On Tuesday, NASA scientists unveiled new findings from its pair of Mars Exploration Rovers. While both rovers have found evidence of water erosion in rocks at their respective landing sites, the scientists now say that Opportunity’s landing site – a large crater – features rocks which show conclusive evidence of a large body of salt water, not unlike Earth’s oceans. While no definitive signs of life have been found by Opportunity or its identical twin, Spirit, these findings continue to add up to a picture of Mars as a place where life once could have thrived.
Source: NASA / JPL

It’s baaaaaack. Despite the fact that it was only in print from 1999 through 2001, there are still quite a few gamers who sorely miss Classic Gamer Magazine (for which theLogBook.com webmaster Earl Green also happened to be a staff writer). Now Classic Gamer is returning in digital form as a downloadable Adobe Acrobat publication for free, with a new look and all-new content. Classic Gamer Magazine relaunches on April 2nd, and you can click this link to check it out.

While negotiations continue to include the Daleks and possibly even the Pertwee-era Autons in the new Doctor Who, another old adversary of the Time Lord may be returning as well – only not the fictional kind. Michael Grade, the former BBC1 controller whose attempt to cancel Doctor Who in 1985 led to a national outcry and some hasty backpedaling, is on the short list of candidates to become the next Chairman of the BBC – and several prominent members of Parliament, belonging to all three of the country’s dominant parties, have written an open letter to Mr. Grade, sternly seeking assurances that he wouldn’t interfere with the revival of Doctor Who. Citing Grade’s own memoirs and public appearances (even recent ones long after the cancellation) in which he has professed a strong dislike of the series, the letter perhaps reveals the factors perhaps most responsible for bringing the Time Lord back to television: Doctor Who is a major licensing, merchandising and export goldmine for the BBC, one which the Ministers signing the letter would like to see left untouched for the economic benefits it could bring. Some critics feel this is just another incident of public office-holders focusing their efforts on isssues that are hardly important, while others have pointed out that ensuring the economic gains of new Who is in the public interest. There is no comment from Mr. Grade yet about the letter, or any plans he might have for Doctor Who or any other programming. Who would’ve thought that a Time Lord’s travels could become a campaign issue?
Sources: BBC, Outpost Gallifrey

Big Finish Productions, the makers of the well-received Doctor Who audio adventures, have announced the third “season” of the Doctor-less spinoff series Dalek Empire. Launching in May, Dalek Empire III will take place two thousand years after Dalek Empire II, so this time there will be no carryover characters. Additionally, unlike the previous two cycles of the story, Dalek Empire III will be told over six episodes instead of four. Later this year, Big Finish will also release “Dalek Empire: The Scripts”, containing the complete scripts (plus deleted scenes, development documents, and notes from series writer/creator Nicholas Briggs) from Dalek Empire and Dalek Empire II.
Source: Big Finish Productions

For the first time in six years, a new homebrew game is available for the long-discontinued Magnavox Odyssey2 video game. Developed by Soren Gust, Kill The Attacking Aliens is a fast-moving, multi-level shoot ‘em up pitting the player against increasingly crafty waves of enemy ships. Your job? Defend the Earth. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? Kill The Attacking Aliens, or KTAA as it’s become known in development, even features extended graphics for the Videopac G7400+ console, the European equivalent of the cancelled Odyssey3 system. (The cartridge does, however, work with North American Odyssey2 systems; the Videopac-style packaging is a purely nostalgic gesture on the part of the game’s creator.) You can order Kill The Attacking Aliens now from Packrat Video Games, the exclusive U.S. distributor.

The BBC has announced the casting of 40-year-old Christopher Eccleston, who has starred in such series as the original Cracker and such major films as 28 Days Later, eXistenZ, Gone In Sixty Seconds and The Others, as the new Doctor Who. In a statement, producer Russell T. Davies says that Eccleston (who was also featured in Davies’ recent series The Second Coming) was his first choice for the role all along, and that “his casting raises the bar for all of us.” The role of companion Rose Tyler is yet to be cast, and the BBC is also in negotiations with the estate of Terry Nation for the use of the Daleks in the new series. Filming of the series – to consist of thirteen 45-minute episodes – will begin in Cardiff, Wales later this year.
Sources: BBC News, Outpost Gallifrey

It’ll take a long time before we ever get around to sending a robotic explorer to Sedna, but there are still planets that have been left almost unexplored in the inner solar system – until now. NASA engineers are prepping the Messenger probe for a mid-May launch toward Mercury. Its name is an acronym for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging, and it’ll be the first spacecraft to go to Mercury since Mariner 10 powered down in 1975. After two gravity-assist flybys of Venus, Messenger will take up an elliptical 12-hour orbit around Mercury, mapping the planet during half of the day and relaying those observations back to Earth during the second half of the day. Over the course of its one-year mission, Messenger will map an entire half of Mercury that Mariner 10 didn’t chart – and it’ll be subjected to some of the harshest heat and radiation that a NASA probe has yet endured, sheltered behind a unique flexible ceramic sunshade. This is also just the beginning of an extended Mercury exploration program, with a pair of joint European-Japanese Mercury probes slated for a 2011 launch.
Source: NASA

No, no, calm down, Doctor Who fans, it’s still not that tenth planet. But astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope believe they’ve found a tiny planet – with a diameter of only 2,000 kilometers – orbiting the sun three billion kilometers past Pluto. That places it ten billion kilometers away from us on Earth (on average) – with a solar year that lasts around ten thousand years. The debate has already begun over whether or not such a tiny object can truly be considered a planet, and at only 300 kilometers smaller than Pluto, the debate’s likely to be pretty lively (the last “tenth planet” discovered, Quaoar, apparently didn’t meet the minimum requirements). Whether or not this strange new world’s provisional name – Sedna (for the Inuit goddess of the sea) – will make the cut will be up to the International Astronomical Union. Sedna has been spotted from ground-based telescopes as well, using the initial observations made by the Spitzer Telescope, so there is, as they say, something out there.
Source: NASA

