Lost In Space's Robot Has Lost His Voice

Airlock Alpha reports that the iconic voice of the 60s classic Lost in Space's robot has died. Dick Tufeld who's famous lines like "Danger, Will Robinson" and "That does not compute"  died Jan. 22 he was 85.

Tufeld worked on many of producer Irwin Allen's productions such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and  The Time Tunnel though, as AA points out, his work often went uncredited.

Tufeld is survived by two sons, two daughters and six grandchildren.   His wife Adrienne died in 2004.   

RIP: B9

A recent article in SF Signal:

Sad news...

Yahoo and others are reporting that Bob May has passed away at 69.

May was known to SciFi fans as The Robot in the Lost in Space television series from the 1960s.

From the Yahoo article

• "He always said he got the job because he fit in the robot suit," said June Lockhart, who played family matriarch Maureen Robinson. "It was one of those wonderful Hollywood stories. He just happened to be on the studio lot when someone saw him and sent him to see Irwin Allen about the part. Allen said, 'If you can fit in the suit, you've got the job.'"

This was not the only time he worked with Allen however or in the genre. May appeared in a Time Tunnel episode as well - playing of all thing Adolf Hitler in the episode called "The Kidnappers".

Bob May's home page Wiki page

Space station's future threatened

According to NewScientist online magazine

NASA and its international partners may be hard-pressed to keep the space station alive after the planned retirement of the space shuttle in 2010. The US House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology's Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics held a hearing on the status of the space shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS) on July 24th in Washington, DC, US. After the shuttles retire in 2010, current plans call for other vehicles, such as the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), to pick up some of the slack.

NASA is relying on commercial space vehicles currently under development in its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) programme to make up the rest.

But Tommy Holloway, who retired in 2002 from his position as manager of NASA's space station programme, said he doubts that the commercial vehicles will be ready by the time the shuttles retire, as planned.

thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post

Female pilots reached for the stars

I found a neat article on early Mercury era female test pilots on the CNN site. Here is an excerpt :

Nearly half a century ago, 13 female pilots proved they were as fit to go into space as the men who became immortalized as America's first astronauts, the Mercury 7.

The women underwent the same intensive medical tests, at the same Albuquerque, New Mexico, clinic, administered by the same staff, as the men did two years earlier.

"When you put them next to the men, they were as good or better," recalled Dr. Donald Kilgore, who helped test both the men and women between 1959 and 1961 at the Lovelace Clinic.

What was the women's biggest obstacle?

"Ovaries," said Kilgore. "The world just wasn't ready at that time."

click on the article title for more.

Space station moves to avoid debris

UPI reports that the International Space Station has had to change its orbit to avoid being hit by orbiting space debris from a satellite destroyed by China.

In January China had used a ground-based missile to hit one its aging weather satellites. The United States filed a diplomatic protest because the weather satellite used approximately the same orbit as its spy satellites. Canada, Australia and Japan also objected.

Russian and the U.S. are both tracking fragments from the destroyed weather satellite. U.S. officials said they have tracked 525 large fragments and had recorded between 500 and 600 instances of debris passing within three miles of orbiting satellites. However it should be noted that the international space station is in no danger of being hit by any of these fragments.

posted by Shaun A. Saunders

Another Attempt To Resurrect 'Lost In Space'

Sci-fi notes that: Although Lost in Space failed to get box office attention in 1998, there's still talk about bringing it back to fans in some shape or form, most likely another movie.

One of the 1998 film's producers, Mark Koch, said that while the film didn't do the type of box office business the studio had projected, there was an original plan of doing a whole series of movies. In fact, New Line Cinema was so confident the film would do well tht the actors, including Matt LeBlanc, were signed on to do three movies. While those movies didn't happen, there's still a chance that "Lost In Space" could be successful in a series of direct-to-DVD films, Koch said.

Koch said he's already talked with the former "Friends" star LeBlanc about returning, and he was "keen to play Don West again."