Using humor, science, and science fiction, the author describes the next generation of space exploration, which is both possible and on the near horizon. Mankind fails, in some respect, to make the next leap, no matter what the subject or endeavor is about. Some, satisfied that they have achieved the goal, establish no new goal, and in essence, do not take their idea to the next level, and the next after that. The United States and the world got to space, then quit and became complacent. As a species, mankind, we are ready now for that next leap, first to the planet Mars, then beyond to the rest of the solar system. Once the next test is finalized, the universe opens to mankind, because the next risk is the last risk in establishing our identity universally. We, the aliens from Earth, will land. The final frontier opens up for the voyages of the future. Read the book, understand the reality, and in both life and beyond your present realities, always take another step. Jedidiah

What are our motivations for going into space? Where does our long-term space future lie? Why, and how, should we strive to reach, if not for the stars, at least for the Moon and Mars? This exciting book looks first at the progress that has already been made in our attempts to explore and expand beyond the Earth. Current and past space technologies and space stations are described, and the effects of the space environment on the human body are explained. A discussion of the merits of the robotic exploration of space is followed by a look at our exploration of the Moon and Mars. Final chapters touch on propulsion methods required for leaving our solar system, and ask which of the possibilities for future space travel is most likely to succeed. This thought provoking book will appeal to all those with an interest in the future of space exploration.

'The Myths of Reality' reveals how reality is culturally constructed in an ever-continuing process from mythic fragments transmitted by the mass media and adapted through face-to-face and Internet conversations.

In twelve critical and interdisciplinary essays, this text examines the relationship between the fantastic in novels, movies and video games and real-world debates about nationalism, globalization and cosmopolitanism. Topics covered include science fiction and postcolonialism, issues of ethnicity, nation and transnational discourse. Altogether, these essays chart a new discursive space, where postcolonial theory and science fiction and fantasy studies work cooperatively to expand our understanding of the fantastic, while simultaneously expanding the scope of postcolonial discussions.

Why do Americans find it appealing to create and live in artificial worlds--whether in space, at Disneyland, in computer networks, or in our own minds?

Animation in Context is an illustrated introduction to cultural theory, contextual research and critical analysis. By making academic language more accessible, it empowers animators with the confidence and enthusiasm to engage with theory as a fun, integral, and applied part of the creative process. Interviews with contemporary industry professionals and academics, student case studies and a range of practical research exercises, combine to encourage a more versatile approach to animation practice – from creating storyboards to set designs and soundtracks; as well as developing virals, 3D zoetropes and projection mapping visuals. Mark Collington focuses on a core selection of theoretical approaches that shape animation narrative, supported by a broader set of shared theoretical principles from the worlds of art, design, film and media studies. This discussion is underpinned by cross-disciplinary thinking on a range of topics including genre, humour, montage and propaganda. These are applied to the analysis of a range of animated films and projects from Disney and Animé, to independent artist-filmmakers such as Wendy Tilby, Amanda Forbis and Jerzy Kucia. These ideas are also applied to other uses of animation such as advertising, sitcom, gaming and animated documentary.

This analysis of the rhetoric of nine successfully persuasive politicians explains how their use of language created credible and consistent stories about themselves and the social world they inhabit. It explores their use of metaphors, their myths and how language analysis helps us to understand how politicians are able to persuade.

Does technology alter our ways of being in and perceiving the world, or does it merely serve as a conduit for predetermined patterns of culture? In addressing this question, Popular Modernity in America examines a broad range of related cultural and technological phenomena—from Bing Crosby to Ice Cube, from the invention of the telegraph to the celebratory heralding of the internet in the 1990s—that have helped shape American popular culture over the past 150 years. Throughout, it avoids the binaries that label popular culture as inherently liberatory or subtly oppressive, arguing instead for the triadic relationship of experience, technology, and myth, each of which has an active role to play in how we interact with popular culture.

In Extended Play, one of the country's most innovative music writers conducts a wide-ranging tour through the outer limits of contemporary music. Over the course of more than twenty-five portraits, interviews, and essays, John Corbett engages artists from lands as distant as Sweden, Siberia, and Saturn. With a special emphasis on African American and European improvisers, the book explores the famous and the little known, from John Cage and George Clinton to Anthony Braxton and Sun Ra. Employing approaches as diverse as the music he celebrates, Corbett illuminates the sound and theory of funk and rap, blues and jazz, contemporary classical, free improvisation, rock, and reggae. Using cultural critique and textual theory, Corbett addresses a broad spectrum of issues, such as the status of recorded music in postmodern culture, the politics of self-censorship, experimentation, and alternativism in the music industry, and the use of metaphors of space and madness in the work of African American musicians. He follows these more theoretically oriented essays with a series of extensive profiles and in-depth interviews that offer contrasting and complementary perspectives on some of the world's most creative musicians and their work. Included here are more than twenty original photographs as well as a meticulously annotated discography. The result is one of the most thoughtful, and most entertaining, investigations of contemporary music available today.

The 1960s and early 70s saw the evolution of Frontier Myths even as scholars were renouncing the interpretive value of myths themselves. Works like Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War exemplified that rejection using his experiences during the Vietnam War to illustrate the problematic consequences of simple mythic idealism. Simultaneously, Americans were playing with expanded and revised versions of familiar Frontier Myths, though in a contemporary context, through NASA’s lunar missions, Star Trek, and Gerard K. O’Neill’s High Frontier. This book examines the reasons behind the exclusion of Frontier Myths to the periphery of scholarly discourse, and endeavors to build a new model for understanding their enduring significance. This model connects NASA’s failed attempts to recycle earlier myths, wholesale, to Star Trek’s revision of those myths and rejection of the idea of a frontier paradise, to O’Neill’s desire to realize such a paradise in Earth’s orbit. This new synthesis defies the negative connotations of Frontier Myths during the 1960s and 70s and attempts to resuscitate them for relevance in the modern academic context.