It’s a big day for space flights today. Not only is it the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight (accomplished April 12, 1961 by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin), but it’s also the 30th anniversary of the first space flight of NASA’s Space Shuttle STS-1 (launched on April 12, 1981).

To top it all off, according to NASA, William Shatner is going help NASA pay tribute to 30 years of the Space Shuttle program today at 1pm EDT. Watch NASA TV and Nasa.gov at 1pm EDT to see/hear The Shat!! We don’t know any more specifics than that, but we’re definitely not going to miss a chance to hear from NASA and The Shat in the same broadcast!!

Here a couple of quick links so you can get your Shat on:

NASA

NASA TV

Ohhh myyy, our favorite helmsman (yes we know he was captain of the Excelsior) George Takei has lent his name and appearance to new commercials for the Social Security Administration.  We know George's age, but man, he looks too young to qualify for Social Security.  George stars opposite Patty Duke in the Star Trek spoofs where both don pseudo TOS uniforms and perform in front of a green screen.  

"You’ve navigated through asteroid belts, right?” Patty asks. “Well, compared to that, navigating socialsecurity.gov is a snap. It’s so easy even Kirk could do it.”  Neither Patty nor George were paid for the endorsement. George explains, “I have some notoriety from Star Trek and this is a way to get people to note the fact that we can now go online to apply for Social Security,” 

As we reported last month, Riverside, Iowa's TrekFest was in dire straits and would possibly be put on hold this year.  Luckily though, that's now not the case.  According to an article in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, a not-for-profit organization called the Mindbridge Foudation stepped in with the final $5000 and saved the day.  Mindbridge is an orginization in eastern Iowa created to provide social venues and a social outlet for people interested in science-fiction, fantasy, nongambling gaming, anime, and related.  

We’ve made it no secret that we love Shran err Weyoun ummm Brunt …wait…I mean Jeffrey Combs (that always happens). So, of course, we’re super stoked to report that you can now see him all year long, live and on stage. He’s scheduled to perform Nevermore once a month at the Steve Allen Theater in Los Angeles through the end of the year. *Squeeeeee!!!*

If you haven’t seen this one man play stop what you’re doing and go see it now. Ok…maybe that was a little dramatic, but it’s so totally awesome that I couldn’t help myself. It’s an amazing peek through the window of time into what it must have really been like to see Edgar Allan Poe in person. Jeffrey gives an amazing performance of the man himself…not to mention the poetry.

If you're in the Lake Charles, Louisiana area at the end of this month, or you have the need to hang with your Trek brethren, make your way to BayouCon April 28th through May 1st.  BayouCon, formerly Con Du Lac, is a fan run scifi convention for the Southwest Louisana area.  According to the official website; In 2009 the convention launched as a Sci-Fi convention and was held at the Enos Derbonne Sports Complex in Lake Charles.  2010 brought about new growth and new opportunities as the festival moved downtown to the Civic Center."  This year BayouCon is featuring Trek favs & friends as their honored media guests.  Max Grodenchik (Rom DS9) & Vaughn Armstrong (Admiral Forest Enterprise & countless characters from TNG to VOY) will be in attendance plus more, check out the full list below.

(Intro from Captain Pyke -- Subspace Communique would like to give a warm welcome to blogger & columnist Terilynn Shull and introduce you to a new article series focused solely on Star Trek Online called "STO: Uplink". This new series will be written from a player perspective and cover the latest news and happenings in the STO universe. Be sure to leave comments below welcoming Terilynn to the site. We're sure glad she's here.)

So another pre-celebratory "First Contact" day is upon us and we're celebrating by rocking out to some Steppenwolf and working on our prototype warp drive.  Just because it's made of aluminum foil and toilet paper tubes still makes it a prototype, right?....

Moving on, so we've done some searching and can't seem to find a listed date for Zefram Cochrane's birth.  From viewing "Star Trek: First Contact" we can assume that The Z-man is probably in his late 50s early 60s at the time of the Vulcan's arrival.  So, with our limited math skills and the fact the First Contact happened on April 5th, 2063 we can deduce that Zefram has been born already or is soon to be.  This lead to another thought…

What if we don't experience things foretold in Trek.  For instance, the Bell Riots are just around the corner in 2024 and Col. Steven Richey's ill-fated space flight is only decades away.  What if these things never happen?  We've gathered a few possible outcomes...

We’re so excited to have been here with you for two years on the nose, today! Is that cake I smell? A couple of articles ago we mentioned that we’ve had a blast bringing you all the Trek Culture we could round up.

We’ve spent the last two years traversing the net and the physical world in search of (Leonard Nimoy reference) all the things Trek culture.  What’s Trek culture you ask?  Well, we consider it more of a lifestyle than just a mere hobby or interest.   One of our readers said it best… “Not Trek news, Not Sci-Fi, but Culture. We as trekkies have a culture {and} we are not just limited to canon. We expand upon it and incorporate other parts of star trek into our daily lives. It affects how we live and interact. “the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group” that is culture." 

Shore Leave 33 is steadily approaching and a brand new guest list has been launched on the official website. Our good friend Miles from The Scifi Diner Podcast dropped us a note saying that a few of our Trek favs will be on hand at the year's event. If you've missed Shore Leave the last few years, Miles has provided reports for Subspace Communique from Shore Leave 31 & 32. Be sure to check those out and see just what you're missing. Details and guest list for Shore Leave 33 can be found below.

Shore Leave 33