This year LTUE will continue the area’s proud tradition of sending new writing talent out into the world.  In it, experienced authors get together to share with hopefuls what they have learned on their road to success…providing techniques, industry secrets, and anything else the upcoming writer needs to know.  If you would like to get into the business of writing in any genre, and want to learn how to do it successfully, this symposium will be well worth your time.

The cost is $30 (if you register now) and is free to UVU students.  It will be held on February 9th, 10th, and 11th (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) in the Sorensen Center and will be LTUE‘s 30th anniversary.

Update: I got the student thing wrong.  This event is free for ANY student with a student ID.  See Marny’s comments below and go to the LTUE.org website if you have any questions on the issue.

Guests of honor include:

James A. Owen – Author of “Starchild” and “Here There Be Dragons”

The “Writing Excuses” team — Brandon Sanderson, 2011 Hugo award winner Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Hugo nominee Howard Tayler.

Chris Schebinger — Acquisitions Editor for Shadow Mountain Publishing

Featured Guests:
Larry Correia
James Dashner
David Farland
Tracy & Laura Hickman
L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
Brandon Mull

All of these guests will be there handing out advice to anyone who cares to listen.

I’ll be there too…on a Friday afternoon panel with Jaleta Clegg, Larry Correia, and Bree DeSpain discussing how to hold successful book signings, and again on Saturday with Laura Swift Lind, Roger White, Brad R. Torgersen, and Dan Lind on a panel about the science fiction of space propulsion.

So go to the website and sign up (do it soon and save some money).  I hope to see you there…but I especially hope that you’ll come away with from it with the tools you need to become yet another best-selling author to spring from the Intermountain West!

Update: There will be a huge group booksigning from 8-10 pm on the 11th.  I’ll be there signing copies of my book, Into the Dark: Escape of the Nomad.

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Image via Wikipedia

I purchased an Old Farmers Almanac the other day and made an amazing discovery.  The 2012 annular eclipse on May 20th will center in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with one edge of it reaching across the Western United States. 

I have read in the past about folks who travel great distances, brave third-world food and political turmoil, and elbow around in over-crowded spaces… just to get a first-hand view of a solar eclipse.  Now, this year, you can pick your spot anywhere along a track from pretty much New Mexico westward.

Great huh?  You’ll miss totality unless you want to go on a long boat ride, but it’s a great opportunity anyway. 

I’m telling you now so you still have time to book cheap airfare.

So what are you waiting for?  Go on!  Open another tab on your browser and make your reservations.  No, no, It’s ok. It’s an eclipse…you won’t hurt my feelings.  I’ll still be here when you get back.

Here…I’ll help.

Eclipse Chasers

Priceline.com
Expedia.com

Delta Air Lines
United Airlines

Don’t look right at it.  Use a pinhole camera or a welder’s mask or something like that.  I’m serious!  You’ll do permanant damage to your eyes if you don’t.  Anyway, it’s worth driving or taking a short flight to go and see this.

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Image via Wikipedia

I can’t go to the moon.  Yes it bugs me that we don’t fly people to the moon, but you probably already know that.

For me personally however…even if I had a ride…there are other concerns.  Although I am quite healthy for my age, I doubt I would pass a physical for lengthy space flight.  Plus, people who rely on me cause me to prefer to avoid certain types of personal risks, not to mention the very real fact that the serious neglect of my education back when I was young means that no one anyone has reason to send me there.

However, yesterday I orbited the moon anyway.  I know it isn’t the same thing, but I rode along with Grail-A on New Years Eve using NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System and hung on while the spacecraft, engine blazing, shot over the moon at sixty-something miles above the surface.

Now Eyes On is just a simulation, and it was just showing me what the probe had been programmed to do, not necessarily what it was actually doing (realtime communications were probably not active anyway because of the spacecraft’s orientation angle during the burn).  The view of the moon was not real and not high-resolution; there are no cameras aboard this spacecraft that are designed for realtime imaging; and the GRAIL twins are too far away from each other to see more than a dot of each other.

But it was realtime and it was fun, even from my livingroom.

