# data[].attributes.headline
Ziggy Stardust: the alter-ego of David Bowie which fans idolised 

# data[].attributes.subject
Ziggy Stardust: the alter-ego of David Bowie which fans idolised 

# data[].attributes.body
Ziggy Stardust was an elaborate performance-art jape about the superhuman qualities with which audiences invest in rock stars. But Bowie didn't just place himself above the adoring crowd; he also situated himself among it. Impersonating an alien, he spoke to the alienated, to those who, by mark of sexual preference or adolescent confusion or fabulous hair and makeup and clothes, felt like they had tumbled to Earth from a distant planet.

Ziggy Stardust

# data[].attributes.headline
David Bowie: the musician inspired by space

# data[].attributes.subject
David Bowie: the musician inspired by space

# data[].attributes.body
Before any human being ever set foot on the moon, David Bowie was deep in outer space, standing at his own version of the crossroads and transfixing generations of fans too weird for this world. His space inspired music included tracks such as: "Moonage Daydream," "Starman," "Life on Mars?," "Hallo Spaceboy," "Dancing out in Space," "Born in a UFO." Eventually, Bowie's science fiction became fact: In 2013, astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded a viral video version of "Space Oddity," strumming his acoustic while floating through the International Space Station. It was a fitting tribute to a man whose music seemed unbound by earthly forces.  The most indelible of Bowie’s alter-egos was the flame-haired extraterrestrial rock star Ziggy Stardust [16].

Watch Chris Hadfield’s version of Sapce Oddity here:

# data[].attributes.headline
Gravity (2013): a film set in space with Sandra Bullock in a leading role as a woman astronaut

# data[].attributes.subject
Gravity (2013): a film set in space with Sandra Bullock in a leading role as a woman astronaut

# data[].attributes.body
Gravity is a 2013 science fiction thriller film directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who also co-wrote, co-edited, and produced the film. It stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as American astronauts who are stranded in space after the mid-orbit destruction of their Space Shuttle, and attempt to return to Earth.

Watch the trailer here:

# data[].attributes.headline
13.     Hidden Figures (2016): a film representing black women in NASA’s history

# data[].attributes.subject
13.     Hidden Figures (2016): a film representing black women in NASA’s history

# data[].attributes.body
The story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program.

Watch the trailer here:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hidden Figures | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX

# data[].attributes.headline
12.     The Martian: a highly acclaimed film depicting the challenges and risks of space exploration

# data[].attributes.subject
12.     The Martian: a highly acclaimed film depicting the challenges and risks of space exploration

# data[].attributes.body
The Martian is a 2015 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. Drew Goddard adapted the screenplay from The Martian, a 2011 novel by Andy Weir. The film depicts an astronaut's (Damon) lone struggle to survive on Mars after being left behind, and the efforts of NASA to rescue him and bring him home to Earth.

Watch the trailer here:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Martian | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX

# data[].attributes.headline
11.     Space exploration and cinematography: how has space exploration inspired the silver screen

# data[].attributes.subject
11.     Space exploration and cinematography: how has space exploration inspired the silver screen

# data[].attributes.body
Space exploration and science-fiction has been transformed on the big screen over the years. Compare the trailers of A Space Odyssey, The Angry Red Planet and Ad Astra. Do you notice any similarities in their stories? Discuss the clips with a partner.

Ad Astra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6AaSMfXHbA

The Angry Red Planet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBAJEczBaHY

A Space Odyssey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_e9y-bka0

Other notable productions include The Martian, Hidden Figures and Gravity. Find out more about them in the other tabs.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Iron Heel by Jack London: an author following on from the greats Wells and Griffith

# data[].attributes.subject
The Iron Heel by Jack London: an author following on from the greats Wells and Griffith

# data[].attributes.body
Like his contemporaries, H.G. Wells and George Griffith, Jack London was a socialist. Nowhere in his work do his political views come across so clearly as they do in this startling dystopia. It is set in a near-future America where ruthless business leaders have taken over the government and established an oligarchy popularly known as the Iron Heel. Their dictatorial government keeps the vast majority of the population in poverty and near serfdom. The story takes the form of the autobiography of a woman who works for the underground resistance as they recover from one failed revolution and start planning for another. The manuscript is discovered centuries later by a scholar in a more utopian society who provides a different perspective on the events that the autobiography describes.

The Iron Heel, by Jack London

# data[].attributes.headline
The World Masters by George Griffith: an important author of science-fiction literature 

# data[].attributes.subject
The World Masters by George Griffith: an important author of science-fiction literature 

# data[].attributes.body
After Wells, the most prolific and popular author of scientific romance in Britain was probably George Griffith. Like Wells he was a utopian socialist, and his work often featured a radical new world order. Unlike Wells, his work tended to concentrate on future wars, particularly aerial warfare. The World Masters was one of three future war novels that appeared in the same year, the others being A Woman Against the World and The Lake of Gold: A Narrative of the Anglo-American Conquest of Europe. All three pursue the same theme. In The World Masters it is the International Electric Power and Storage Trust that lies behind the Anglo-American takeover of the world.

