From the same Boy Scout booklet on models mentioned HERE are three illustrations of ships being used to launch satellites. I’ve written a bit more (and have somewhat higher rez images) HERE.
Jan 262012
Jan 262012
Say what else you will about Gingrich, he certainly has the right idea regarding the American space program: it needs to kick ass. Yesterday he suggested that the US could, should and would have a moon base by the end of his second term.
Of course, the naysayers came out:
Space experts ground Gingrich moon plan
“A lunar base by 2020 is a total fantasy,” John Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute
Well, no. The claim by Lodsdon is that an eight year timeframe to get a lunar base going is infeasible because it took us that long to get Apollo onto the moon, and the US was spending 4% of the FedGuv budget to do so, while today it’s well under 1%. But the logic is flawed for several reasons:
1) Apollo was starting from a position of technical ignorance; what they learned, we now know.
2) Apollo was busy building infrastructure… infrastructure that is in place.
3) Percentage rates for a program like this are irrelevant; to replicate Apollo down to the finest detail today would not require 4% of the FedGuv budget.
4) Too many people assume that the only way to run a program like this would be to shovel vast sums of money into NASA. There are better approaches. Simply offer $100 billion to the first American program that accomplishes a lunar base. Boeing will go for it. Lockheed will go for it. Virgin Galactic/Scaled Composites will go for it. Microsoft, Apple, Disney, Trump and Coca Cola will probably go for it. Let them use NASA facilities and expertise in the same way the American aeronautical industry used the NACA back in the pre-NASA days.
As Neil deGrasse Tyson said: “The naysayers out there are not the engineers, they are people who deeply understand the political system and recognise that certain conditions might not be possible given a particular climate.”
So… listen to the engineers. Ask them how *they’d* do it… in cahoots with entrepreneurs.
Jan 262012
Is there a more effective way for someone in the public eye – or who wants to be in the public eye – to self destruct than “social media” sites like Twitter? I guess throwing a cat off a bridge, maybe, but even that doesn’t seem to have garnered as much attention as the incredibly inane and incredibly NSFW Tweets of an intellectual giant of the age by name of Yuri Wright. Seems Mr. Wright, still in high school, wants to have a career in college football. So what does he do? Does he study hard to become the best college student he can?
Ummm… no. He posts to Twitter. A lot. And the posts… well… they don’t exactly do his family or hios schooling proud. For example:
No. Wait. Never mind on me reposting his tweets… they would not do The Unwanted Blog any damned good. Trust me, though, they’re damned funny in a “Oh, hell, the future belongs to THIS dumbass???” sort of way.
Now, why bring up the online blatherings of a high schooler? Because apparently he is supposed to be a big-time foosball recruit with all kinds of promise. Oddly, though, after a whole bunch of his racist (here’s a fun game: Imagine a racist guy named “Yuri.” Picture him in your mind. YOU’RE WRONG), sexist, and intellectual-negative-matter tweets, a number of universities that had been trying to recruit him have decided that they have better candidates to pursue. He was apparently in good with Michigan… but Michigan dropped him like a hot rock when they read his yammerings.
The reason given in the article was that his tweets were racially and sexually unacceptable. While those are, I suppose, reasonable reasons for a university to decide to not waste their money on a ready-made PR-disaster, to me a better reason would be that the level of intellect shown in the posts is really, really low. now, for all I know he’s a genius with an IQ that is not readily measurable who can quote Shakespeare, and he’s just acting like an uneducated moron for ill-conceived cultural reasons… but most likely, he’s an uneducated moron.
And because he can run and throw and catch a ball, universities were willing to blow large sums on him. Never mind the kid who could’ve actually contributed to society with a university degree; lets spend millions of dollars on degenerates.
Gah.
One more reason for the American educational system to undertake some common sense reforms.
Jan 262012
From a McDonnell Aircraft paper on Gemini design features… some drawings and info illustrating how to land a Gemini capsule on a runway using a Rogallo wing. It was noted that by offsetting the center of gravity 1 and three quarters of an inch from the longitudinal centerline, a hypersonic lift-to-drag ratio of about 0.22 would be generated, allowing some crossrange travel. The nose skid would deploy with the parawing; the main skids would be deployed by the pilot. The parawing would be cut loose on landing so that it would not interfere with the capsule slideout.
