Made by Martian Labour

Sunpocalypse 2013: “Nasa Warns Solar Flares From ‘Huge Space Storm’ Will Cause Devastation” – Daily Telegraph

MadeByMartianLabour — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:49:03 +0000

The Telegraph has conducted an interview with Dr Richard Fisher, who we mentioned back on the 6th in reference to his involvement with the Space Weather Enterprise Forum.

“Due to humans’ heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and “potentially devastating” problems for governments.

“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa’s Heliophysics division, said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.”

…but not actual devastation per-se. In fact nowhere does Fisher suggest that the storms might cause devastation, only “potentially devastating problems for governments”; a distinction lost on the Telegraph in its pursuit of an attention grabbing headline.

Although disruption in 2013 is inevitable, there isn’t yet a solid consensus on, to quote Dr Fisher, “how bad it’s going to be”. It’ll certainly be interesting to watch not only how the impending problem is studied, but also how it is reported / sensationalised. Of course the Telegraph’s exaggeration pales to a shade of almost-credible against the Mail’s dire predictions. Michael Hanlon’s 2009 article shrieks: “MELTDOWN! A SOLAR SUPERSTORM COULD SEND US BACK INTO THE DARK AGES, AND ONE IS DUE IN JUST THREE YEARS”.

Fucking Hell! But it gets worse as: “Pillars of incandescent green writhe like gigantic serpents across the skies” and “The dead go unburied, the sick untreated”; according to Hanlon at least (more of Hanlon here). If this nightmare world is simply too awful to visualise, the Mail has provided this helpful picture:

The problems presented by the 2013 solar activity are not insurmountable, and events like the Space Weather Enterprise Forum are an encouraging sign that proactive steps can, and are, being taken. The sad irony is that bullshit reporting of the issue will exacerbate consumer and investor fears relating to the storm’s impact. As we have seen in the last few years, flawed, misconceived and distorted assessments of economic risk can also have a ‘devastating’ impact.

A Walking Engine of Glittering Metal – Visualisations of HG Wells’ Tripods

MadeByMartianLabour — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:49:00 +0000

“…a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it…a great body of machinery on a tripod stand”

De Stryd Der Werelden (Dutch) – J. Speenhoff (1899)

One of the earliest depictions of the Martian war machines, Speenhoff’s tripods are more anthropomorphic than subsequent renderings. It stands as a brilliantly stylised interpretation, despite the peculiar heads.

Eve of the Wars: 1913 – British Edition (‘World’s Work Sixpennies’) , 1939 – Dutch Edition, 1956 – Russian Edition

(left to right):

Blitz 1913!: Although aerial bombing of cities wasn’t a key strategy in the First World War, the conflict did see the first zeppelin raids on London in 1915. Wells describes Martian held London as ‘dead’ (albeit relatively intact), however, this 1913 cover, by ‘Caney’, anticipates the mass conflagrations of the 1940′s blitz.

Keep Calm And Carry On: This Dutch cover from 1939 has more than a hint of propaganda poster about it. This is also one of the few images depicting the Martian’s ‘black smoke’: Wells’ chemical warfare agent. Although chemical weapons were rarely used during the Second World War; nerve gas, of course, found its final, terrible, application during the holocaust, of which this image is luridly evocative.

‘We Will Bury You!’: This cover was painted by V. Noskov for a 1956 Russian edition. That year saw the threat of nuclear war, anticipated by Wells in his novel ‘The World Set Free’, combined with the other ‘Wellsian’ themes of socialism and colonialism as the Soviet Union crushed the Hungarian Uprising, and the British Empire re-asserted itself during the Suez Crisis. Noskov’s Tripods share their industrial, blocky aesthetic with the fighting machines deployed in both conflicts.

1953 Movie (dir. Byron Haskin) – Albert Nozaki (1953)

With the practical modelling technology of the time insufficient for the purposes of creating large moving tripods, production designer Albert Nozaki instead made the fighting machine his own. Avoiding the, already cliché, flying saucer motif, he instead opted for something far sleeker, and more amenable to being suspended from strings. The (by then technically achievable) tripod designs of the 2005 film retained the flattened, stingray-like features of Nozaki’s designs.

