WARNING: This post contains spoilers for a movie that came out over a week ago, and that you’ve probably already seen, or at least read about by now. If you haven’t, but wish to remain unspoiled, read something else.

After putting it off for far too long, I finally saw the new Star Trek. My reaction to the movie itself — the plot, the performances, the ways it diverged from the original series — is about the same as what you’ve read everywhere else, and you don’t need to hear another nerd waxing nostalgic over DeForest Kelley. Just trust me when I say that, if you’re a Star Trek fan, or a science fiction fan, or just an average schmuck who likes big summer movies, this is a pretty safe bet.

Before it even came out, I spent a lot of time hoping it succeeded, partly because I’m a (relatively casual) Star Trek fan, but mostly because I’d be willing to attend a convention if it meant an opportunity to hang out with Simon Pegg. After seeing it, though, I’m not sure he, or anyone from the new cast, will be doing conventions. Indeed, I’ve begun to wonder if conventions will even be necessary after this. Star Trek fandom, despite the enthusiastic community that has sprung up over the years, has often been a lonely pursuit. Fans gather at conventions, and are amazed at how many fellow fans they meet, but during the rest of the year, they often have no one to talk to about their obsession.

Now, Star Trek has found a level of mass appeal that had previously eluded it. Some of the infamous Trek sermonizing was lost in the process, but the franchise’s fondness for exploring morality still comes through. The new film gives us a story about the futility of revenge, the acceptance of one’s limitations, and the ethics of dicking around with time travel — all themes that would feel perfectly at home among the redshirts and papier-mâché rocks of the original series.

Comparisons to Star Wars, that other venerable sci-fi franchise, are inevitable, and for good reason. This new Star Trek gives us fast-paced space battles, spectacular effects, a villain capable of destroying entire planets, and a team of inexperienced young heroes tasked with stopping him. And now it has a Star Wars-sized audience to match, and that audience is experiencing a renewed interest in the classic series.

If — and this is a big “If” — the movie’s popularity endures, if its new continuity is accepted by longtime fans, and if the inevitable sequels are worth a damn, we could see a permanent shift in the way Star Trek fandom works. Fans will be freer to talk about their fondness for the franchise, and will encounter far more people who share their interest. In short, we could be headed towards a pop-culture landscape in which Star Trek is not arbitrarily considered less acceptable than Star Wars.

That this could happen, and that the peaceful, progressive values of the Federation could be treated with the same relative respect shown to the (frankly medieval) Jedi code, is nothing short of a miracle for my fellow geeks. We’ve spent the last few decades — and the last eight years in particular — banging our heads against the wall in frustration, shocked and frightened by humankind’s apparent inability to overcome our urge to destroy ourselves.

Star Trek made an impact during the Cold War by depicting a future where humans had not only survived, but had become model citizens of a galactic civilization, and leading voices in a Federation devoted to peace, exploration, and diversity. For years, its fans have held it up as an example for our present-day society to follow, and have been largely ignored. We were told they were too idealistic, or simply too hard to take seriously when they wore fake Vulcan ears. Plus, “Voyager” kind of bogged down after a couple seasons, and nobody liked “Enterprise” that much.

Now, though, an explosion-filled summer blockbuster has provided them with their long-awaited opening, and a decent sequel or two will be more than enough to make the public wonder why they weren’t on board with Gene Roddenberry’s ideas in the first place. It won’t result in a radical overhaul of society, and it won’t compel us to model our world after the Federation, but it could very well get people thinking some of Star Trek’s lofty ideals.

As a nerd, that’s really all I’ve ever asked for.

Hello everyone, and welcome to “Ask The Beak,” a new segment where we answer questions from fans who think, for whatever reason, that we’re the right sort of people to clear things up. This week’s question comes from long-time reader and occasional contributor Princess Wolfsbane:

“Heard anything more interesting about the green comet than just this summary? I’m not sure what else there is to find out about it at this stage, but if there is more, I would be interested in reading about it in The Beak.”
–Princess Wolfsbane, Brooklyn, NY (Via e-mail)

Well Princess, let’s start out with what we know from the provided Discovery Channel link. The comet’s name is Lulin, and was discovered by a Chinese undergrad in 2007. It’s currently visible in North America, and expected to reach its closest (and therefore most visible) point relative to the Earth on February 24. And it’s green, which, presumably, is what our questioner is really interested in. Regarding the greenness, Discovery says,

“The color is caused by gases spewing off the comet nucleus as it heats up during its trip toward the sun. The gases glow green in sunlight.”

