuals, including Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper. The rockets were launched by the wives of both men, Suzan Cooper and Wende Doohan.

Doohan was born in 1920 in Canada and fought in World War II, losing a finger as a result of injuries he suffered on D-Day. In the late '40s, he trained as an actor at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. He's appeared in countless movie and TV roles, but of course we'll all remember him as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott.

Gene Roddenberry, the late creator of Star Trek, also had his ashes launched into space in 1997.

If you had asked me what professions Dallas star Victoria Principal would do besides acting, I probably would have said model or talk show host or restaurant owner, or maybe even cosmetics queen, which she actually is. But "astronaut" would have been way down on the list, right after lion tamer and NFL quarterback.

But into space is where Principal is going. She's going to be one of the first civilian astronauts on Virgin Galactic, which will launch in 2008. Now, I'm sure she's not going to be docking with the International Space Station. The space plane will probably go just into space enough to call it a trip into space. But I'm not knocking that at all, that's legit, and I'd love to put a little Star Trek into my life, if I had a gazillion dollars.

And then I'd wake up and go into the shower and realize it was all a dream.

I thought of this show a few weeks ago when I started to see the commercials for Billy Bob Thornton's new movie, The Astronaut Farmer, about a guy who builds his own rocket in his barn so he can blast into space.

Salvage 1 was a short-lived show that starred Andy Griffith as a salvager who sells scrap that he finds and goes on various adventures with his cohorts (rescuing people, battling fires, getting involved with crooks, that sort of thing). The series co-starred Joel Higgins (Silver Spoons), Trish Stewart (whatever happened to her?), and Richard Jaeckel (Spenser: For Hire), and it was based on a TV movie of the same name in which Griffith built a rocket on his own and blasted off into space.

I can't tell you how much I loved this movie when I was a teen. If you had asked me in the late 70s what the best movie of all time was, I probably would have said this one. Sadly, the show died after only a season and a half. It couldn't quite match the charm of the pilot, but was pretty darn entertaining.

"The Wrong Stuff", "Space Oddity", "Astronut", "Lust in Space", "Very Accomplished Woman in Tragic Local Story": All you need to know about the crazy astronaut lady's story? Diapers!

Senior Space Correspondent Rob Riggle talked about how the astronaut's driving was really a NASA mission. Senior Continental Revenge Trek Analyst Samantha Bee then stopped by to share her expertise on continental revenge treks. "It's drive across the country in a diaper time!... Or as I call it, 'Tuesday'".

Tonight at 8pm on PBS, NOVA scienceNow will look at a competition to build an "elevator to space." Participants will compete to see whose prototype can go the highest, and the winner takes home a $150,000 prize. The episode will also focus on scientific research surrounding the carbon nanotube, a stronger-than-steel material that just might be used to create the cable for a real "space elevator" in the future. It would be awesome if such a thing were constructed in my lifetime, though with my luck I'd be stuck on this lengthy elevator ride with some guy who just polished off a beef and bean burrito.

Other segments from the episode will include research into "longevity genes" and how they may hold the secret to living longer; using satellites to uncover Mayan ruins; and studies in "Quorum Sensing," the way bacteria communicates.

In an interview with SFGate, Star Wars creator George Lucas said his live-action Star Wars TV series planned for 2009 will be different than the updated Battlestar Galactica or Joss Whedon's Firefly. I mean, of course it will be different, those are all three different series, but it sounds like Lucas has something big in mind. He also said the new series would be more "adult" and would not focus on the Skywalkers. I'm not sure what he meant by the "adult" remark, but I imagine he plans to make softcore Star Wars porn. Trust me, they didn't even come close to exposing all the gadgets hidden inside R2-D2. The Star Wars saga is about to get hella steamy. Hells yeah. Or perhaps not, either way it is my duty as a Star Wars geek to be excited about it.

That's a direct-to-DVD movie, not a TV movie or one for the theaters.