Cover of 1975 British Edition, Published by Pan – George Underwood

This is a scan of the first copy of The War of the Worlds I ever owned. Inside the front cover someone has written ‘Margaret 1975’. I have no idea how it came to belong to my parents (neither of whom is named Margaret), and subsequently to me. I do remember how dissimilar to Wells’ description I found George Underwood’s bio-mechanical forms, not that this detracts from his wonderful interpretation.

Jeff Wayne Concept Album – Mike Trim (1978)

‘Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds’ still enjoys success today with a touring concert, remix album and computer game spinoffs for the PC and PS1; all incorporating Mike Trim’s iconic drawings. The machines in the album art posses the same 70′s-futurist curves as the man made vehicles Trim designed for the various Jerry Anderson marionette action shows of the 70’s.

Woking Sculpture – Michael Condron (1998)

Woking was home to H.G. Well’s, which did nothing to spare it from the Martian’s heat ray. Few towns have erected monuments to their fictional destruction, however Woking has lead the way with this wonderful sculpture by Michael Condron. This is undeniably the best thing in Surrey.

The League of Extrodinary Gentlemen Volume 2 – Kevin O’Neil (1999)

This take on the Fighting Machine brings together a number of pre-established themes, whilst adding a hint of the insectoid. A perfectly logical development by O’Neil, who’s art accompanies Alan Moore’s re-interpretation of Wells’ story magnificently.

Spielberg Movie – Mark Gabanna (2005)

Spielberg, pretentious little tease that he is, never shows the really big battle in his movie rendition, instead focusing on Dakota Fanning getting lost and Tom Cruise’s attempts to restrain his son from seeing the coolest thing ever. With 9/11 only four years previous, and the Iraq War in full swing, perhaps such levels of destruction porn were considered inappropriate? This didn’t stop Gabanna conceptualising it though: here.

Treehouse of Horror 17 – 2006

Although something of an anti-climax following Gabanna’s work, its still nice to see the Simpsons get things right, now and then. Anything that keeps the image of the tripod alive in the alien invasion aesthetic is all right by me.

Reality Dump 12.06.2010

MadeByMartianLabour — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:19:29 +0000

Japanese Spacecraft Deploys Solar Sail

Monkey Brain Controls Robotic Arm

Diplomatic Dolphins

Futuristic Mega Projects

Gamma Ray Bubbles; 65,000 Light Years Long

Physicist Calls UFO Cover-Up a ‘Cosmic Watergate’

50 Years of Space Exploration Info-graphic

Interactive Guide to Larry Niven’s Ringworld

Sky Porn: Images from the European Southern Observatory

MadeByMartianLabour — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:57:07 +0000

Galactic Panorama over Very Large Telescope – Full Image

“The open telescope domes of the world’s most advanced ground-based astronomical observatory are all visible in the image: the four smaller 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes that can be used together in the interferometric mode, and the four giant 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes. To the right in the image and below the arc of the Milky Way, two of our galactic neighbours, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, can be seen.“

June 7th 2010: Moonset over ESO’s Very Large Telescope - Full Image

“Contrary to what one may think, this picture is no montage. The Moon appears large because it is seen close to the horizon and our perception is deceived by the proximity of references on the ground. In order to get this spectacular close view, a 500-mm lens was necessary. The very long focal length reduces the depth of field making the objects in focus appear as if they were at the same distance. This effect, combined with the extraordinary quality of this picture, gives the impression that the Moon lies on the VLT platform, just behind the telescopes, even though it is in fact about 30 000 times further away.“

December 11th 2009: Flame Nebula – Full Image

“In views of this evocative object in visible light the core of the nebula is completely hidden behind obscuring dust, but in this VISTA view, taken in infrared light, the cluster of very young stars at the object’s heart is revealed. The wide-field VISTA view also includes the glow of the reflection nebula NGC 2023, just below centre, and the ghostly outline of the Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) towards the lower right. The bright bluish star towards the right is one of the three bright stars forming the Belt of Orion.“

January 19th 2007: Comet McNaught – Full Image

“Comet C/2006 P1 was discovered in August 2006 by Robert McNaught with the 0.5-m Uppsala Schmidt telescope in the course of the Siding Spring Survey (Australia). It is one of 29 comets discovered by this telescope since early 2004 in a project to systematically search the southern skies for asteroids, or comets, that can pass close to the Earth. At that time, the comet was only a very faint, barely diffuse object, about 50 000 times fainter than what the unaided eye can see.“

ESO Top 100 Images

2013 Solar Storms Could Cause “Twenty Times More Economic Damage than Hurricane Katrina”

MadeByMartianLabour — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:35:31 +0000

With peak solar activity expected in 2013, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) are taking steps to raise awareness and help prepare for the solar battering:

“Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that’s new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th.