…Which is a bit vague. Comets are composed primarily of water-ice and rock, with various gases mixed in. As with most other objects in the universe, a body’s color depends on its chemical composition. NASA, thankfully, has seen fit to fill in the blanks:

“Jets spewing from the comet’s nucleus contain cyanogen (CN: a poisonous gas found in many comets) and diatomic carbon (C₂). Both substances glow green when illuminated by sunlight in the near-vacuum of space.”

So I’d say that’s pretty interesting, dear reader. The comet is poison! A fucking poisonous comet! Is this a great solar system or what? Not that Lulin’s supply of cyanogen (which, here on Earth, is generated from cyanide compounds) is going to have any effect on us. Though, again according to NASA’s write-up, we wouldn’t have known this a century ago:

“In 1910, many people panicked when astronomers revealed Earth would pass through the cyanogen-rich tail of Comet Halley. False alarm: The wispy tail of the comet couldn’t penetrate Earth’s dense atmosphere; even it if had penetrated, there wasn’t enough cyanogen to cause real trouble. Comet Lulin will cause even less trouble than Halley did. At closest approach in late February, Lulin will stop 38 million miles short of Earth, utterly harmless.”

Summary: Lulin is green because it’s full of poison gas, but too far away to poison us here on Earth. It’s also probably too far away to be seen in brightly-lit areas like New York City (where this week’s letter-writer lives), but in case any of you are planning on being out in the styx in the next few weeks, Sky and Telescope has some tips on the best times to look.

If you would like a Beakly perspective on a lingering issue that’s been bothering you, write to lordhoratio(AT)gmail(DOT)com and varius(AT)thebeak(DOT)org and maybe we’ll answer your question on a slow news day.

Remember last week when I talked about the inherent conflicts involved in President Obama’s idea to merge NASA with the Pentagon? Well, we haven’t heard anything new on that subject since the Inauguration, but it seems he has been thinking along related lines. Reuters reported on Sunday that the Obama administration is working on a global ban on all space-related weapons. The ban idea is mentioned on the “Defense” page of the administration’s official agenda, and it goes like this:

“The Obama-Biden Administration will restore American leadership on space issues, seeking a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites. They will thoroughly assess possible threats to U.S. space assets and the best options, military and diplomatic, for countering them, establishing contingency plans to ensure that U.S. forces can maintain or duplicate access to information from space assets and accelerating programs to harden U.S. satellites against attack.”

Since both the U.S. and China have demonstrated that it’s possible to shoot a satellite down from Earth’s surface, the “defending satellites” part of the ban is both understandable and topical. But, through the wonders of science fiction, it’s easy for us to predict that one day — possibly not far off — there will be other categories of space-based weaponry. Lasers could be fitted onto satellites, high-power sunlight magnification devices could be launched into orbit, and, eventually, photonic energy guns could be fitted onto space shuttles. I’m not saying that anyone is currently working on these things, I’m just saying that they will be someday, and once one country has it, everyone’s going to want their own.

And this is where the genius of a preemptive space weapons ban really comes into focus. Usually when someone attempts to ban a weapon globally, several armies already have stockpiles of the stuff. Nuclear, chemical, germ, etc.; sure, we have rules about them, and they don’t tend to get used all that often, but the fact remains, we have the fucking things on our planet, and it’s scary and dangerous.

But! To the best of my knowledge, nobody actually has any real space-based weapons yet. Banning the damn things now, before some country begins the sort of tests that put everyone into a Cold War-style panic, could be the best way to prevent Solar War I. This is exactly the sort of forward-thinking that I’ve been wanting from a politician all along, and my guess is that, wonderfully, we finally have a president who knows his science fiction. So, cheers to Obama, and cheers to sci-fi, for, for once, warning us about a threat before it happens.

On January 15, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory held a special party for the 5-year birthdays of their surprisingly resilient rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which I followed, in the laziest way possible, by reading about it on the Mars Rovers Twitter page. And while monitoring the tweets, I noticed two things. 1.) Their keynote speaker was CNN Science Correspondent and top geek Miles O’Brien. 2.) Miles O’Brien doesn’t work at CNN anymore. Wait, what?