The movie was announced in 2005, and now Babylon 5 creator/writer J. Michael Straczynski confirms that not only is there a movie coming this year but it's just about done. The film has been shot and now they're just working on post-production stuff (title sequence, music, special effects, etc). He tells the Babylon 5 newsgroup that the DVD will be released around July 27.

I never watched Babylon 5, and I always thought I missed out on something good. Straczynski is a good writer, and I know that Harlan Ellison was involved in the show too, so I should really get the DVDs. The movie will star Bruce Boxleitner, Tracy Scoggins, and Peter Woodward.

If you like science fiction, and Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Stargate, and other shows aren't enough, get ready for Beyond.

According to Aint It Cool News, FOX has ordered 13 episodes of the series. It's about a big meteor coming to Earth, carrying a deadly virus, and the efforts to stop it. Jeez, as if a meteor wasn't enough to worry about, the damn thing has to be carrying a virus too? The show will star Seth Gable, Rachel Perry, and Merrin Dungey from Alias.

The best part of the story is the various comments from Ain't It Cool readers. Some of the entertaining subject lines of the comments include "Why FOX Why" and "Armageddon meets Outbreak" and "For Christ's Spellcheck. Is it that hard?" Ha!

I recall Carl Sagan on the old Cosmos show explaining the gold plaque the was placed on the Pioneer 10 spacecraft to introduce us to any aliens that happened to pick it up, unlikely as that might be.

Now, in a week when we've got Neil Armstrong's words straight, news comes that European television channel Arte, which broadcasts in French and German, is producing a program to beam directly into space 45 light years away, to a point near the Big Dipper. The programs sort of a multimedia version of the plaque: it'll feature a nude man and woman as presenters, who will talk about daily human life. Examples of music and art, along with messages from scientists in many disciplines will also be included. The event is conceived by the French Centre National D'etudes Spatiales (CNES). The Irish Times has a really snarky article about it.

Because of the distance, if the broadcast is seen, any show that aliens might want to put on for us won't be available here for at least ninety years. Probably longer, allowing for production time.

[via Slashdot]

(S01E09) Real events inspired this episode. Chris Carter says he wrote Space after seeing the real 'face on Mars' photograph. According to the experts over at The X-Files wiki, this episode was meant to be a cheaply made one with lots of NASA footage but the construction of the command center pushed them over budget and made Space the most expensive episode of the season. Whoops.

It's no secret that some of us over here at the palatial TV Squad offices are a bit confused by the recent scheduling decisions that have been handed down by the Sci-Fi Channel's executives over the past few months. I mean, other than the shows that are part of the Sci-Fi Friday block, a good portion of the schedule is filled with cheesy made-for-tv movies, reruns of creepy Law & Order: SVU episodes and, for a reason only known to the executives of Sci-Fi and Universal, Extreme Championship Wrestling.

Oh, Trekkies Trekkers are going to have a lot to say about this, I'm sure.

J.J. Abrams says that's he wants to cast Damon as the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the new Star Trek movie he is putting together. And he even has the blessing of the original Captain James. T. Kirk, William Shatner.

I think this is a good idea, actually. Damon looks the part, and as the Bourne movies showed, he can do action. But please, please, please don't cast Ben Affleck as Spock. Nothing against Affleck, I just think that would be too much to take, like it's Space Will Hunting or something.

Okay, this one is for the sci-fi geeks. There's a few "space" shows I've watched and enjoyed, but there's far more I haven't seen, so help me out and let me know what your favorite television spaceships are. Below are five television spacecrafts I wouldn't mind being beamed onto, as long as they gave me a laser gun to protect myself, and maybe a large bucket of deep-fried tribbles ( I hear they taste like shrimp). Let's cruise:

The USS Swinetrek: This was the pig-shaped spacecraft from one of my favorite Muppet Show segments, "Pigs in Space." I always found myself intrigued by the adventures of Link Hogthrob, Doctor Strangepork, and first mate Miss Piggy. The episode with Mark Hamill where he appears on the spaceship as Luke Skywalker and Miss Piggy won't let him leave until he "rescues" her is one of my all-time favorite Muppet episodes.