If we think of Hollywood as a great and giving ocean, and every genre a bay into which it washes, there is no inlet more polluted than science fiction. ...Kirk Douglas...has given us a pair of science fiction films this year. ...Saturn 3... "I wanted to be able to do a science-fiction picture of some kind, and this...intrigued me. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon, including myself." ...while we can allow Douglas the commercial zeal that helped put $11 million worth of sludge on the science-fiction screen, it is harder to justify...The Final Countdown.
Video/The Arts, by Stephen Demorest
...home video has crept into the middle class. ...Universal and Walt Disney Productions brought suit against Sony...against the sale and manufacture of the video copier... The court denied the plaintiffs... Now you can saunter into Macy's, check out 75 varying models tagged as low as $700 - about the cost of a decent stereo system... Last fall Billboard published its first Video Top 40...Fotomat inaugurated video-cassette rentals ($8 per movie); and Time-Life fanfared its brand-new mail-order Video Club.
Repeaters/UFO Update, by James Oberg
The only reason why UFOs were discussed at the U.N. at all was that Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy of Grenada has insisted upon bringing various UFO specialists to the U.N. under the umbrella of his...nation's delegation. When Gairy was deposed in a surprise coup d'etat last year, the topic of UFOs vanished quickly from the world body's agenda...
Continuum/Wind Farm, by J.D.
The Boeing Engineering and Construction Company, with the Federal Department of Energy (DOE), NASA, and the Boneville Power Administration (BPA), is constructing a "wind farm" at Goodnoe Hills... Right now the DOE has other wind generators - all test models - running in New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Puerto Rico and Rhode Island. ...the Boeing generators...will be the world's biggest and will produce the most power.
Universe Red, by Craig Covault
...the news media fail to grasp the economic and functional importance or aerospace technology. When did you last see anything on television dealing with Soviet space research? During the last three years the Russians have learned to accommodate humans in space for long periods. This new ability furnishes the USSR military and civil powers... A new Soviet killer-satellite system now threatens several of our low-altitude spacecraft.
Tanking, by John Gorman
...the Isolation Tank. Paddy Chayefsky's book Altered States tells me I'm heading into a chamber of inner horrors. Dr. John Lilly, developer of the isolation tank, says I will find the perfect sublime setting for, in Shakespeare's words, "Mending the ravelled sleeve of care." Robert Tynhurst, managing partner of Samadhi Tank Works, which has sold more than 1,000 tanks in the past few years, calls isolation tanking, "the opportunity for complete privacy" that will "someday be found in every skyscraper and home." "The sensory-isolation experience," Dr. Jay Shurley, a psychiatry professor at Oklahoma Medical School who has worked with the tanks for 25 years, says, "should be part of the curriculum growing up, offered in the late teens or early twenties to persons who want to facilitate their own personal growth. In a world where 'future shock' is a growing problem..."
Interview/Denis Hayes, by Eric Rosen
Omni: What's slowing the solar transition?
Hayes: There's enough blame to go around. ...for promising tax credits and then dawdling around for eighteen months before passing them. Lots of people postponed their decisions...others are now waiting for their states to pass supplementary credits. ...government...delays have forced many small solar firms into bankruptcy. Some of the early solar installations leaked; some froze; some melted; some were installed backwards. Many solar firms viewed the market as limited to wealthy and upper-middle-income folks who like to be venturesome. So they advertised solar technology as sexy and daring. ...it must be acknowledged to be just one more appliance like a refrigerator or an air conditioner...
SPACE The 'Cancelled' Frontier?
...the United States "is not" taking full advantage of the new age of industries and settlements in space.
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