“Keynote speaker @MilesOBrien talks about leaving CNN, the impact of the rovers, and the future of space journalism.” 6:46 PM Jan 15th.

“Miles: “Spirit and Oppy are literally, figuratively “rock stars.” If I had their Q rating I’d still be at CNN.” 6:52 PM Jan 15th.

“Well,” I thought, “That’s weird.” Why would CNN fire their top space nerd? But then, in front of a smiling crowd of astroengineers and roboticists, O’Brien began venting his frustration with traditional media.

“Miles: “the world is shifting below the media’s feet. Today’s bloggers, tweeters, etc, can compete with an army of journalists.” 6:58 PM Jan 15th.

“Miles (@milesobrien): “there are interested people out there– the mainstream media may no longer be the best way to reach them.” 7:00 PM Jan 15th.

Harsh! And perfectly accurate, of course. O’Brien’s suddenly vocal cynicism with the news is understandable, and quite timely — as I was soon to discover — but what the hell happened to make CNN dump him in the first place? I did some digging.

A group of conspiracy buffs on the forums over at unexplained-mysteries.com insist that O’Brien was fired for his week-long UFO special, which aired on CNN’s American Morning program. In particular, they cite this video, in which was discussed a possible Martian fossil discovered in a photo taken by the Opportunity rover. I’ll grant that the timing fits, but unfortunately, the reasoning doesn’t. First off all, this supposed fossil is old news; Opportunity took the photo in 2004, at which time it was highly publicized. Nothing in O’Brien’s report was groundbreaking in the least. And, second, if the government is trying to cover up anything space-related, it damn well isn’t going to be a little rock that kind of looks like a worm.

No, I’m afraid the truth of the matter is far more sinister. CNN didn’t just fire Miles O’Brien, CNN fired their entire science team.

“O’Brien’s departure comes as the network dismantles its science, space, environment and technology unit in Atlanta. That includes O’Brien as well as six producers.”

Yes, it seems that CNN has chosen to lump all coverage of what is easily their most broad and complicated topic into the “general editorial structure.” It’s bad enough that the majority of science reporting in the mainstream media today is about pharmaceutical upgrades for aging Baby Boomers and unnecessarily cruel rants about fat children. And now they’re going to cut the only people who were enthusiastic about rocket ships? For shame, CNN.

As Curtis Brainard of the Columbia Journalism Review commented last month,

“The decision to eliminate the positions seems particularly misguided at a time when world events would seem to warrant expanding science and environmental staff.”

He’s right. If you think scientific and technological advances permeate our lives now, just wait until you see what happens in the next four years. Don’t forget, it was only last Tuesday when President Obama declared, “We will restore science to its rightful place.” I don’t recommend taking that shit lightly.

I don’t know where he or his team finds the time, but somewhere in-between building a new cabinet, puzzling over the economy, closing Gitmo, writing a speech, inspiring millions, and picking a fucking dog, Barack Obama has begun to make plans for the revitalization of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. With, one might say, some decidedly complicated results. On the table are a fleet of old rockets about to be thrown onto the scrap heap, a completed International Space Station, conflicting designs for the next phase of American spacecraft, tensions with Russia, a possible collaboration with the Pentagon, and most exciting of all, the prospect of competition with the Chinese space program. And I say “exciting” because international competition is the only thing that ever made NASA worth a damn.

Yeah, we’ve got some groovy robots running around on Mars now. But if you leave out Spirit, Opportunity, and Phoenix, it becomes evident that NASA has really sucked ass ever since the U.S.S.R. collapsed. Some of this is due to a lack of funding, and some of this is due to a general lack of enthusiasm on the part of the public and the last few presidents. (Come on, you didn’t really think Bush was serious about Mars, did you?) And the culmination of this lengthy bout of apathy is a dangerous 4-year gap when the Space Shuttle program will officially end in the middle of 2010. The final missions for Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour will all focus on getting the International Space Station finished, after which the ships will presumably meet their final resting places in a museum. NASA’s replacement system, the Orion spacecraft and the Ares launcher, are currently scheduled for their maiden voyage in September of 2014. In the meantime, it’s generally assumed that we’ll be entrusting the safety of our astronauts to the Russian space program. So don’t expect anyone to raise too much of a fuss if Putin and Medvedev decide to invade Georgia again.

