Jesus Take The (Lunar) Wheel: Apollo 18

By Emily Carney

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11’s lunar module Eagle landed on Earth’s Moon, beginning three years of unsurpassed, spectacular lunar voyages.

On December 14, 1972, Apollo 17’s lunar module Challenger departed the Moon’s surface, leaving a massive void in manned lunar exploration which continues to exist until the present time.

In the beginning of the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy sent out a resounding, powerful call to have a man walk on the Moon by the end of that decade, and NASA was wholly successful in their goal to meet such a momentous deadline.

It took Hollywood well over 50 years from that point to make Apollo 18. To paraphrase JFK, at the beginning of this decade, we made the worst space horror film, ever.
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The Comfort Of Familiarity: Five Classic Canadian Public Television Idents

By Emily Carney

Many television-philes like myself are obsessed with classic station identifications, or idents, from our childhood years. Whenever I hear the old PBS ident music from the 1980s, immediately I hearken back to the days when I used to watch Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood before taking my Dukes of Hazzard Big Wheel out for a leisurely spin.

In the last few years, I’ve familiarized myself with some Canadian TV idents which are as cool, diverse, and strangely comforting as their American counterpart’s idents. Here’s a small list of the very best Canadian idents from the past few decades.
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How You Can’t Do That On Television Changed Kids’ Television

By Emily Carney

Like many kids, I was obsessed with Monty Python’s Flying Circus growing up. Python was featured on America’s Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), usually sandwiched between Doctor Who (with Tom Baker!) and a terrible British sitcom called ‘Allo ‘Allo. It had a great classically-rooted theme song, and was completely hilarious.

It should be explicitly stated, however, that Python was not, in any way, shape, or form, a kids’ TV show. It presented a lot of adult situations (“I LIKE TITS!” is actually a quote by Terry Jones, the Welsh member of the troupe). I would NEVER let my nephew and niece watch Python, as I don’t want to be collared for child abuse. So, when my parents were actually watching me, I’d switch the channel to Nickelodeon (a relatively new cable offering at the time) and watch the Canadian TV show, You Can’t Do That On Television. YCDTOT at its best was the preteen version of Python, and possessed its own brand of surreal, controversial humor. It also had a great attention-getting classical theme song.
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Just For Fun: Memories Of SCTV

By Emily Carney

Growing up in the early 1980s, television comedy was all about Saturday Night Live on NBC. Television sketch comedy was still in its infancy. SNL underwent sort of a strange period between 1981 and 1982 with the addition of entertainers like Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo, who elevated the show from being utterly boring and routine after the departure of the “Original Prime Time Players.” However, another television comedy show entered the canon in 1981, imported from Canada. Second City Television (or more commonly known as SCTV) became the “cult” antithesis of SNL, featuring mainly Canadian performers. In many ways, SCTV was “smarter” and more hilarious than its American counterpart, and here’s why.
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Martin Rushent: 1948 – 2011

By Emily Carney

I am shocked to learn that Martin Rushent, perhaps one of the most iconic Punk/New Wave producers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, died on June 4 of this year. I was supposed to interview Martin via Skype a couple of years back; as it was, our extremely busy schedules prevented this from happening. Although I didn’t know him well, Martin gave the impression of being a personable, eminently cool man who just happened to have produced some of the best, most seminal records of the New Wave era. Martin was more than willing to discuss his interests with his fans and followers, which I find admirable.
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Life In A Post-Space Shuttle World

It’s mid-2011, and NASA’s 30-year-old Space Shuttle program is coming to a close. There is no permanent shuttle replacement scheduled at this time to send astronauts into orbit; the flagging United States’ economy has impacted the space program, along with many other governmental programs, immensely. The mood along Florida’s Space Coast—the Eastern coast of Florida—is one of sadness and resignation. Many Florida residents like myself sort of took the activities at the Cape for granted; somehow we didn’t really believe the shuttle program would ever come to an end. Why couldn’t 30 years last forever?

Picture of the author in front of an unused Saturn V rocket
Kennedy Space Center, 1987

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Five Things You Should Know About NASA Fandom

By Emily Carney

The 30-year-old Space Shuttle program is winding down to its end, scheduled for a last launch of the shuttle Atlantis in June. Sadly, NASA currently has few plans to extend space travel after the shuttle is phased out.

Given this bleak situation, a few loyal “space hipsters” on Blogger and Tumblr have put together some rather unique, often completely hilarious tributes which hearken back to the Good Old Days of Space Flight, specifically from 1961—beginning with the first Mercury missions—through the early days of the shuttle program.

Internet memes which originally were created about cats have now been carried over to legendary astronauts such as Gus Grissom, Alan Shepard, and John Young. Without further ado, here are five things you should probably familiarize yourself with if you’d like to acquaint yourself with the new fandom, the NASA Fandom.
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The Worst Space Film Ever: Marooned a.k.a. Space Travelers

By Emily Carney

“Before this decade is out . . . we will make a boring movie called Space Travelers.”
—Crow T. Robot, Mystery Science Theater 3000

You know you’re in for something special as soon as the NBC Nightly News circa-1980s opening credits run, boasting music which sounds like it was stolen from the time Les Oraliens degenerated into wholly panoramic 1970s porn.

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We Can Do It (Better): The Women Of The Mercury Program, The “Mercury 13”

By Emily Carney

Jerrie Cobb, test pilot, stands next to a Mercury capsule.

I was born in 1978, and it is difficult for me to believe that in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the world was still rife with prejudices based on race, ethnicity, and gender. I joined the US Navy in 1997, and was sometimes exposed to painful instances of discrimination based upon my gender and general appearance. It is very upsetting to come to the realization that people may dislike you and prevent you from doing your job based on something you can’t change.
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Excellence (Still) Has No Sex: A Tribute To Artist Eva Hesse, 1936 – 1970

By Emily Carney

“You won’t believe it. I was told by the doctor that I have the most incredible life he ever heard. Have you got tissues? It’s not a little thing to have a brain tumor at thirty-three.”

Eva Hesse

This was just the beginning of an interview artist Eva Hesse conducted with Cindy Nesmer near the end of her life. The tumult—and ultimate artistic triumph—of Eva Hesse’s inner life was more than apparent in the three-dimensional latex and plastic sculptures which she made near her life’s end.
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