The World Masters, but George Griffith

# data[].attributes.headline
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells: a world-famous novel about alien invasion

# data[].attributes.subject
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells: a world-famous novel about alien invasion

# data[].attributes.body
The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells and is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between mankind and an extra-terrestrial race. The plot has been related to invasion literature of the time. The novel has been variously interpreted as a commentary on evolutionary theory, British imperialism, and generally Victorian superstitions, fears, and prejudices. Wells said that the plot arose from a discussion with his brother Frank about the catastrophic effect of the British on indigenous Tasmanians. What would happen, he wondered, if Martians did to Britain what the British had done to the Tasmanians? The War of the Worlds has been both popular (having never been out of print) and influential, spawning half a dozen feature films (such as The Martian), radio dramas, a record album, various comic book adaptations, a number of television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors.

Read more here about the link between the impact of the British invasion on indigenous Tasmanians and The War of the Worlds:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
War of the Worlds, arguably the first great alien invasion novel, has spawned dozens of adaptations, including musicals, for stage, screen and TV.

Most famously, Orson Welles' 1938 adaptation for the CBS radio series Mercury Theatre on the Air was so realistic, accounts at the time reported American radio listeners running into the streets.

The latest adaptation of the famous novel, an eight-part series from Fox/Canal Plus, premiered in Australia on SBS last week.

But while this tale of marauding Martians may be familiar, less well-known is the fact that the book and the radio play both have Australian antecedents.

It's a dubious honour, but HG Wells' 1898 piece of pioneering science fiction was inspired by British colonial treatment of Indigenous Tasmanians.

According to biographer Michael Foot in H.G. The History of Mr Wells(1995), it started with a conversation between the socialist novelist and his brother Frank: what would an alien invasion feel like? A terrifying disaster, they concluded - not unlike how Tasmanians must have felt when their island was invaded.
Aisha Dee on The Bold Type and moving to LA: 'Australia has a long way to go in terms of diversity'
The island doesn't feature in the latest adaptation - this series transports the drama from late Victorian London to a 21st century European-wide setting - but an alien invasion that savagely and rapidly wipes out most of the world's population is at its heart, as it was of the original novel.

Wells' opening chapter spells out the parallels: don't judge the Martians too harshly he says - they're no more ruthless than our own species. Let's consider the Indigenous Tasmanians, he continues, who were "swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants in the space of fifty years".

And much like in Wells' original, the aggression of the alien invaders is to be judged against humankind's own inhumanity - our ability to render people as other, to dominate, control and destroy them.

"Any idea why they want to kill us?" asks one of the TV characters, as they flee for their lives. "Maybe for the same reasons we kill each other," responds his companion.

The brutalities of British colonial rule were well known in Britain, including those that occurred in Tasmania in the 1820s and 30s. The "Black Line", for example, was a military and civilian offensive in 1832 aimed at driving remaining Aboriginal people onto the Tasman Peninsula in the island's southeast and confine them there. Many historians see the punitive actions of settlers as genocide.

The Australian connection with War of the Worlds - albeit tangentially - continued 40 years later, with Orson Welles' 1938 radio adaptation. He was, probably unwittingly, following in the footsteps of a similar Australian radio prank, 11 years earlier.

On 30 June 1927, Adelaide radio station 5CL interrupted a seemingly genuine music program with the sound of bombs exploding, a singer screaming and a breathless announcement that the port of Adelaide was under attack.

All hail the return of Rosehaven: a soothing balm for anxious times

Like Welles's broadcast, the spoof caused urgent calls to and from the police and panic among listeners. The play, entitled "The Imaginary Invasion" was reported in the New York Times, which noted that "many women and children became hysterical and even men were alarmed".

It's not known if Welles knew of this hoax, although he was familiar with a similar BBC radio ruse from 1926, courtesy of Catholic priest and broadcaster Ronald Knox, which interrupted a program on 18th century literature to claim that Big Ben had been toppled by trench mortars and the Savoy Hotel had been torched.

And finally, the much quoted claim that HG Wells wrote the first alien invasion sci-fi novel? In 1892, six years before War of the Worlds, an Anglican clergymen from Melbourne, Robert Potter, got there first with The Germ Growers, a tale of aliens secretly arriving on earth with the aim of destroying humanity through germ warfare. Fiction can be frighteningly realistic sometimes.

* War of the Worlds is showing now on SBS On Demand
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
War of the Worlds: the pioneering work of science fiction inspired by Australian brutality

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
War of the Worlds, arguably the first great alien invasion novel, has spawned dozens of adaptations, including musicals, for stage, screen and TV. Most famously, Orson Welles' 1938 adaptation for the CBS radio series Mercury Theatre on the Air was so realistic, accounts at the time reported American radio listeners running into the streets.