As an alternative, it has been suggested that NASA use the Atlas V and Delta IV rockets which the U.S. military already uses to deploy its spy satellites into orbit, at least until the Ares design is complete. The idea of NASA using parallel military technology appears to have sparked an idea in the mind of our apparently very pragmatic new president. Or maybe it was in ‘07 when China demonstrated their ability to shoot down an orbiting satellite from the ground that did it. Either way, what we find is that Barack Obama is considering merging NASA with the Department of Defense.

Now let’s stop and think about that for a moment, because putting the Pentagon in charge of our space program has a lot of implications, both worrying and encouraging. NASA in its classic incarnation has been purely scientific in nature. It’s also been chronically under-funded. The Defense Department, meanwhile, is the nerve center of the Military Industrial Complex, which is notoriously well-funded. The military also gets advanced technology years, sometimes decades, before civilians do. So we’re talking about giving our space program more money and more state-of-the-art equipment than ever before. This would, in theory, increase our chances of visiting, exploring, maybe even colonizing outer space significantly faster. But it also means putting all the space power in the hands of the military, which increases our chances of conquering outer space significantly faster. Granted, I wasn’t expecting those fossilized worms to put up much of a fight.

Wow, you know, I just realized what a bastard I’m being. Obama doesn’t even start being the first black President of the United States until tomorrow, and I’m already nominating him to be the first Human Galactic Emperor. Ah, well. Have a good Inauguration Day tomorrow, Mr. New President. We can start terraforming Mars next week.

Just when you didn’t think Titan could get any more awesome, BAM! Cryovolcanoes!

Disclaimer: We here at The Beak are very much concerned with drumming up interest in the exploration of our local planets and moons. Partly because a new frontier is good for an apathetic culture, but mostly because, as Stephen Hawking so often likes to point out, the sooner we begin colonizing other planets, the sooner we reduce our risk of a stray asteroid annihiliating the entire human race. Which means that, in 2009, we’re going to do our damnedest to keep you informed of exciting new discoveries coming from the outer reaches of our solar system. Whether you like it or not.

With that, we now return to Saturn’s grooviest moon, Titan. The latest news out of Titan came in mid-December in response to infrared scans conducted by the Cassini probe which revealed a sort of hazy brightness over certain regions of the moon’s surface. Without digging too deeply into subjects I don’t fully understand — like Exogeology and Spectrometer analysis — the idea here is that the hazy brightness indicates an unusually steady supply of ammonia and methane in the region. And the theory here, which is getting a lot of scientists excited, is that these compounds are there in such consistent quantity because they’re being shot out of a big, icy volcano, called a cryovolcano.

Now, the easiest way to understand cryovolcanoes is to think of them as the exact opposite (temperature-wise) of the volcanoes that we have here on Earth. A Titanian, were such a being to exist, might refer to our volcanoes as “thermovolcanoes” or “lavavolcanoes” or something equally hot-sounding. They also spew out different stuff, of course. Earth volcanoes shoot out molten rock, ash, water vapor, and greenhouse gases. Cryovolcanoes shoot out ammonia, methane, and water ice. But the basic thing to grasp here is that it’s a volcano, but really fucking cold. In the words of Rosaly Lopes from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,

“To put them in perspective — if Mount Vesuvius had been a cryovolcano, its lava would have frozen the residents of Pompeii.”

We don’t have cryovolcanoes here on Earth, but they have been discovered on other bodies within the solar system. Voyager 2 discovered cryovolcanoes on the surface of Neptune’s moon Triton in 1989, and Cassini found them on Saturn’s moon Enceladus in 2005. So it’s perfectly reasonable to expect them to show up in other places as well, provided there’s a big enough energy source for volcanic processes to occur. On moons orbiting large planets, active geology is usually fueled by a process called tidal heating, which involves friction between a planet and its moon(s).

At any rate, it’s safe to say that 2008 was an impressive year for Titan research, with its lightning and its oceans made of gasoline. Now we can add ice volcanoes to the list. In the future, Titan will be a damned exciting vacation resort, and in the meantime, it could serve as the setting for a really badass video game.