20 thoughts on “More Constellation Cancellation Pushback”

  1. There are some Trekkies (Trekkers is new school) who have used the science fiction to springboard what they want into science fact. Most of them however are content to stay in their fantasy world. I tried selling real world science kits at a Trek convention. You know there is a problem when you have a guy dressed as a Jedi, leaning on a light saber saying ‘I don’t get it’. Bummer of a weekend.

  3. Back in the 1970s when NASA was developing the first Shuttle, the glide test vehicle was supposed to be named the Constitution. Then the Trekkies got busy and lobbied NASA. The name was changed to Enterprise.

    That wasn’t the first or last time the Constitution took a back seat to a special interest group.

  4. There are some Trekkies (Trekkers is new school)

    As far as I know, both names are ancient and predate human civilization in the Alpha quadrant. Or at least they both predate the first Star Trek movie. I could never be bothered to figure out what the difference was supposed to be. I’m like a caveman watching a couple of geeks argue whether emacs is better than vi (emacs is better BTW).

  5. What fascinates me is the sheer numbers of people who’ll go to a Star Trek or other Sci Fi convention, but not think about attending a conference related to actual space access. I know one space advocacy organization was trying to bridge the gap, inviting a famous Sci Fi writer to speak at a conference, but I had my doubts.

    Too bad they don’t allow comments on their policy page, or I’d point out that in their universe, Warp Drive was invented by an entrepreneur. Oops! Is my geek showing?

    At least the concept graphics have gotten better with Constellation compared to previous programs, maybe that’s what got their attention.

  6. Hey! I’m a Trekkie, watched the first Star Trek classic episode live when it first aired in Canada. I also watched the Moon race from the last through Mercury missions through the Apollo 11 moon landing and beyond. I attempted to bid on 2 NASA contracts, and got on their short list both times (but didn’t land anything). I can also say I attended the first meeting of the Star Trek fan club in Winnipeg, and am currently the only member in Winnipeg who can say so. I have been the keynote speaker for a couple local Science Fiction conferences, as well as a couple meetings and one conference of the local chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Every year I give a presentation about real space exploration at Keycon, the local annual Science Fiction / Fantasy convention, and was the chair for real science programming one year. They pointed out they had the best science programming when I organized it. I am also the founder and president of the local chapter of the Mars Society; our club hosted a convention hospitality suite at Keycon one year, it was very popular. In fact their science fiction author guest liked the Mars Society suite the best, he hung out in our suite all weekend. Unfortunately the year I was science programming chair was the same year we hosted a convention hospitality suite, and gave presentations myself; it was too much to do two at once much less all three. I was asked to be science programming chair the following year, but was burnt-out. People do ask about our hospitality suite, and I am still asked to give presentations.

    If you find science fiction fans are not interested in real space exploration, your presentation needs work.

  7. If you find science fiction fans are not interested in real space exploration, your presentation needs work.

    Don’t try to extrapolate your own enthusiasms on to other SFers. And particularly not on to Trekkers/Trekkies/whatever. A classic marketing mistake.

  9. “Back in the 1970s when NASA was developing the first Shuttle, the glide test vehicle was supposed to be named the Constitution. Then the Trekkies got busy and lobbied NASA. The name was changed to Enterprise.”

    A lot of people at the time were amused at what this said about the intelligence of the Trekkies. They prevailed in their fight to have the name “Enterprise” stamped on the one and only flight-capable Shuttle Orbiter that would never fly in space…

  10. Star Trek and Star Wars is so much more interesting and exciting than primitive technology like the Shuttle. If NASA really wants to be successful, they’d put out their RFPs to Lucasfilm and Pixar instead of Boeing and Lockmart. Then we could all share amazing adventures to the stars and beyond in 3d on a weekly basis for less money than a single shuttle flight.

  11. There are two kinds of Star Trek fans: those who were inspired to get into science and space exploration by the show, and those who were inspired to get into science fiction by the show. Since science is hard but entertainment is easy, there are more of the latter than the former.

  12. larry j Says:
    February 8th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
    Back in the 1970s when NASA was developing the first Shuttle, the glide test vehicle was supposed to be named the Constitution. Then the Trekkies got busy and lobbied NASA. The name was changed to Enterprise.

