We had the idea for the story of “Lunatics!” as far back as 2003. But it wasn’t really clear what form it would take. Making it into an “online TV series” was always the way I visualized it, but I didn’t see how that would be possible. Prior to this, in 2000, I also discovered the world of free-software and Linux . I was very impressed with the quality and culture of free-software projects. Comparing the success of GNU/Linux software to the constant mired, limited, and poltiically-complex world of space development really made me want to understand how free-sofware got made and how the same principles could be extended into other fields of endeavor.
Terry Hancock is currently busy mixing voice recordings for the dialog in “No Children in Space”. This is mostly a matter of fitting all of the lines together and making sure th levels match and the lines will fit reasonably well together. Last wee we shipped the artbooks and posters from our first Kickstarter — hopefully backers have either already received these by now or will in the next few days. Of course, we are still waiting a little longer on the data disks, as we hope to include the audio/animatic production tha we’re working on now.
I get these questions a lot, so I’m answering it here and including it in the FAQ: (TL;DR version: “NO” and “PROBABLY, but with some qualifications”) IMAGE: Georgiana Lerner in the “Kazbek-Compatible Child Seat” for “No Children in Space”. The original Kazbek design won’t accommodate someone as small as a 7-year-old child, so the International Space Foundation had to commission a specially-engineered solution. Her spacesuit is also custom (derived from a US design) and requires an adapter (integrated into the seat) to interface with the Soyuz-SF life-support system. (Couch model by Sathish Kumar, character model by Andrew Pray).
This last week, I mostly spent getting up to speed with Blender’s scripting interface for Python. I have to admit to being a little anxious about this, but it’s really pretty simple stuff once you get started (that’s always the hard part!). Daniel’s working on the model sheets. And I’m starting to write the structural parts of the book we’re creating as part of the production process.
Some of you may be wondering where this “Phase I” Kickstart (and the work it’s meant to support) falls in our overall plan, and just how far it will take us. I don’t know exactly how fast we can progress — whether we’ll be able to keep getting enough people interested in contributing directly to the project or how many rewards, pre-sale DVDs, or merchandise we’ll be able to sell to keep the project funded. That’s really going to depend on the fans.