Do you want to try it?  GRAIL-B is next and is coming in fast toward the moon as I write this.  Click here for your GRAIL-eye view!  Also helpful are the mission status updates through SpaceFlight NOW.  GRAIL-B’s engine kicks on at 5:05 pm Eastern Time to slip it into Lunar orbit, but you can beam on over to the spacecraft any time and have a look.  After that both spacecraft will take some weeks to work their way into the flat orbit they need to do their science.

If you get bored hanging out with GRAIL, you can click the “Destination” tab and jump on Voyager-2, or Juno, or Cassini or something.  Here’s one…someone online asked if the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter could image the arrival of GRAIL.  The answer is no, but just because LRO isn’t designed for that, doesn’t mean that you can’t use Eyes On to jump to the LRO and spin the view around to face a GRAIL spacecraft, unless the moon is in the way.  I just tried it and even though there are roughly 12 thousand miles between them at this writing, I can see the location and path of GRAIL-B flying overhead.

Or maybe you’ll just say, “This is silly and Bill Housley is a hopeless geek.”

That’s fine too.   

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• First of NASA’s Two GRAIL Spacecraft Enters Orbit Around Moon (prnewswire.com)
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• NASA spacecraft seeking lunar answers (mysanantonio.com)
• Twin NASA Probes Have New Year’s Date with the Moon (foxnews.com)
• Moon countdown: NASA probe enters lunar orbit – Salt Lake Tribune (sltrib.com)
• NASA’s GRAIL-A spacecraft 24 hours away from Moon (physorg.com)
• First of two NASA probes reaches lunar orbit (vancouversun.com)

Image via Wikipedia

In space, as in the future, destinations are objects in motion.  I thought of that today as I pondered my last blog entry for the year.  So many exciting things are in motion right now, ever-moving ever-changing.

Into the Dark went into its second year in September, a little after its “new book momentum” quieted down.  However, on the 17th of December it embarked on the first step of a new journey with a new distributer and an exciting new marketing paradigm and new array of book stores.  Anyone who follows the publishing industry knows that the current easy path to publishing has led to a frightening and exciting time as all players, both old and new, who scramble to keep up with the trends and stay ahead of the game.  New ideas and old are combined in strange ways as authors, publishers and booksellers try to piece together their plans for the future.  My new effort began with a group signing at Eborne Booksellers in the Valley Fair Mall in West Valley City, Utah.  Starting in March, I’ll kick-off a spring book signing tour designed to further enlarge the book’s reader base and set the stage for the sequel that I’ll finish drafting sometime in 2012.

Space exploration is also changing with an ever-increased vision focused on private companies with a new approach to funding and a whole new industry sprouting.   Many have heralded these developments as the first colors of a space race that will revolutionize space flight and steal Earth-to-orbit launches away from government sponsored space programs the world over. 

All the while, NASA didn’t sit still in 2011 either, sending up several aggressively innovative technologies to keep up the pace of discovery and maintain its niche, even during its current lull in manned-launch ability.  The plans underway for future missions are equally forward-thinking, extending our exploratory grasp ever outward into our solar system and into the cosmos. 

Did I hear someone shout something about Google’s Lunar X Prize?  Suborbital tourism?  China?  The awakening Middle East?

Not to mention a presidential election in the United States in which space is positioned to have a historic influence.  I smell a lot of change coming there.  I usually don’t try to call elections because too often they ride on far too many late season variables.  However this year I predict that Obama will lose Florida, and with it the election.  I feel comfortable going on record with this, even before the Republican nomination process is fully developed, because I think it will be Obama’s record that will sink his chances in Florida.

Yessiree, there will be lots for me to write about here in this space in 2012, so stay tuned.

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• Space junk crashes in Namibia (mnn.com)
• Nasa’s Kepler space telescope looks deep into space for planets that could support life (telegraph.co.uk)

I really like Christmas and I haven’t blogged much in the way of personal things.

This will probably be more important to those of you who know me personally than to the rest of you.  I put together a playlist of many of my favorite Christmas songs, performed by some of my favorite artists, as a YouTube playlist.  I shared it on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, but it’s been pushed kinda far down my wall by now, so I thought that sharing it here would be a good way to refresh it.  Fair warning…my music tastes and Christmas celebration focus might not be what you’d expect.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0FDC4AE44FBD3A9E (Kathy Mattea, Josh Groban, Bing Crosby, Roger Whittaker, Marty Robbins, Lynn Anderson, Faith Hill, The Judds, The Carpenters, Dean Martin, George Jones, Glen Campbell, Jim Reeves, Kenny Rogers, Enya, Adrian Bella, Alabama, Casting Crowns, Ed Herman and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir)

May everyone here have a very Merry Christmas and a Glorious and Successful New Year.

