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Ten top books for geeks to read in 2017

What’s Bill Gates reading now? We’re taking a guess. (Gates Foundation Photo)

Geeks and books go together like athletes and balls, but just as there are different sports, there are different types of geek reading. We’ve put together a top-10 list of books on a wide spectrum of geeky topics, all published over the past year.

Some of these picks should help you prepare for what promises to be a … well, let’s call it an “interesting” year for geeks and everyone else. Others will provide an opportunity for respite and reflection, with a few geeky tweaks.

In addition to the list you see here, check out our list of 21 science books for the holidays in 2016, plus this year’s top five reads from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. And don’t be surprised if some of these top 10 for 2017 end up on Gates’ reading list during the coming year.

Get the full list on GeekWire.

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Christmas in space features French cuisine

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson floats inside the International Space Station. (NASA Photo)

Spacefliers on the International Space Station will be getting the traditional Christmas turkey dinner, coming out of a not-so-traditional food storage pouch – but they’ll also be getting something extra, courtesy of French astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

French chefs have prepared a spread of canned foods that kick space cuisine up a notch, including Normandy-style ox tongue, chicken supreme with morel mushrooms and apple gingerbread for dessert.

“I have enough for everybody on the crew,” Pesquet said.

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SpaceShipTwo gets one last flight test for 2016

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity glides above California’s Mojave Desert. (Virgin Galactic Photo)

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo craft, VSS Unity, took its second free-flying test run today, closing off a rebuilding year for the space venture.

At the start of the year, the company was still finishing up work on its second SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, incorporating the lessons learned from the breakup of the first SpaceShipTwo in October 2014.

That accident occurred during a rocket-powered test, killing co-pilot Mike Alsbury and severely injuring pilot Pete Siebold. Investigators blamed pilot error as well as a host of other contributing factors.

VSS Unity rolled out this February amid a burst of Virgin-style hoopla, and since then the SpaceShipTwo team has been conducting a low-profile series of tests. The 27-foot-wide plane was released from its WhiteKnightTwo mothership for its first unpowered glide flight on Dec. 3.

Today’s flight from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port followed a similar profile, with the aim of checking the craft’s aerodynamics under a variety of conditions. Virgin Galactic’s Dave Mackay and Mark Stucky repeated their roles as SpaceShipTwo’s pilots.

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2016: The Year in Aerospace and Science

A visualization shows gravitational waves produced by orbiting black holes. (NASA Graphic / C. Henze)

The biggest science story of 2016 was a century in the making, and will surely earn someone a Nobel Prize. The first detection of gravitational waves from the crash of two black holes is important not only for the physics of the past and present, but for the physics of the future as well.

The discovery – made by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO – serves as powerful confirmation for Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which was published in 1916. It also points the way for scientists to study black holes and other exotic phenomena that can’t be observed using the traditional tools of astronomy.

“What’s really exciting is what comes next,” David Reitze, executive director of the LIGO Laboratory, said when the discovery was announced in February. “I think we’re opening a window on the universe – a window of gravitational wave astronomy.”

Check out 2016’s top 10 stories and 2017’s top 5 trends on GeekWire.

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Starship science is built into ‘Passengers’ script

The starship Avalon approaches Arcturus in a scene from “Passengers.” (Sony Pictures via YouTube)

The science is under the hood in “Passengers,” a love story set on a giant starship – and screenwriter Jon Spaihts is the guy who put it there.

Chances are most movie fans are going to the movie to see Hollywood stars Jennifer Lawrence (“The Hunger Games,” etc.) and Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” etc.) rather than to get a tutorial on the physics of the Coriolis effect on a rotating spacecraft. But just in case there are some space geeks in the audience, Spaihts made sure the math works out.

The one-time physics student and science writer has already made a name for himself as “Hollywood’s go-to science fiction screenwriter,” thanks to his work on “Prometheus,” “Doctor Strange” and the upcoming reboot of “The Mummy.”

For “Passengers,” Spaihts created a setting that is both expansive and claustrophobic. All of the action takes place on a starship traveling across light-years of emptiness to a colony world.

But what a starship! “The ship is a character unto itself,” the film’s director, Morten Tyldum, told GeekWire.

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XPRIZE clears Japanese mission to the moon

Japan’s Team Hakuto is testing two small rovers known as Tetris (left foreground) and Moonraker (right background). The rovers would ride along with Team Indus’ spacecraft. (Team Hakuto Photo)

The rocketeers on Japan’s Team Hakuto say they’ve gotten the Google Lunar XPRIZE’s seal of approval on its plans for a mission to the moon.

