We have an update from Bill Burns:
New today at https://efanzines.com
Bill
Click here to enjoy Impulse‘s July 2024 edition: ImpulseJuly2024(OnlineVersion)PDF
You may also visit the Impulse page of this Website to access this latest, as well as past issues of our club news bulletin.
I have extracted the paragraphs that are relevant to SF/F fans, the full article is available here: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240525-what-will-we-eat-on-the-moon-the-food-is-literally-out-of-this-world
The Moon may be the final frontier for mankind, but what will we eat when we get there? Pasta and protein bars made out of thin air are just the beginning.
In 2021, Nasa launched a Deep Space Food Challenge to discover new ways to create food in space with limited resources producing minimal waste, while also providing safe, nutritious and tasty food that can perform on a long-term deep space mission.
Solar Foods, based in Helsinki, is one of the eight companies that has reached the challenge’s final phase. Their remarkable concept: using space waste to create protein.
“We make food out of thin air, quite literally,” says Artuu Luukanen, Solar Foods’ senior vice president in Space and Defence. His company discovered an edible microbe in the Finnish countryside that grows by feeding on a mixture of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen. The result is a source of protein from bacteria. The protein can be blended with a range of flavours or textures to create various kinds of nutritious food, such as pasta, protein bars, alternative meats and even an egg replacement
“We started thinking about space food because in any space habitat, you have two key waste gases available: hydrogen and carbon dioxide,” Luukanen said. “So what we are talking about here is really not just a food manufacturing technology for space, but something that will be an integral part of the environmental control and life support system.”
Solar Foods’ protein can be turned into a paste or powder and blended with flour and more typical food ingredients to create protein enriched foods such as pasta, protein bars and even chocolate. Experiments are continuing to discover whether it can be mixed with oils and turned into something with a texture of a steak, using a 3D printer.
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One thing that seems likely is that the future of space food will include fungi. Three of the six finalists in the Nasa Deep Space Food Challenge are working on ideas around fungi, including Mycorena of Gothenburg, Sweden, which has developed a system that uses a combination of microalgae and fungi to produce a mycoprotein (a type of protein that comes from a fungus, often used in alternative meat products).
“Fungi is very versatile,” explains Carlos Otero, who works in the R&D team at Mycorena. “It can grow on different substrates, it grows fast and you can design a small and efficient system capable of producing enough food for the crew. It is also very robust, resistant to radiation and easy to store and transport.”
This space food is all in a closed loop circular system, with an end product that can be 3D printed to create a food a little like the texture of a chicken fillet. An added benefit is that their protein source contains all the essential amino acids the human body needs to function.
MonSFFen and their families, as well as friends of the club, are invited to gather at about 10:00AM in Parc Maisonneuve on Sunday, July 14, for the club’s 2024 Summer BBQ
Parc Maisonneuve, easily accessible by Metro or bus, is located in the city’s East End, adjacent the Botanical Gardens and the Olympic Stadium. Parking is available on site, or on nearby streets.
Our intention is to claim a picnic spot somewhere along one of the park’s lines of trees, not too far from the parking lot and the chalet; our “Preferred Picnic Area” is indicated on the map (above). Look for us within roughly that area.
So join MonSFFA for a relaxing day in the park! Friends, fun, food, and fire, the latter provided by the club’s new propane barbecue, which we’ll have on site for those who may wish to grill up a couple of burgers, sausages, and such! Bring your own refreshments, snacks, and any meats you may wish to barbecue. Note that proper washroom facilities are located a short stroll away in the park’s chalet.
NOTE: Should the weather prove inclement on the 14th, the event will be shifted one week forward, to Sunday, July 21. If necessary, we will post a notice on the club’s Website of any change in the schedule by no later than 9:00AM, Sunday morning, the 14th.
We will also host an “e-Picnic” via ZOOM (www.MonSFFA.ca) on Sunday, July 28, beginning at 1:00PM—have your favourite summer snacks and libations on hand!
In addition to enjoying, with friends online, an afternoon of casual conversation on any and all topics SF/F and fannish, we’ll have opportunity to view an album of photographs snapped by those MonSFFen who took part in our Field Trip to the Montreal Biodome last month.
Plus, we’ll invite folk to “show-and-tell” about any cool sci-fi destinations or events they’ve enjoyed on vacation during this first half of summer—share your experiences, and any photos, with the group!
And, we’ll take the opportunity to hold our first meeting of the club’s Special Interest Group for Art. Host Keith Braithwaite will give a talk/workshop on “How to Create Sci-Fi Art Without Knowing How to Draw!”
Click here to view or download this post as a PDF flyer detailing MonSFFA’s July 2024 Events: Club’s July 2024 Events
Posted at https://efanzines.com today are:
STEPHEN ARYAN • The Blood-Dimmed Tide • Angry Robot UK, Jul 2024 (tp, eb)Zines to share!