HubbleSite's NewsCenter is the place to find the story behind the image used in this card: Peering into the Core of Globular Cluster Omega Centauri — from the release Peering into the Core of a Globular Cluster

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Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ZQLAgKW7c

It won’t be long before we won’t have Hubble anymore.  Will we have the James Webb Space Telescope to replace it?  It’s up to you.  Write your congressperson and find out where they stand on the JWST.  Tell them where you stand.

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Image via Wikipedia

Astronomers everywhere were geeking out last week about Comet Lovejoy and its close-brush with oblivion.  Some folks on Twitter called it “The little comet that could”.  The satellite that took the cool images of Lovejoy’s dramatic adventures was the “Solar and Heliospheric Observatory” (SOHO) which orbits Earth’s L1 Lagrange point.

This event, along with recent news from Voyager-1, and the Mars Science Laboratory, highlights a category of space study that I’ve long wanted to talk about here called Heliospheric Science.  This research uses a group of robotic probes operated by NASA and ESA to gather data and images on our sun, the solar wind, solar flares and other activity, solar and cosmic radiation, the Sun and Earth’s magnetic fields, and how all of this interacts together to effect us here on Earth, made-made objects in space, and human space travelers.

Most of these probes don’t take cool photos that could end up on a lot of desktop wallpapers, however the research conducted with them is no less valuable.  Here is a list of these satellites, some are better known than others.  Which ones do you recognise?

SOHO

Cluster-1, Cluster-2, Cluster-3, Cluster-4

Fast

Timed

Traced

Hinode

Rhessi

Geotail

Stereo-A, Stereo-B

ACE

Wind
Themis-A, Themis-B, Themis-C, Themis-D, Themis-E

C/NOFS

AIM

Voyager-1, Voyager-2

The following YouTube video describes some of them.  You can also learn more by clicking the relevent links in Wikipedia or Google searching on some of these.

SOHO, Stereo, and Voyager are three of my personal favorites.

Of course, the best way to learn more is to get involved!  That’s right, you can become a part of Heliospheric studies by participating in a group-source project called Solar Storm Watch.  Go to http://www.solarstormwatch.com/ and go through a short training session to learn how to help scientists weed through the mountains of data collected by the twin space probes called Stereo.

Beats the daylights out of compter games!

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• Comet Lovejoy Survives Fiery Plunge Through Sun, NASA Says (livescience.com)
• Newfound Comet Lovejoy Makes Fiery Death Dive Through Sun (space.com)
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• Comet Lovejoy Defies Death, Brushes Up To Sun And Lives (VIDEO) – Huffington Post (huffingtonpost.com)
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If you live in the area and read this blog I’d love to meet you.

Into the the Dark is a story about an astronaut who gets laid off when NASA gets canceled in the year 2023, but he doesn’t take it lying down!  He steals the plans to NASA’s starship project he was working on and turns it into a home-built project.

But it turns into a very large and complicated task, made more complicated by the alien superpower that got NASA canceled in the first place.

A fun, fast-moving Scifi action thriller, filled with gadgets, interesting characters, and technology predictions, Into the Dark will keep you at the edge of your seat from start to finish.

You can read chapter 1 here.

So stop on by Eborne Books and let’s chat.

Then I saw the proposed size of this thing!  Wow!

This is gonna be really, really cool.

Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

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Image via Wikipedia

Got a little money?

You can be part of an open hardware project intended to design a $5,000 home-built moon rocket launch kit.  The person putting it together is Philip Pierce, and he and his team of engineers were contenders pushing for the Lunar X Prize before their backer ran out of money and backed out.  During their X Prize experience they realized just how cheap a carefully designed, much lower weight (3 lbs or less payload), moon delivery rocket really could be.

Think back a couple of decades (those of us who were there) to what happened to personal computers when their price started to approach the lower four digits.  How many people can afford do do this?  How many would?  I purchased my first laptop around twelve or thirteen years ago for $1,320 and it had less than 1% of the capabilities that the new $400 Acer Aspire currently under my findgers has.