Richard Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, explains what it’s all about:

“The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we’re getting together to discuss.”“

“The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled “Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts.” It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

Much of the damage can be mitigated if managers know a storm is coming. Putting satellites in ‘safe mode’ and disconnecting transformers can protect these assets from damaging electrical surges. Preventative action, however, requires accurate forecasting—a job that has been assigned to NOAA.“

As the Sun Awakens, NASA keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather

NOAA Website

Space Weather Enterprise Forum

“Individual Vehicles Self Assemble, Co-ordinate and Take Flight” – Into the Mind of the Swarm

MadeByMartianLabour — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:24:50 +0000

Swarm intelligence has featured in science fiction since the 1930′s, with Olaf Stapleton’s Martian cells (able to communicate via radio waves) in The Last and First Men(1931). He re-visited the concept in his 1937 book ‘Star Maker‘. This is territory more recently explored by Stanislaw Lem with ‘The Invincible‘ (1964), and in Michael Crichton’s 2002 novel ‘Prey‘.

Circulating on the web this week are videos from the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control (Zurich), who’s Distributed Flight Array demonstrates just how credible the idea of an artificial, autonomous, swarm based, intelligence actually is:

“The individual vehicles of the Distributed Flight Array have fixed propellers that can lift them into the air, but the resulting flight is erratic and uncontrolled. Joined together, however, these relatively simple modules evolve into a sophisticated multi-propeller system capable of coordinated flight. The task of keeping the array in level flight is distributed across the network of vehicles. Vehicles exchange information and combine this information with their own sensor measurements to determine how much thrust is needed for the array to take-off and maintain level flight. If the array’s leveled flight is disturbed, each vehicle individually determines the amount of thrust required to correct for the disturbance based on its position in the array and the array’s motion.”

And Yet It Moves – Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control

X-51A Breaks Scramjet Record

MadeByMartianLabour — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:08:37 +0000

On May 26th the Boeing X-51A flew for over 200 seconds at a top speed of Mach 5. The supersonic combustion ramjet (SCRAMJET) technology that powers the X-51A ‘WaveRider’ could, it is thought, propell future ‘single stage to orbit’ (SSTO) vehicles into space, eliminating the need for multi-stage rockets.

“This is a new world record and sets the foundation for several hypersonic applications, including access to space, reconnaissance, strike, global reach and commercial transportation,” said Joe Vogel, Boeing director of Hypersonics and X-51A program manager.

Boeing Press Release

Dr Bloodmoney

MadeByMartianLabour — Wed, 26 May 2010 10:22:12 +0000

SF Masterworks #32

‘Doctor Bloodmoney’

Phillip K. Dick

‘”Oh”, Dangerfield said, “we’ve got fine weather coming. You can put out to sea in those little boats and catch those little radioactive fish; nothing to worry about.”’

Chapter 7, Page 119

As Walt Dangerfield circled the world in Dick’s post-apocalyptic 1981; so to, in 1979, did the Vela 6911 satellite orbit our pre-apocalyptic one. From his satellite, Walt appoints himself cosmic disk jockey for a world ravaged by nuclear war. By comparison, the situation facing Vela’s earthbound operators was not quite so bad. The Vela satellites were launched to monitor the observance of the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty and, on 22 September 1979, Vela 6911 recorded the distinctive ‘double flash’ indicative of a nuclear explosion.

A U.S. National Security Council memo, issued a month later, implicated not the Soviet Union as the originator of the ‘event’, observed in the south-western Indian Ocean, but rather South Africa. Tellingly the memo also considers the possibility that ‘Israel could have detonated a device in this remote geographical area’. In fact it appears to have been a mix of both, with books such as ‘The Nuclear Express, A History of the Bomb and its Proliferation’ stating that the ‘Vela Incident’ was a joint test conducted by Israel and South Africa.

