After streaming series, Away, reached top viewing at Netflix upon its release it was fairly promptly rewarded with a *non-renewal*. That’s not very easy to explain, though Netflix cites the problems with keeping up with costs of making a sci fi series. That makes this the second series (along with Hulu’s The First) that took us to Mars without really doing anything there (or actually, The First just launched to Mars at the end of the first season). Ah, well. I guess we’ll have to wait for a third streaming series to actually *do* something on Mars! Even big stars such as Sean Penn and Hillary Swank couldn’t save the demise of the previous two (or maybe the need to pay them was part of the reason for the cancellation!)

In other news, it seems like the Venus phosphine has gone away. That is, the original discovery can not be confirmed. So, it looks like speculation about life on Venus, which was tenuous even with the knowledge of a phosphine discovery is now even more tenuous. But keep posted. We’ll see if more sensitive instruments detect phosphine on Venus.

Also, be on the lookout this weekend (Saturday afternoon/evening in the Americas) for the second launch of the Crew Dragon (technically the first, since the Bob and Dough flight was considered to be a test flight). Space X has had a particularly good record in recent years. Lets see what’s next!

If you’d like to read about science of science fiction, check out my (Steve Bloom) book, The Physics and Astronomy of Science Fiction, available from the publisher, McFarland, and your favorite online book store (Amazon, Barnes and Noble).