# data[].attributes.headline
7.     Science-fiction: an explosion of new literature at the turn of the century 

# data[].attributes.subject
7.     Science-fiction: an explosion of new literature at the turn of the century 

# data[].attributes.body
The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of an age just as surely as it marked the beginning of a new century. Things began to feel looser and lighter. However, it was also a time of social pressures, fears about poverty and the plight of the less fortunate, increasingly dramatic advocacy of women’s rights and suffrage, uncertainty about the effects of new technology, and an ongoing dread of future war that had been fuelled by the popular press ever since the 1870s. All of these topics emerge in the science fiction of the period. Notable authors from this time include H. G. Wells, George Griffith, and Jack London.

# data[].attributes.headline
Apollo 11: the mission which took man to the moon

# data[].attributes.subject
Apollo 11: the mission which took man to the moon

# data[].attributes.body
Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin formed the American crew that landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969. It was to be a monumental moment for humanity and inspired people like David Bowie who was renowned for his space-themed songs.

Buzz Aldrin on the moon

# data[].attributes.headline
Elon Musk: SpaceX: a pioneer in space exploration especially to Mars

# data[].attributes.subject
Elon Musk: SpaceX: a pioneer in space exploration especially to Mars

# data[].attributes.body
Space exploration now includes taking humans not only to the moon, but also to Mars. Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, is focussed on doing just that with its programme titled ‘Mars & beyond: the road to making humanity multiplanetary’.

Find out more about this on the SpaceX website:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Why Mars?

At an average distance of 140 million miles, Mars is one of Earth's closest habitable neighbors. Mars is about half again as far from the Sun as Earth is, so it still has decent sunlight. It is a little cold, but we can warm it up. Its atmosphere is primarily CO2 with some nitrogen and argon and a few other trace elements, which means that we can grow plants on Mars just by compressing the atmosphere. Gravity on Mars is about 38% of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around. Furthermore, the day is remarkably close to that of Earth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.

# data[].attributes.headline
Diet in space: what technology is there to allow you to grow fresh food in space

# data[].attributes.subject
Diet in space: what technology is there to allow you to grow fresh food in space

# data[].attributes.body
It’s no surprise to most of us that regularly eating fresh produce is a great way to support a healthy diet. Fresh fruits and vegetables benefit astronauts on the International Space Station, too – and soon the Moon and beyond. Scientists are investigating sustainable ways to grow highly nutritious foods in microgravity, to give space explorers a readily available supply of daily greens.

Follow this link to find out more about the latest invention, μg-LilyPond™, which allows for plants to be grown in space:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Space Lab Technologies, LLC and researchers in plant biology and aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder are working to establish duckweed as a nutrient dense space crop for deep space exploration. NASA first contracted Space Lab in 2017 to investigate a system capable of producing highly nutritious aquatic plants to supplement the crew's diet, μg-LilyPond™. μg-LilyPond ™ is an autonomous, environmentally controlled floating plant cultivation system for use in microgravity. In 2018, NASA awarded Space Lab a

Passive water & nutrient delivery

Volume efficiency

Minimal maintenance

Full life-cycle (seed to seed) support

Crop versatility

Phase II STTR for this effort. The system features several innovations relative to state-of-the-art:
​

Microgravity Plant Growth Chamber with microgreens (2020).

Duckweed species Wolffia Arrhiza after harvest (2020).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Space Lab Technologies, LLC and researchers in plant biology and aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder are working to establish duckweed as a nutrient dense space crop for deep space exploration. NASA first contracted Space Lab in 2017 to investigate a system capable of producing highly nutritious aquatic plants to supplement the crew's diet, μg-LilyPond™.

# data[].attributes.headline
Spacesuit engineering: the importance of well-designed spacesuits for life in space

# data[].attributes.subject
Spacesuit engineering: the importance of well-designed spacesuits for life in space

# data[].attributes.body
The latest technology is being deployed in spacesuit engineering to give the greatest protection possible to men and women astronauts.

Watch this video from NASA to see the spacesuit features in more detail:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
#AskNASA┃ What are the Next Generation Spacesuits?

# data[].attributes.headline
Radiation exposure: one of the biggest challenges in space exploration

# data[].attributes.subject
Radiation exposure: one of the biggest challenges in space exploration

# data[].attributes.body
One of the biggest challenges to humans and space travel is radiation exposure. This is a key part of the conversation about a human mission to Mars possible and has influenced the work of spacesuit engineers too.

Watch this clip to learn what NASA is working on to try and minimise the impact of radiation on humans in space exploration:

# data[].attributes.headline
Challenges to space exploration: what are the key problems for humans in space and how can we overcome them

# data[].attributes.subject
Challenges to space exploration: what are the key problems for humans in space and how can we overcome them

# data[].attributes.body
From the first space missions and man’s landing on the Moon with Apollo 11, being in space brings numerous challenges and risks to humans for example bone density loss, radiation exposure, maintaining a balanced and nutritious diet, and mental health problems. Watch this short video and make notes about the challenges of going to space and what it could mean for the future of space travel, which now has its eyes set on Mars.

Watch this video:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Earth's north magnetic pole is on the move - here's what will happen when our poles flip

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our protective shield might soon go into a transformation that could threaten the lives on Earth.