The microcomputer revolution will repeat itself in the form of interplanetary space travel.  Just think…if moon rockets reach price points similar to personal computers, geeks with money would jump on them with a fervor.  Of course as the popularity increased, the technology, general understanding and secondary products would all improve at warp speed and prices would plumet like a stone.  If individuals can afford spaceflight then the home-business entreprenuers will start to make money on clever new destination point lunar applications tomarrow that nobody dreamed of today.  Kids would save up their allowance and build and launch their own satellites!

However, designing that first rocket kit will require a series of test flights, and test flights cost money.  The group who wants to do this is trying to group source the cash ($25,000) and they have posted their project on KickStarter.  Small donations get you small things sent to orbit during the test launch phase of the project.  Big donations get you bigger things sent to orbit or to the moon itself.  Here’s the layout of donations/rewards (as copy/pasted from their KickStarter Donation screen this morning)…

————————————————-

• $20

  twenty words of your choosing, delivered to low earth orbit altitude. We combine all entries onto one or more pages

  Est. Delivery: Dec 2012

• $50

  postcard sized letter written by you, delivered to low earth orbit altitude

  Est. Delivery: Dec 2012

• $125

  - postcard sized letter written by you, delivered to low earth orbit altitude – 1oz item of your choice, carried to space on one of our launches. Note, this item will not be returned to you.

  Est. Delivery: Dec 2012

• $250

  - postcard sized letter written by you, delivered to low earth orbit altitude – 3oz item of your choice, carried to space on one of our launches. Note, this item will not be returned to you

  Est. Delivery: Dec 2012

• $500

  - postcard sized letter written by you, delivered to low earth orbit altitude – 3oz item of your choice, carried to space on one of our launches. Note, this item will not be returned to you – Invitation to attend and/or participate in one of our launches

  Est. Delivery: Dec 2012

• $1,000

  - postcard sized letter written by you, delivered to low earth orbit altitude – 3oz item of your choice, carried to space on one of our launches. Note, this item will not be returned to you – Invitation to attend and/or participate in one of our launches – 1oz item of your choice, delivered to the moon. Note, this item cannot be returned to you

  Est. Delivery: Dec 2012

• $1,500

  - postcard sized letter written by you, delivered to low earth orbit altitude – 3oz item of your choice, carried to space on one of our launches. Note, this item will not be returned to you – Invitation to attend and/or participate in one of our launches – 1oz item of your choice, delivered to the moon. Note, this item cannot be returned to you – Your name or logo displayed on our rocket for one flight. We will provide HD pics and video of the name/logo prior to launch, and during ignition (if possible)

  Est. Delivery: Dec 2012

• $5,000

  - postcard sized letter written by you, delivered to low earth orbit altitude – 3oz item of your choice, carried to space on one of our launches. Note, this item will not be returned to you – Invitation to attend and/or participate in one of our launches – 3oz item of your choice, delivered to the moon. Note, this item cannot be returned to you – Your name or logo displayed on our rocket for all flights. We will provide HD pics and video of the name/logo prior to launch, and during ignition (if possible)

  Est. Delivery: Dec 2012

• $6,000

  - Your very own Lunar Rocket Kit! Once we have completed the development of the final rocket, we will send you all materials, instructions, supplies, and parts you need to send your rocket to the moon. – postcard sized letter written by you, delivered to low earth orbit altitude – 3oz item of your choice, carried to space on one of our launches. Note, this item will not be returned to you – Invitation to attend and/or participate in one of our launches – 3oz item of your choice, delivered to the moon. Note, this item cannot be returned to you – Your name or logo displayed on our rocket for all flights. We will provide HD pics and video of the name/logo prior to launch, and during ignition (if possible)

  Est. Delivery: Dec 2012

————————————————————————————-

This gives anyone a chance to get involved in the moon rush, even with a thin wallet.  Here’s what I suggest…

• Family, Space Club, School groups or homeschoolers or the like can send the names of their members into orbit!
• Make a reward-level donation in someone elses name as a Christmas gift.
• Do it as a promotional stunt to draw attention to you or your product (my plan).

The funding project closes this coming on Wednesday though, so if you want to help with it you have to move fast.

Do you have an idea for a donation angle?  Please comment.

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