The Chess Men of Mars + Funny Alien Chess Video!

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

NASA's rover Curiosity landed on Mars early Monday transmitting images back to Earth after traveling hundreds of millions of miles through space. It was a jaw-dropping landing process involving a sky crane and the world's largest supersonic parachute. It's a first for mankind! (Photo: Theme chess board based on the Alien movies franchise.)

What's that got to do with chess? We're reminded of several things:

- The Chessmen of Mars is an Edgar Rice Burroughs science fiction novel, the fifth of his famous Barsoom series. Burroughs began writing it in January, 1921, and the finished story was first published in Argosy All-Story Weekly as a six-part serial. Burroughs was a keen chess player, and played games with his assistant, John Shea, while writing the novel, which he invariably won. The novel can be classed as a planetary romance. This genre is a subset of science fiction, similar to sword and sorcery, but including scientific elements.

- Is space like a chess board? In a study aimed at developing ultra-fast transistors using graphene, researchers from the UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy and the California NanoSystems Institute show that dividing space into discrete locations, like a chessboard, may explain how point-like electrons, which have no finite radius, manage to carry their intrinsic angular momentum, or "spin." Read the full Chess Blog post.

- Cool video: Astronauts vs earthlings chess match: Here is the first video coming in straight from space. STS-134 astronauts Greg Johnson and Greg Chamitoff ponder their next move for the Earth vs. Space chess match. The shuttle crew members also discuss their activities aboard the International Space Station and the benefits of playing chess. Read the full Chess Blog post.

Crew of Mars-flight simulation play chess with ex-world champion Anatoly Karpov: More on space and chess: An international team of researchers launched a grueling simulation of a flight to Mars that will keep them locked in a cascade of windowless modules for 520 days - the amount of time required for a return trip to the Red Planet. As part of efforts to keep the crew in good spirits, they played a match with former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov! Read the full Chess Blog post.

P.S. Another chess video from Star Trek

There are several other Star Trek chess video as well.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com