Sci Fi SoundTrack

Early this morning in the pre-dawn hours, the space shuttle Endeavor shot into space for a two-week trip to the International Space Station. This will be its last nighttime launch.

This launch occurred amid the controversy that began last week when President Obama announced his future plans for the NASA space program, which included scrapping a program to build replacements for the space shuttles, which will retire after 2010. The Endeavor is on one of its final flights, and before it launched, NASA chief Charles Bolden told reporters that Obama's plan is "screwed up," and swore he would fight it.

Endeavor is delivering two new rooms to the ISS, designed by the European Space Agency. Space.com has the story:

Endeavour's crew is delivering a new room called Tranquility and an observation dome called the Cupola that is covered in windows. Three spacewalks and some tricky robotic arm acrobatics are on tap to install the new additions.

"This is a big construction mission," [astronaut Stephen] Robinson said before launch. "We're going to go and add not just a new room on the house, but probably the most complex room on the house."

Named after NASA's historic Apollo 11 moon base, the Tranquility module is a 24-foot (7.3-meter) long cylinder that is nearly 15 feet (4.5 meters) wide and weighs about 40,000 pounds (18,143 kg). The $382 million module will be the home for the station's life support, exercise and robotic arm control systems.

The Cupola is a seven-window observation deck with a huge round central pane that is the largest single window ever to fly in space. The $27.2 million portal will be attached to an Earth-facing side of Tranquility and promises to give astronauts on the station unparalleled views of their home planet and space.

Image via JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

Early this morning in the pre-dawn hours, the space shuttle Endeavor shot into space for a two-week trip to the International Space Station. This will be its last nighttime launch.

This launch occurred amid the controversy that began last week when President Obama announced his future plans for the NASA space program, which included scrapping a program to build replacements for the space shuttles, which will retire after 2010. The Endeavor is on one of its final flights, and before it launched, NASA chief Charles Bolden told reporters that Obama's plan is "screwed up," and swore he would fight it.

Endeavor is delivering two new rooms to the ISS, designed by the European Space Agency. Space.com has the story:

Endeavour's crew is delivering a new room called Tranquility and an observation dome called the Cupola that is covered in windows. Three spacewalks and some tricky robotic arm acrobatics are on tap to install the new additions.

"This is a big construction mission," [astronaut Stephen] Robinson said before launch. "We're going to go and add not just a new room on the house, but probably the most complex room on the house."

Named after NASA's historic Apollo 11 moon base, the Tranquility module is a 24-foot (7.3-meter) long cylinder that is nearly 15 feet (4.5 meters) wide and weighs about 40,000 pounds (18,143 kg). The $382 million module will be the home for the station's life support, exercise and robotic arm control systems.

The Cupola is a seven-window observation deck with a huge round central pane that is the largest single window ever to fly in space. The $27.2 million portal will be attached to an Earth-facing side of Tranquility and promises to give astronauts on the station unparalleled views of their home planet and space.

Image via JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

George Lucas' live-action Star Wars TV series is still moving forward in Australia, and little clues are slowly popping up here and there as to which characters will turn up, and which Star Wars film will it most emulate.

Author Karen Traviss announced a while back that she is no longer writing her long-awaited Boba Fett novel. The author explained that contract issues were getting in the way of her story line, and it seems like what she was planning for Boba Fett, and what Lucas was planning on his new TV series, conflicted.

Yes, the Boba Fett novel was canceled by the publisher because of potential canon clashes with the upcoming TV series, as you have already heard from other sources. No, I really don't have a clue what those clashes might be. Sorry.

We can only assume that Traviss was planning to base her portrayal of Boba Fett on the canon already established in the six movies — and the TV series is planning to make some major change, or addition, to that canon. Still, this means more Boba on the screen, which is always a good thing.

So where is this new series set? According to Wookiepedia and The Celebrity Cafe, it takes place in the "dark times" between the last prequel and A New Hope. And if you remember, that's when most of the Jedi and anti-emperor politicians were hunted down and killed. It's being toted as a gritty and dark series, which will star many minor characters as we now know Boba Fett, but also C-3PO, and Emperor Palpatine (nothing has been officially confirmed yet).

As far as past Star Wars characters like Han, Luke and Leia, Mark Hamill says he doesn't think there would be a role for him as in this time period Luke would be even younger than he was in A New Hope. But the actor did praise the decision to return to focusing on the story, instead of the sizzle of CG FX and tedious lightsaber fights.

In an interview with Total Film Magazine Lucas explained that it would be more like the original than the prequels, "

It's [a] lot more talky. It's more of what I would call a soap opera with a bunch of personal dramas in it. It's not really based on action-adventure films from the '30s - it's actually more based on film noir movies from the '40s!"

And, of course, they won't have Star Wars-type funds to make everything CG, so hopefully this will reinforce the "story comes first" motto.

[via The Celebrity Cafe]