The Moon, Europa

The Moon, Europa

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Book Signing at Hasting's in Waxahachie, TX

I announced this earlier but tonight is my book signing at Hasting's.  Hasting's sells books, music, movies, and rents movies and games.  Come one, come all tonight from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.  I would love to see you there!


Hasting's in Waxahachie
791 N Highway 77
Waxahachie, TX 75165-1879
(972) 923-1143



And because I fully expect you to not have any clue where this store is, here's a link to the map : Map to Hasting's

Monday, July 26, 2010

Europa Facts

Here's to you folks who just can't get enough Europa facts

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Jup_Europa

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/jupiter/europa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)

http://www.brighthub.com/science/space/articles/9828.aspx

I would highly recommend doing your own search if you need more information but these informational sites are pretty exhaustive.  Let me know if you find more Europa sites and I will post them here.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Neptune

See previous post...
Well, for the few of you who knew its name, I am likely going to abandon the 'Neptune' project. I encountered some serious problems with exploration viability that I am unable to reasonably overcome. I may be able to salvage it by changing the methodology, but it is not looking good. I intend on keeping the same story premise and characters, but the planetary venue will have to be different. I do not look forward to a rewrite of 140+ pages. However, I have had a lingering doubt in the back of my mind since I started Neptune and I am hoping this will alleviate my worries. I am in full research mode at this point and will let you all know when I am back on track...Although, as before, I will not let the new name of book two be generally known until it is completed. 

J.A. Sanderlin

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Science Research

I've encountered a pause in writing to research a pretty big issue for the next book.  I thought I had the details hammered out, but when I went back to check some small detail I was struck by a potential problem that would change the dynamic of the entire story.  It reminded me of the amount of research I did for the first book (hours and hours and hours) and how many questions I had to answer for myself, for the book, and to make the science actually plausible even 350 years in the future.  We are so far behind where we thought we would be only 50 years ago (where is my flying car?) that I didn't want to fall into the same trap I thought so many of our contemporaries did not too terribly long ago.  It seemed that giving technology 350 years to develop was enough time for it to catch up with our expectations.  So, since the 2nd book follows the first by about 20 years, I can't get too far ahead of the science in that one either.  I could make up stuff and take large leaps in logic but, so far, I want to keep my leaps very small.  I want to make sure that whatever science I present is largely in the realm of achievable.  There are plausible formulas and plans now but we're just waiting for the technology to make it a possible build?  Whatever the case, I want my flying car or rocket pack and I still don't have them.  Unfortunately we can no longer rely on NASA to make decent decisions about the future of manned exploration. And even if NASA ever gets to Mars (or for that matter to the Moon again), they probably won't do anything but take core samples. Maybe future endeavors will be privatized and speed up the process.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

T-shirts

I'm designing some Europa t-shirts. The links and how you can order them will be forthcoming.  So far, this is my favorite t-shirt ... but I'm on the lookout for more ideas.

My current favorite t-shirt

More to follow ...