Actor Paul Winfield, perhaps best known for his portrayal of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1978 TV miniseries King, died of a heart attack on March 7th. In genre circles, Mr. Winfield won praise for his portrayal of Captain Terrell of the Reliant in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and as General Richard Franklin in the GROPOs episode of Babylon 5, but perhaps his best genre outing was in a 1991 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Darmok. He received Emmy nominations for his work in King and Roots: The Next Generation, as well as an Oscar nomination for Sounder; he finally took home an Emmy for a guest role on Picket Fences in 1995. Mr. Winfield was 62.
Source: USA Today

We’re not really sure what to make of this (which just puts us in a category with a lot of other people), but LucasArts has pulled the plug on Sam & Max: Freelance Police, a new PC game in development and eagerly awaited by fans of the characters who first appeared in a late 80s/early 90s independent comic, but then moved on to higher-profile appearances such as their own short-lived animated series and the Sam & Max Hit The Road computer game. LucasArt’s brief press release on subject chalked the decision up to “current marketplace realities and underlying economic considerations,” and it doesn’t look like there’s much chance of them hitting the undo button on this decision. Frustrated fans are encouraged to visit The Unofficial Sam & Max Website where letter-writing campaigns and petitions are already underway to save the game.
Source: Unofficial Sam & Max Website

With all this talk of tire tracks being made on Mars, it’s occasionally easy to forget that other grand explorations of the solar system are still just getting underway. The Cassini spacecraft is now close enough to Saturn to observe unusual transitory “clumps” in the planet’s ring system. First spotted by the Voyager space probes in the early 1980s, these clumps zip around Saturn’s outermost rings, following the direction of the planet’s own motion, but until now it hasn’t been possible to get close enough to study those clumps. Unlike the Voyagers, however, Cassini won’t be zipping past the planet at the speed of a bullet – it will enter an orbit around the planet on July 1st (after a close flyby of Saturn’s tiny moon Phoebe on June 11th) and keep an eye on things. In the meantime, check out this link for a look at those clumps – and hang on to your socks, because the pictures are only going to get more breathtaking from here.
Source: NASA / JPL

Actress and casting director Cecily Adams, known to fans of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Quark’s mother, Ishka (also known affectionately as “Moogie”), died on March 3rd due to lung cancer. The daughter of Get Smart! star Don Adams, Ms. Adams had made appearances on DS9, Total Recall: 2070, Murphy Brown and Home Improvement. Behind the scenes, she lent her casting expertise to such series as Third Rock From The Sun, That 70s Show, Eerie, Indiana, and many others. She is survived by her husband and a two-year-old daughter.
Source: TrekWeb, IMDB

A stunning announcement from NASA this week: the Spirit and Opportunity rovers have discovered, at their respective exploration sites on Mars, conclusive evidence that water once flowed across the surface of the red planet. The proof comes in the form of mineral interactions indicattive of the past presence of water in rocks studied by both probes. Spirit’s landing site was drier than that of Opportunity, which may be roving its way through the former site of a substantial body of water. No indications have been found that anything lived in the waters of Mars, but the very presence of water at some point certainly boosts the chances that there was life there.
Source: NASA / JPL

After a submission/audition process that netted unprecedented interest from writers around the world, new Doctor Who producer/writer Russell T. Davies has announced the other writers who will be scripting the Time Lord’s new adventures. Of the 13 45-minute episodes planned for early 2005, Davies will be writing eight. The others will be written by Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, Paul Cornell and Robert Shearman. Shearman has risen to prominence as a fan favorite among the writers of the Big Finish Audio Adventures, with stories such as The Holy Terror, The Chimes Of Midnight and Doctor Who Unbound: Deadline behind him. Gatiss (“Nightshade”, “St. Anthony’s Fire”) and Cornell (“Love And War”, “Human Nature”, and the recent animated story Scream Of The Shalka) have also written Big Finish audio scripts but also, like Davies, date back to Virgin Publishing’s New Adventures novels. Moffat is the creator of the widely-acclaimed BBC sitcom Coupling and also wrote the infamous Rowan Atkinson Doctor Who spoof The Curse Of Fatal Death. Filming is being slated for this spring, so the announcement of the new Doctor could be mere weeks – or days – away.
Source: Outpost Gallifrey, Doctor Who Magazine

What’s Joss Whedon doing after wrapping production on the recently-cancelled Angel? He’s writing and directing the big-screen version of the also prematurely-cancelled Firefly. Taking place six months after the events of the series, the movie – titled Serenity – is said to have a more epic scope than its TV counterpart. But the fans will be pleased to hear that most of the original cast is returning for the movie. Universal plans to start production in June of this year, aiming at a 2005 release.
Source: Sci-Fi Wire

Bryan Singer, director of X-Men and X2, is in the early stages of mounting a remake of the seminal 1970s SF film Logan’s Run. Based on William Nolan’s novel of the same name, Logan’s Run depicted a utopian society where people are expected to surrender their lives at the age of 30 to avoid overpopulation, and any who do not voluntarily submit to that law are hunted down and terminated by “Runners.” In the novel and the original movie, a Runner named Logan is himself slated for termination and fights back against the system. Singer’s remake of the film will be returning to the novel’s original premise by reducing the age of termination from 30 to 21. Pre-production is underway, with Warner Brothers expecting the film to make a 2005 release date.
Source: Sci-Fi Wire