Jan 252014
 

Couple being very ill with desperately trying to make a dime, I’ve not had much opportunity to scour my files recently for aerospace projects to blog about. So here’s one: a notion for a fully reusable two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle produced by North American around 1963. This was part of a study for reusable launchers with a payload of 50 to 100 tons, with the baseline design being a reusable version of the Saturn V.

This design was at the far end of the possible designs, with “nail wings onto S-IC and S-II stages” being on the near-term end. This design would be fully reusable with both stages manned and powered by LOX/LH2 burning expansion-deflection rocket engines. As with many such designs of the time, the wing area is relatively gigantic.

tsto

 Posted by at 6:02 pm
Jan 252014
 

These photos are from November, and depict a rare moment in this house… Raedthinn and Buttons curling up together. As memory serves, it was a cold day and I had the thermostat cranked up all the way to 58 or so, a level of temperature that makes the cats remarkably sociable.

Dsc_1016 Dsc_1012

 Posted by at 5:34 pm
Jan 252014
 

A little while I stumbled across this small animation of a MIRV coming in and detonating. It’s interesting, but not entirely accurate: the aft end is a blank spot, when there should be reaction control thrusters back there. Anyone know what this is from?

f43

 Posted by at 10:27 am
Jan 252014
 

After an exciting day of acting the buffoon…

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… Buttons needs to find a place to hunker down for a good nap. As often as possible, that place is on top of *me.*

 

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 Posted by at 10:04 am
Jan 242014
 

Years ago I made the decision that I wouldn’t post photos of naked women on this blog. Oh, sure, that’s all very dignified and adult and such, but it’s hardly the road to financial prosperity. If you want to get rich, whatever you’re doing is more profitable if you drape a nekkid hottie over it. Why should this be? Because everybody likes nekkid hotties. It’s just programmed into us (well, most of us, anywhere). And knowing that it’s programmed into us, military forces around the world have taken advantage of that to make dry technical stuff more interesting to young testosterone-filled alpha males. Take, for example, this page from a flight manual for the Northrop F-89 circa 1957:

f-89 stacked

I’ve seen a few examples of this sort of thing… random illustrations of scantily/un-clad women and double entendre in technical manuals. The Golden Age for this sort of thing seems to have been the 1950’s… it sure as hell wouldn’t fly today.

And because why not: here’s the F-89.

F-89

 Posted by at 5:44 pm
Jan 242014
 

“Play” seems to be a mark of advancement up the evolutionary ladder. Mammals as a rule play; predatory mammals play more (compare your cat or dog to a rabbit). Sea lions also fit into this, as this video shot near the Farne Islands (Britain) in October shows.

Keep in mind, these guys could *shred* a human diver if they so chose. They chose otherwise.

[vimeo 78209843]

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion, though, that some busybody bureaocratic legislators have probably made such positive interspecies interactions illegal?

 Posted by at 5:11 pm
Jan 242014
 

From the birth announcements section of “The Elkhart Truth,”  for January 5-17, 2014, from Elkhart, Indiana, you get newborns with names like Olivia Marie, Sophia Marie Milianta and Ethan James Simpson… and then they ratchet it up a few notches to Ta’zeek Raychon Daking and then… this: La’Soulja Major La’Pimp Burks.

Now, lil’ La’Soulja Major La’Pimp might well grow up to be a perfectly fine feller. But unless he changes his name… who the hell is going to hire him? What sort of future can he look forward to? Not only due to the reactions of strangers, but what sort of family life can he be expected to grow up in if *that* is the name he’s given?

As the very first comment on Fark points out:

I’ll assume the maternity ward staff just went ahead and sent a copy of the files to CPS for future reference.
 Posted by at 11:04 am
Jan 242014
 

There’ve been no new comments on blog posts since yesterday. No biggie. But I did get an email this AM complaining that the sender *couldn’t* comment. To me everything seems fine, but who knows. If you’ve tried to comment but couldn’t, drop me a note:

Or, y’know, post a comment…

 Posted by at 10:51 am