Jan 262012
This comes from Pravda, so take it for what it’s worth:
Russia unveils fifth-generation Kalashnikov assault rifle
Russia’s largest firearms manufacturer, JSC Izhmash, unveiled its first model of the fifth-generation Kalashnikov assault rifle. The new rifle is tentatively called AK-12. … The Picatinny rails were integrated in the construction of the AK-12. The rails are used to mount additional equipment: optical, collimating and night sights, mexometer, grenade launchers, lights, target indicators and other equipment.
If you’re like me, you read that and immediately wondered… “Wait, what? A ‘mexometer’?” And no, I’ve no idea what it is. The AK-12 is said to be primarily for the export market, so… maybe it’s a special add-on to make it more salable to the Juarez drug cartels?
Jan 262012
Woman Claims Neighbor’s Energy Efficient Windows Are Melting Her Toyota Prius
Solar power is going to KILL US ALL. Starting with the hybrid cars. I guess it’s kinda like how the Protestants and Catholics, or Shi’ites and Sunni, hate each other with a special passion even though they are so closely related. Soon enough solar panels will be assaulting wind turbines…
Jan 262012
Neato:
Most Amazing High Definition Image of Earth – Blue Marble 2012
A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012.
An 8000X8000 pixel version is available at the link.
Jan 262012
I don’t like coffee. So I don’t drink it (a lesson, here, for all those who are easily offended by various things). Since I don’t drink coffee, I don’t buy coffee. Since I don’t buy coffee, I don’t frequent businesses that focus on coffee. Thus, I’ve never been in a Starbucks establishment. However, I believe that on Valentine’s Day I shall find a Starbucks and buy a muffin or something. Why? Because the fascists in the anti-liberty industry have targetted Starbucks.
Boycott of Starbucks to launch on Valentine’s Day: End “open carry” gun policy
A nationwide boycott of Starbucks stores and its products will be launched on Valentine’s Day 2012. Its goal is to eliminate the risk of guns in public places and ultimately to bring sane gun laws to the U.S. … Currently, Starbucks allows guns and assault weapons to be openly carried in its stores (in 43 states) and concealed and carried in its stores (in 49 states) … “Starbucks allowing guns to be carried in thousands of their stores significantly increases everyone’s risk of being a victim of gun violence,” says Elliot Fineman, C.E.O. of the NGAC. “Open and conceal and carry are among the reasons there are 12,000 gun homicides each year in the U.S. If we had England’s gun laws we would expect 375 gun homicides each year — 97% less than we have. England’s gun laws are based on protecting public safety, ours on maximizing sales for the gun industry.”
Behold the stupidity and downright evil of the gun-grabbers. They want to control your lives, and they are willing to lie to your face to get you to give up your rights.
Jan 252012
Bastrop pastor charged with animal cruelty over death of neighbor’s cat
Short form: Pastor Rick Bartlett of Bastrop, TX, catches a neighbors cat (“Moody”) in a trap. Keeps the trapped cat in the trap for three days in the bed of his pickup truck. Then tosses the cat off of a bridge, when it crashes into the bank of the Colorado River 40 feet below. The cat is all busted up, found by a random stranger, then dies.
The family that owned the 11 year old cat tried to explain to their 5-year-old daughter that the pastor had killed the cat, and now he was in Heaven. The child responds with wisdom far beyond her years:
“‘I don’t believe in Heaven anymore, Moody’s just dead.”
It’s been said that the most effective way to make an atheist is to make someone read the Bible. But I think having a preacher chuck a beloved pet cat off a bridge might be even more effective.
Jan 252012
When you buy something from me via PayPal, PayPal sends me an email notification of that fact (99% of the time, anyway… they have slipped up from time to time). The email notification has also had the buyers email address as the “from” email.This made things fairly easy… I simply replied to that email, including the relevant downloading links and passwords and such.
But starting yesterday the “from” email was “serviceATpaypal.com.” I didn’t catch that for the first few, and those emails went awry until I figured out something screwy was going on. I sent PayPal a nastygram about the situation, and this was the response:
This recent change was to fix a previous bug for this same issue. The previous functionality of showing the buyer’s email address in the “from” field was not intended and this update corrected that. Therefore, this new “from” address of serviceATpaypal.com is intended and will be this way going forward.
Grrr. Strictly speaking this should not provide *too* much difficulty, as the email does include the buyers address; but when you’ve gotten used to doing something a certain way for *years,* Change Is Bad. So there may be more slipups in the future. If’n you order and nothing happens within a half day or so, send me an email.