The XPRIZE verification of Team Hakuto’s launch agreement with India’s Team Indus boosts the number of approved competitors to five. That includes Team Indus as well as Moon Express, Synergy Moon and SpaceIL.

“The Google Lunar XPRIZE has always pushed us beyond our limits” Takeshi Hakamada, Team Hakuto’s leader, said in today’s news release. “We will continue to challenge ourselves next year and choose an optimal path to reach the moon.”

Team Hakuto is run by a Tokyo-based startup called ispace, and draws upon expertise from faculty and students at Tohoku University.

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Who would you go to Mars with? Here’s a list

Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence star in the movie “Passengers,” which tells the tale of a space journey far beyond Mars. (Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures)

A just-for-fun survey suggests that three out of every 10 Americans have thought about going to Mars, and almost half of them have thought about it more seriously after the presidential election.

The finding come from an online survey conducted by Kelton Global to mesh with National Geographic Channel’s six-part TV miniseries, “Mars,” which finishes up with an episode premiering tonight.

The breakdown suggests that men give more thought to Mars trips than women, and that Millennials are more on board with the idea than baby boomers. Overall, 44 percent of the 1,024 survey respondents said they’re more likely to want to travel to Mars in the wake of last month’s election.

So who would they want to leave behind? Actually, President-elect Donald Trump was the most popular candidate on the survey’s list: He was chosen by 46 percent of those surveyed, with Kanye West, Kim Kardashian and Hillary Clinton close behind. (To be fair, the respondents could select more than one celebrity to drop off.)

There was also a list of potential traveling companions. Actress Jennifer Lawrence, who stars as a space traveler in the newly released movie “Passengers,” scored the highest overall.

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SoftBank boosts OneWeb satellite network

An artist’s conception shows a constellation of satellites in orbit. (Credit: OneWeb)

The OneWeb internet satellite venture says it has secured another $1.2 billion in investment, including a billion dollars from SoftBank Group.

OneWeb said the new infusion of capital will support the construction of a high-volume satellite production facility in Exploration Park, Fla., capable of producing 15 satellites a week. Production is to begin in 2018, with an eye toward having OneWeb’s network operating by as early as 2019.

The operation is expected to create nearly 3,000 new jobs in the U.S. over the next four years, including jobs in engineering and manufacturing, OneWeb said.

SoftBank’s investment serves as an initial follow-through on a pledge made by the Japan-based conglomerate’s chairman and CEO, Masayoshi Son, to President-elect Donald Trump. During a meeting in New York this month, Son told Trump that he’d invest $50 billion in the U.S. to create 50,000 jobs.

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Star Wars fans turn out in Force for ‘Rogue One’

Software engineer Margaret Urfer strikes a Jedi knight pose after a “Rogue One” showing at Lincoln Square Cinemas in Bellevue, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

“Rogue One” may not have a Roman numeral in its name, but Dec. 15’s debut nevertheless brought out costumed Jedi knights and other Star Wars fans in droves.

Most of them went back into the night with smiles on their faces. And at least one of them, Makenna Hoffard, thought it was better than VII.

“I was expecting not to like it,” Hoffard, a recent graduate from the University of Washington, said after the 10:30 p.m. showing at Lincoln Square Cinemas in Bellevue, Wash.

She knows the ins and outs of the Star Wars canon, based on myriad spin-off books as well as the movies, and she said the latest film “upheld the story” even though it’s a stand-alone film and not officially part of the nine-episode big-screen masterwork.

“They made it modern and funny, like a Marvel movie kind of vibe,” she said.

Hoffard couldn’t say the same for last year’s Episode VII, “The Force Awakens,” which she faulted for taking too many liberties with the canon. “I cried after the seventh movie, and not in a good way,” she said.

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Water, water everywhere on dwarf planet Ceres

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft determined the hydrogen content of the upper yard, or meter, of Ceres’ surface. Blue indicates where hydrogen content is higher, near the poles, while red indicates lower content at lower latitudes. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / PSI Photo)

Readings from instruments aboard NASA’s Dawn orbiter support the view that a treasure trove of frozen water lies just beneath the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres.

Researchers reported those findings today at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting San Francisco, as well as in two papers published by Nature Astronomy and Science.

The findings are based on hydrogen readings from Dawn’s gamma ray and neutron detector, or GRaND, as well as from the spacecraft’s cameras and infrared mapping spectrometer.

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