Hubble and Trek

Meet galaxy cluster MACS J0717:

My father was/is an amateur astronomer. Our garage proudly housed a rather tall reflecting telescope which was regularly rolled out during the summer. He would carefully clean the large mirror in our kitchen sink and, when the full moon came around, we were all treated to crisp views of craters.

His main enemy was the large sodium streetlight residing 30 feet from our driveway. I recall a few conversations at the dinner table discussing how to legally take out that damn light. I was too young to remember if he ever actually tried hanging cardboard from our neighbor's tree to shield the scope from that extra light. I do remember many humid evenings camped out in an Oklahoma field, covered with bugspray and holding a red-tinted flashlight. I also remember being woken up, around 3am, on several occasions to "Ashley, get up.. the rings on Saturn are gorgeous tonight."

In typical fan fashion, he had several drawings and pictures up of far-off galaxies and nebulas. So it was with interest that I read about yesterday's Atlantis launch and mission to upgrade the Hubble telescope (Hubble is also a reflecting telescope). Apparently space presents more than a few trivial engineering problems. I loved the plate 'mask' solution to catch runaway bolts! How clever. I knew from last year's visit to Virginia that NASA is retiring the shuttle by 2010 and hopes to return to the moon someday. What fun it would be to work on the new booster rocket.

With those childhood memories, I'm not sure why I didn't develop a taste for Star Trek. By the time I was a budding undergraduate with Trekkie roommates I rolled my eyes at Picard and Geordi throwing around terms such as "neutrino resonator", "focused tachyon field" or anything with the word "quantum" in it. Writers base historical drama in actual history to make the story richer, more believable... why not do the same for sci-fi? They could at least make half an effort, since SCIENCE is half of the genre title.

But I heard the new movie was good and I get cravings for cinema when the days grow longer. Of course, in true ironic fashion, the bus system (hi VTA!) marooned me up at the Mountain View theater-- but that's another story. Luckily, I have friends in other states who make good navigators. They know if I call and say "Are you near a computer?" to automatically pull up google maps.

Star Trek was indeed enjoyable. First off, mad props to the scenes in space without sound. Films that bother to obey the basic laws of physics immediately earn my respect. I guess I feel like there are so many fun or mysterious things about science that writers of sci-fi should obey a handful of real-world premises. Besides, quantum mechanics and general relativity (see: 'wave-mechanical tunneling' or 'curved spacetime') are trippy enough without any help from fiction.
Also, the movie plot was actually clever, relying more on character creativity and skill to save the day instead of falling back on amped-up technology. Also, it didn't take itself too seriously; many scenes were genuinely funny or moving. Moderate doses of CG are always a pleasure to see on the big screen and this was no exception. I can like me a bit of fencing and warp drive. Of course, the bits about black holes hurt a little (and why the HELL did they need a 8 foot diameter sphere of red stuff when several grams seemed to do the trick??). Anyone who attended last week's SLAC physics seminar on black holes would have been disappointed at the lack of gamma-ray bursts... but I guess you can't have everything.

BTW: The public lecture tonight is on the "Science of Angels and Demons". Antimatter! Whoo!! Should be fun.
And this time I'll try not to get stranded at SLAC.