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Ever wondered what you would see if you could look down on your neighborhood from space? It turns out there are a lot of online tools to help you do that. Not a great surprise, considering how many decades things like spy satellites, weather balloons (and orbital platforms), and GPS devices have been looking down on us. And that is ignoring the less formal collections, like shuttle astronauts with digital cameras, or NASA/ESA project techs who want to point their devices at earth to get a baseline image before their robots get to other planets.

So here are a few fun links to get you started. The resolution of the best of the publicly available ones is only about a meter on a side, so you can see your house or car, but not your pet or neighbor (unless your pet/neighbor weighs in at over 500 pounds). The satellite images that can read the brand name and logo off your golf ball exist, but you need a security clearance way above the average persons to get access to them.

Astronauts digital cameras, a good jumping off place:
Home:
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/
Interactive Map:
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/

USGS Orbital Maps, just found my house on this one; drill down and check it out!
http://terraserver-usa.com/

TerraFly is a Java Applet to interface you to the database, and allow you to virtually “Fly” over the terrain imaged here, driven off their online data. This one is brought to you by Florida International University, the National Science Foundation, NASA, the United States Geological Survey, and IBM.
http://www.terrafly.fiu.edu/

Another NASA sponsered interface, this one is a great way to narrow down your search for yourself.
https://zulu.ssc.nasa.gov/mrsid/

And yet another NASA site in this mode:
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/

On the more commercial side, there is:
http://www.spaceimaging.com/

All of these are worth a visit; check them out and let me know what you think!

The Doctor returns!

Since the word went out in mid-2003, there has been a lot of speculation and rumor, but the one thing that remains firm is that the show WILL be back with all new episodes! If I had a vote, I would love to see David Warner as the Doctor, and Alan Rickman as the Master; both veddy British, both world-class actors, both voted for by folks involved with Doctor Who, and either could play either role and nail it definitively to the wall. The dynamic tension between them alone would be worth the price of admission. Too bad I’m just a fan, and only get to vote with my web site.

So rather than confuse the issue by generating online rumors with my personal wish list, let me give you a few links that should point you to the real info and updates. Starting with the official BBC NewWho pages at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/newtv/

Some non-official sites that will keep you posted with the latest data should start with one of the oldest online Who resources, Outpost Gallifrey. It doesn’t hurt that they are doing one of the best jobs out there:

www.gallifreyone.net/newstv.php

A few other sites worth your time to check out include:

www.cuttingsarchive.org.uk
www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/damon.querry/
nitro9.earth.uni.edu/doctor/homepage.html

Thank you, BBC, for breathing new life into the longest-running SciFi TV show ever!

It is time to step away from the scientific data, and see what kind of fun we can have. *grin*

These are a few sites that will let you interact with the data our metal servants have been sending back from the Red Planet. Don’t forget, with the raw volume of information heading our way, you can also build your own interfaces, and your own display sets. But these should at least get you started, and give you an idea of what kind of range you can work from or towards.

1) DISPLAY ONLY
This one is from Nasa, and it will be hard to beat. But you can put your own multimedia display together, and let folks play it back online. The format here is RealPlayer, which allows you to add all the SMIL interactive controls, as does QuickTime and Windows MediaPlayer.
Nasa Live Mars Link

2) Display and Control
Flash adds scripting to the Playback; it allows you to give an added level of interactivity beyond the SMIL functions.
Nasa Flash Mars Interface

3) Interactivity
These use 3D/VRML browser plugins to allow a true measure of control by the user over the cyberspace environment. Like everything else here, they need something installed that is not built in to their browser. Remember to put the links to the plugin on the page, for those that don’t already have them.
CNN Mars Interactive
Drive
Fly
Index

The new announcement from NASA makes life on Mars a much more realistic potential. With not just geologic evidence that water once existed, but the possibility that it still may be there (as a semi-frozen slurry embedded under the soil), we even have a chance at current life! After all, we have remnants of previously extant forms living in deep-sea volcanic vents here on earth, which could never survive conditions on the surface. Once life gets a foothold, it doesn’t let go without a serious fight, no matter what conditions it has to evolve to meet.

Here are a few links to bring you up to speed on the latest developments…

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html

http://www.space.com/marsrover/

CNN Mars report

Of course, if there IS life on mars today, don’t expect to talk to it anytime soon. Best bet is it would be in the viral or bacterial form. And while both of those formats have the theoretical potential for intelligence (see the writings of W.Gibson, N.Stephenson, and C.Willis for a few beginning examples), we can’t communicate with the ones in our own biosphere yet. How much more difficult would it be to communicate with those from a totally different evolution?