Here’s the thing about the making of 2001, a Space Odyssey that made it a giant leap for sci-fi filmmaking-kind: The entire film was done in analog format. To be clear, that’s zero digital effects. CGI didn’t exist in 1965 and the closest you could get was to animate — cartoon — a ray gun burst or a UFO flying into the ether, but what you most often got was hokey models on strings.

Models on strings. And the...

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the movie "2001, a Space Odyssey" which still arguably stands as the most impactful and significant sci-fi movie of all time. Quite the distinction, eh?

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: Star Wars, Alien, ET, Avatar... 

Real quotes.

George Lucas: "It's the ultimate sci-fi movie. On a technical level, Star Wars can be compared, but personally, I think 2001 is far superio...

Happy 60th Birthday, NASA – lookin’ spry!

It all started on July 29th, 1958. Which I’m sure had NO relation to the launch of the Russian satellite, Sputnik, a year earlier. Nah, strictly coincidence…

But that’s how we get things done in government: something threatening occurs, which spurs attention, legislation and action. And in this case, military application notwithstanding, it fostered a whole new space...

Groundbreaking performance art, multimedia immersion, musical artistry, electronic immersion. All things Ms. Anderson has projected to -- and intrigued audiences with -- for 40 years plus.

So I knew this was a concert I wasn’t going to miss, in spite of the house having been sold out by the time I got wind of the event. Incredibly, I scored a couple of tix on the phone with the box office an hour before the...

The other day, I sat with Mike Paul Hughes, a genuine rocket scientist and researcher at Jet Propulsion Labs in Pasadena, to talk about Stephen Hawking and see where the discussion went from there. Hawking, a well-known atheist, based his beliefs on the simple scientific evidence that the universe is far older than the earth’s biblical age, and went on to discuss the logic of his findings. But within that t...

Ol’ Jules had no clue he was pioneering one of the most profitable niches in the film industry when he penned Journey to the Center of the Earth in 1849. He made his living as a magazine writer in France, where his novels were serialized, then published as novels for decades. He did it all with style, meticulously researching scientific journals and averaging a book a year: Journey, From the Earth to the Mo...

You wanna make the 7-month “hop” to Mars? We’ve determined ‘tis a far better thing to sleep through the trip than to look out the window. So let’s get practical.

There you are, ready for the Long Dream (hope it’s a good one), looking fine in your futuristic metrosexual undies, trusting your space-mates to take good care. Now what?

Here’s the latest thinking (for real):

First, you get taped up for heart rhythm,...

Remember the movie “Passengers” from a year or two back? It’s a couple hundred years in the future and big space-liners are ferrying hundreds of humans to a new Eden-like planet that takes, I dunno, a hundred years in Earth time to get to, so everyone months their hibernation pods for a big sleep, so they can wake up relaxed and refreshed when they arrive.

 Nice concept.

 Meanwhile, back here in Earth-bound l...

So I'm cruising along at 350, enjoying some big puffy cumulous formations and breathing some sweet pistachio synth air, when Boom, the dash starts flashing bright enough to wake you out of a chem dream, the car screams to a mid-air halt and a black-n-blue floats over with a sour-faced cop in the window.

"Sir, may I see your bios and lightband?"

"Uh, sure, officer, what seems to be the trouble?"

"Sir, were you...

From all the info I can gather, science fiction got its more or less official start in the early 1800’s with the appearance of one Dr. Frankenstein. Written by Mary Shelly in 1811, it basically crowned her the Mother of Science Fiction. Try smoking that one, guys…

But prior to that, we have a distinct lack of evidence of anything quite so fanciful and a big part of the reason is, in my mind at least, for lac...