Supporting evidence of a kind was produced this week by Foreign Affairs senior editor Sasha Polakow-Suransky, from his forthcoming book ‘The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa’. Polakow-Suransky has produced documents from the Apartheid regime detailing negotiations between then defence ministers P.W. Botha (S. Africa) and Shimon Peres (Israel). In 1975 Peres and Botha were discussing South Africa’s requirements re. Nuclear weapons, their subsequent deployment (via the Jericho Missile System), and what Israel might do in support of this. In short, the Israelis were offering to supply the pariah Apartheid regime with nuclear warheads.

Such a relationship, viewed in the harsh light of cold war realpolitik, was not without its benefits, as demonstrated perhaps by the 1979 testing co-operative. Certainly Israel’s tenuous existence has frequently necessitated, in the minds of its leaders at least, a defence policy unhindered by the finer points of conventional morality. However, when co-operating with South Africa, one wonders if Peres and his superiors stopped to consider the other forays into weapons of mass destruction conducted by Botha’s subordinates.

Dr Bloodmoney, Bruno Bluthgeld, survives in PKD’s 1981, albeit living in psychotic mist of fear and paranoia. Bluthgeld considers himself to be the instigator of the apocalyptic war. The rest, or rather the remainder, of humanity remember him as the scientist whose botched nuclear test unleashed an abundance of birth defects upon the pre-war world. His paranoia is not unreasonable. The Indian Ocean test could be considered a failure only in that the Americans noticed it; a screw-up smaller than Bluthgeld’s by an order of magnitude. The evil of South Africa’s own Dr Bloodmoney was greater by a similar order.

Dr Wouter Basson had a far better time of the early 80’s than PKD’s characters. Basson was a highly successful cardio surgeon and personal physician to none other than P.W. Botha, who since 1979 had ascended to the office of Prime Minister. Basson was also the leader of the now infamous ‘Project Coast’: South Africa’s bio-warfare programme, tasked with creating an ‘ethnic bomb’. The ‘ethnic bomb’ was in fact a genetic bio-weapon, designed to be lethal only to a certain ethnicity; in this case black Africans. In the tense domestic climate of 1980’s South Africa the Botha government’s rational for creating such a weapon is clear, as is their immorality.

Basson had secured a cottage in Berkshire, England, to which he organised delivery of the various bio-chemical compounds required for, in the words of Desmond Tutu, ‘…the most diabolical aspect of apartheid’. This allowed him to receive packages from (amongst others) North Korean scientists, beyond the gaze of the intelligence agencies (MI5 included). ‘Gideon’s Spies’ by Gordon Thomas notes that Basson’s associates and fellow researchers went on to visit North Korea, Iraq, Libya and Iran; no friends to Botha’s allies in Tel Aviv.

In Dick’s world, Bluthgeld is terminated by one of its more unique inhabitants. In an ironic twist of fate, the Vela Satellites went on to detect the first evidence of gamma-ray bursts; a celestial event of mass destruction that dwarfs utterly both Bluthgeld’s bombs and Basson’s pathogens. Walt Dangerfield survives in orbit. Wouter Basson maintains his innocence to this day.

Dr Bloodmoney describes a post-apocalyptic world and the trials of the survivors as they attempt to live both with it, and with the ghosts of the past. Here, in the real world, the apocalypse hasn’t happened, yet. But weapons of the kind spotted by Vela 6911 continue to proliferate. Programmes such as Project Coast haven’t gone away either, nor for that matter have the gamma ray bursts. For the survivors of Dick’s holocaust there remains a strange kind of hope, in a strange kind of world. It remains to be seen what world the devices of our own Dr Bloodmonies would leave their survivors, if, indeed, there were any.

Variable 4: The Future of Generative Music

MadeByMartianLabour — Mon, 24 May 2010 10:45:22 +0000

On-line in Dungeness, and making amazing noises.

“Variable 4 transforms weather patterns into a living musical composition with the same unpredictability as the elements themselves. Using meteorological sensors connected to a custom software environment developed by the artists, the wild weather conditions of the Kent coastland act as composer, navigating through a map of 24 specifically written movements. Every aspect of the piece, from broad harmonic progressions down to individual notes and timbres, is influenced by changes in the environment: wind speed, rainfall, solar radiation, humidity, tropospheric variance, temperature, and more.”

Variable 4