    I remember that, and I never could understand why they insisted that the drop test vehicle should be named Enterprise, as opposed to one that was actually designed to fly in space.

  14. “What fascinates me is the sheer numbers of people who’ll go to a Star Trek or other Sci Fi convention, but not think about attending a conference related to actual space access.”

    Note that SF conventions are as much socialization events as anything else. I’ve been to my share, and helped organize one.

    However, every con I’ve attended had at least one, usually several real-science/technology panel of one kind or another (I learned some interesting FTL implications of quantum entanglement from Dr. John Cramer when he spoke at Apollocon in Houston in 2007, for example…but there was also a ‘social’ reason for my being willing to travel that far). I suspect much of fandom is simply *unaware* of space access related conferences, and that needs to change. The set of fandom and ‘space cadets’ overlaps and has much in common, but isn’t the same.

    And for many, there’s a simple matter of time and money, which is the only reason I’ve never been to any of the space conferences I *do* know are out there. I’m aware that Space Access ‘010 is coming, I’ve been on their e-mail list for years, and very much wish I could…

  15. Ms. Harris is correct. As kids, my wife and I were both Star Trek fans after the original series aired, but we were mesmerized by the real space program until NASA turned into AMTRAK after the lunar landings. We were both sf fans, and still collect sf and fantasy books and movies, but we dropped out of fandom many years ago, in part because of the heavy drinking, and in part because of the scientific illteracy. We both want to work in the new space field, and hope that we live long enough to see the first commercial manned landing on the moon or Mars.

    I’ve worked as a mechanical designer on several space projects, want to again, and have a pretty good grounding as to the realities of what it will take to get us up there to stay. IMHO, only a few fans, and very few of the Trekkies, can say that. There are exceptions, but not as many as there should be.

    The prevailing wisdom seemed to be that the engineers and scientists would develop the technology to get us into space, and the fans would take over from there. Niven and Pournelle’s Fallen Angels is the most extreme example of this that I’ve seen, although it is a good read.

    It’s too bad, really. Most of the fans that we know have been extremely intelligent, but mentally lazy, and as Ms. Harris observes, science is hard.

  16. Back in the 1980s, one of my coworkers was a Trekkie. She described going to a convention after the Star Trek III movie was released. In that movie, a Klingon killed Kirk’s son. Kirk said, “Klingon bastard, you killed my son!”

    A popular button seen at the convention played on those words: “Klingon, son, you killed my bastard!”

  17. “Klingon bastard killed my German Shepherd!”

    “Klingon bastard made me sleep on the wet spot!”

    …etc…

  18. rickl Says:
    “I never could understand why they insisted that the drop test vehicle should be named Enterprise, as opposed to one that was actually designed to fly in space.”

    Star Trek fans intended the first shuttle would be named Enterprise. However, after it was built that orbiter proved too heavy, it would never make it to space. They couldn’t fix it without completely tearing it apart and rebuilding it, so NASA used that orbiter as a drop test vehicle only. NASA had ordered 5 space shuttle orbiters, when they found the Enterprise wouldn’t work, the decided to live with 4. Remember Endeavour was built from spare parts after Challenger was lost, it wasn’t one of the original 5. In fact they didn’t bother installing heat shield tiles on Enterprise; after they discovered it wouldn’t fly in space, they just gave it a paint job to look like heat shield tiles.

    Frustrating: after all the work by the fans to get the first real space shuttle named Enterprise, it never did fly in space.

  19. I was a space junkie before I could read, because my dad was working on Apollo when I was a wee lad. So, even though I was a Trekkie as a kid (and to some extent still a fan), I’m more of a science first, science fiction second personality. I imagine that’s the real distinction. There are plenty of scientists and engineers who got started on Star Trek (and other science fiction), though.

  20. I was stationed at Hill AFB in Utah, where I met my wonderful wife, when the shuttle Enterprise came thru atop its 747. I took some pictures of it from the flight line(where I worked as a weapons mechanic) and was thrilled about the idea that this was the start of easier access to space. It took several years of slow, ponderous flights to make me realize that the shuttle program was a dead end.

    And yet, when my wife and I were going thru some old pictures a few days ago, these pictures still resonated with me, over 30 years later.

    I’ve gotten old, but the dream still lives on, for me at least.

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