Some time back I came across a few diagrams of the Martin B-57B&C bomber.
I have uploaded the full resolution scans (600 dpi) to the 2019-08 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to $4 and up subscribers to the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
Obviously, rockets *do* work. And yet, there are people who believe they don’t. These people are sometimes flat Earthers, who cannot reconcile space travel with their world view and thus conclude that Its A Conspiracy. Sometimes they are people who fundamentally misunderstand basic physics and believe that rockets need something to push against, thus they can’t work in a vacuum. And then there’s this guy. At least Sir Sic’s mockery of him is entertaining.
As it turns out, I approve of this kind of “other ways of knowing.” I fully support the idea of the US federal Government expending considerable time, funds and efforts to promote this kind of thinking. It’s just that I want them to promote this kind of things *elsewhere.* Convince the Chinese and the Norks and the Iranians to accept this sort of thing and base their space programs around it.
This time, Chinese.
Congrats, of course. But SpaceX might want to take a look at their security procedures. Not saying the ChiComs couldn’t have done this on their own, but it’s hardly unlikely that they cheated.
Chinese launch firm Linkspace carried out a third hop test with its RLV-T5 tech demonstrator today, reaching ~300 metres in a 50-second flight, following with a successful powered descent and vertical landing. Source: https://t.co/4oz5PmyLyw pic.twitter.com/Odmztf0Ep0
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) August 10, 2019
“Cancelled” as in the release, originally scheduled for September, has been put off for some time in the future when perhaps people have forgotten that this is a movie about rich liberals gleefully murdering right wingers, gun owners and pro-life activists.
Unrelated, but certainly interesting:
Huh. Imagine that: a guy who, if he had been allowed to testify, could have brought down many rich liberals suddenly finds himself on the wrong side of mortality.
Huh.
I may be running this incident into the ground, but *dayum* is this longer video a hoot to watch. It’s amazing – thought perhaps not surprising – the levels these morons go to to fetishize weakness. A few questions consequently demand answering:
1) How are they going to handle all the firings squads, death camps and gulags they’ll need in order to impose their ideology on sane people if they cannot stand *chatter* without losing their little minds? How will they concentrate on the Five Year Plan when the air is filled with the screams of dying millions?
2) How do these chaotic goobers think they’re going to be able to organize a Revolution if they can’t figure out how to vote?
3) Is the Trump reelection campaign smart enough to use clips from this in their ads?
This is it, folks. It’s all downhill from here.
Now you won’t be plagued by the nightmare of having to pick the little bits of foamed sugar out of bowls of pesky sugar-encrusted cereal. There is now nothing left to strive for.
There seems to be something wrong with our bloody Russians this week.
But wait! There’s more!
Ummmm…
Radiation levels peaked between 11:50 and 12:30 (08:50-09:30 GMT) before falling and normalising by 14:00, the city administration in Severodvinsk said on its website, without reporting how significant the spike had been.
…
“They advise everyone to close their windows and drink iodine, 44 drops per glass of water.”
And…
UMMMMM…..
The Daily Mail article suggests that this was a “Zircon” hypersonic missile that exploded. The 3M22 Zircon is an experimental scramjet-powered anti-ship/land target missile with range of about a thousand miles, with the capability of carrying a 600 kiloton thermonuclear warhead. If there was a radiation release, that would indicate that the missile was carrying an actual nuclear warhead… something that seems *really* unwise for a peacetime test flight. it’s unlikely that the warhead actually detonated; that would be Big News virtually impossible to hide. Instead I guess the warhead must have either been blown apart by the chemical explosives, or trashed on impact. in either case, it seems a little odd that the radiation spike would go back down. You’d think there’d need to be a substantial cleanup. Unless, I suppose, the plutonium actually caught fire and burned and the smoke rifted downrange…
There is also speculation that this wasn’t a Zircon, but a Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile. The existence of a truly nuclear powered Burevestnik is by no means certain, but who knows. In the unlikely case that this what what crashed, then perhaps the burst of radiation came from the engine melting down in flight or on impact; the drop in radiation coming as the reactor sank into mud or a pond or even just the dirt. Shrug.
A few more videos of these… “people” to mull over.
A few people react to and provide some thoughts about that gathering of psychological defectives:
We’re in something of a golden age of model kits for the Star Destroyer from Star Wars. NOTE: this applies only to the Star Destroyers form the original trilogy; if you want a model of the Star Destroyer from the sequel trilogy, you’re just plain out of luck. Just as if you’d wanted the sequel trilogy to actually be *good* Star Wars, I suppose.
Anyway, the Japanese model kit company Bandai is soon to release two new SD models. Bandai mostly seems to focus on kits of those ridiculous anthropomorphic giant robotic “mech suit” things that are apparently overly popular in anime, but their Star Wars kits are usually exquisite.
As always: if you order one of the items from the Amazon link below, or use the link to go further into Amazon and buy other stuff, I get a small pittance. So you can help a brother out while loading up on Star Destroyers.
First up a 1/5000 scale Star Destroyer, complete with in-scale blockade runner and Millenium Falcon. The SD is modeled after the one from “Empire Strikes Back” which is substantially different from the one in “A New Hope” (and “Rogue One”), so the blockade runner is a little out of place, but I don’t suppose too many people are gonna care.
At 12.6 inches long, it’ll be a little smaller and a lot more expensive than the smaller of the Revell kits, but the detailing should be vastly improved.
Also coming soon from Bandai, a dinkyscale model of the Super Star Destroyer. Small, but cheap and very likely ridiculously detailed.
If you want a more sizable (more than 2 feet long) Super Star Destroyer, and especially if you don’t want to have to put one together, this just came on the market. It seems to be well received.
Available for a few years now is the Bandai dinkyscale Star Destroyer. Cheap, but a beautiful little thing. I’ve shown one I built hereabouts before.
Also available for some years now is the smaller of the two Revell models, a “Snaptite Build and Play” kit. Low on detail, but reasonably accurate, with a built-in sound and light system. Designed more or less to be built by kids, assembly is easy and quick, and the parts thickness is such to make it pretty rugged.
Last is the gigantic 1/2700 kit, originally released by the Russian model kit company Zvezda, re-released by Revell. Pricey, but since it’s about twice the size of the new Bandai kit while being only 25%or so more expensive, it’s a pretty good deal. Assuming, of course, you have someplace to put it.
Stay classy, kids.