From Nic Farey, This Here: TH 76r
From the 3NF,
The N3F Review of Books N3FReview202406
Fiction
2 … Archangel by NR LaPoint … Review by Declan Finn
4 … The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins … Review by Graham Bradley
6 … Brother, Frank by Michael Bunker … Review by Graham Bradley
7 … Deathbringer by Blake Carpenter … Review by Jim McCoy
9 … Deeper than the Darkness by Gregory Benford … Review by Jean-Paul Garnier
9 … The Dream of the Iron Dragon by Rob Kroese … Review by Neovictorian
11 … Going Ballistic by Dorothy Grant … Review by Becky Jones
12 … The Groundskeeper: Raking Up the Dead by Cedar Sanderson … Review by Pat Patterson
13 … Hauser’s Memory by Curt Siodmak … Review by Jean-Paul Garnier
13 … The Icarus Job by Timothy Zahn … Review by Declan Finn
15 … Kindred by Kelly Grayson … Review by Pat Patterson
16 … Monster Hunter Bloodlines by Larry Correia … Review by Graham Bradley
18 … Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer … Review by Graham Bradley
19 … Out of the Soylent Planet by Robert Kroese … Review by Ginger Man
21 … Pirates of the Electromagnetic Waves by Fenton Wood … Review by Rob Kroese
22 … The Powers of the Earth by Travis J. P. Corcoran … Review by Rob Kroese
24 … Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir … Review by Graham Bradley
25 … Scattered, Smothered and Spellbound by Kelly Grayson … Review by Pat Patterson
26 … The Schrödinger Paradox: Entanglement by Holly Chism … Review by Pat Patterson
27 … The Thing From HR by Roy M. Griffis … Review by Michael Gallagher
29 … Virus Thirteen by Joshua Alan Parry … Review by Jason P. Hunt
31 … White Ops by Declan Finn … Review by Ginger Man
Series Reviews
33 … Riptides, Storm Surge, Flotsam of War and Ratchet’s Run by Blaine Lee Pardoe
… Review by Jim McCoy
35 … Uplink Squadron and Second Flight by JN Chaney and Chris Kennedy
… Review by Jim McCoy
Literary Criticism
37 … The Symbiosis of Adventure Fiction and Futurism: A 19th and 20th Century Dialogue
by Franklin Dalcò Grande
Prose Bono
39 … For the Boys by Cedar Sanderson
40 … The Quirky Reader by Cedar Sanderso
3. Editorial
4. Chairperson’s Special Note
5. Magazines Received/ Books Received
6. Nova 2023 Finalist. Sue Woodward.
“The Handprint”
20. Interview with ChatGPT
26. Blasts from the past …. PROBE through the
Decades
29. Nova 2023 Editor’s Choice. Ruan Botha
“The Owl – Episode 1”
35. The Three-Body Problem. Gavin Kreuiter
38. Tex Cooper. Eulogy.
40. Digby Ricci. “Shadowy Union. SF and
Horror”
46. Nicola Catellani “That Gentleman in the
Room”. Winner XXVII Trofeo RiLL
An asteroid will pass between Earth and Moon just a day before Asteroid Day! Good timing, but the scary thing is that it was only discovered last week.
Remember Apophis? This asteroid made headlines when it was thought it would impact Earth in 2029. It won’t, but it might take out a few communication satellites. It will likely be visible to the naked eye.
The U.S. government recently completed an asteroid impact preparedness exercise. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Department of State Office of Space Affairs, recently went through a hypothetical scenario in which an asteroid was found on a collision course with Earth. This was the fifth such exercise, and the first to incorporate the results of NASA’s DART mission. NASA published a summary of takeaways from the exercise.
Two large asteroids will safely pass Earth this week. Although both asteroids’ trajectories are known and neither poses any risk to our planet, one of them was only discovered a week ago, highlighting the need to continue improving our ability to detect potentially hazardous objects. That recently discovered asteroid, 2024 MK, will be observable around its closest approach on June 29 using a small telescope or binoculars.
Apophis won’t hit Earth, but might wipe out a few satellites!Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid, meaning its orbit around the Sun brings it within 1.3 times the distance between the Sun and Earth. Its full name is Apophis 99942. After Apophis was discovered in 2004, the asteroid was given a 2.7% chance of hitting Earth in 2029, causing a great deal of media attention. It also for a time had a small chance of hitting Earth in 2036. Additional observations have shown it will not hit Earth in 2029 or in 2036.
Nevertheless, in 2029 Apophis will come closer to Earth than our geostationary communications satellites, likely sparking a great deal of public interest. READ MORE
The asteroid was only discovered earlier this month
Earth is surrounded by rocky bodies and bits of debris from when the solar system formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago. On Saturday, one of those leftover rocks will whiz past Earth.
The asteroid is called 2024 MK and, at its closest, it will pass roughly 290,000 km from Earth. While we have plenty of small asteroids that are scattered within Earth’s orbit, this one is sizeable, ranging anywhere from 120 metres to 260 metres in diameter.
But there’s another interesting — and somewhat disquieting — fact about this large asteroid.
“Maybe the big take-home point on this one is it’s a pretty big object and it was only found 10 or 12 days before closest approach,” said Peter Brown, Canada Research Chair in meteor astronomy and a professor at Western University in London, Ont. “The last time we had an object this big or bigger pass this close to Earth was … in 2001.”
“So unlike most asteroid stories, this actually is noteworthy in the sense of … this is pretty big, pretty close.”
China’s lunar probe has returned to Earth with the first ever samples from the Moon’s unexplored far side.
The Chang’e-6 landed in the Inner Mongolia desert on Tuesday, after a nearly two-month long mission which was fraught with risks.
Scientists are eagerly awaiting the Chang’e-6 as the samples could answer key questions about how planets are formed.
China is the only country to have landed on the far side of the Moon, having done so before in 2019.
The far side – which faces away from Earth – is technically challenging to reach due to its distance, and its difficult terrain of giant craters and few flat surfaces.
Scientists are interested in this less-explored side as it is hoped it may contain traces of ice, which can be harvested for water, oxygen, and hydrogen.
The Chang’e-6 mission is a source of pride for a nation which has stepped up its missions to the Moon – drawing attention from its rival, the US.
State media showed officials planting the Chinese flag with a flourish just after the Chang’e-6 capsule landed in the desert of Inner Mongolia.
China’s President Xi Jinping has called to congratulate those at the command centre of the Chang’e-6 mission.
Mr Xi said he hopes they can carry on exploring deep space and “reaching new heights in unravelling the mysteries of the universe… to benefit humanity and advance the nation”.