Dec 232015
 

Out here in Utah, it’s a reasonably wintery winter. Not so for much of the nation:

9 Maps That Show How Completely Bizarre Your Christmas Eve Weather Will Be

Some highlights:

1: Like the last six months, December will almost certainly be the hottest December on record.

2: 25 states will probably break temperature records for hottest Christmas.

3: A number of the lowest temperatures expected will be higher than the previous high temperature. This means that the moment the clock ticks over at midnight, the new record will be set, and will be broken again later in the day when the temperature rises. NYC is forecasted to have a low of 59 on Christmas Eve; the record high for that day was 56, set in 1988.

4: NYC will be warmer than LA.

5: The high for NYC is going to be about 73. The high on July 4 was 75. A slight possibility that Christmas Eve will be warmer than Independence Day.

6: Southern part of the midwest… Yay! You get tornadoes!

 

 Posted by at 7:42 pm
Dec 232015
 

Creationist Sylvia Allen to lead Arizona Senate education panel

Oy.

 During a legislative hearing in 2009, she said the Earth is 6,000 years old, a belief held by “Young Earth” biblical creationists. In 2013, a Facebook post about chem-trail conspiracies gained widespread media attention, as did a March comment suggesting mandatory church attendance.

Oy.

She has been appointed chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, where she will be positioned to control which legislative education proposals go forward.

It’s weird how many utterly wrong people wind up in positions of political power. Here’s a woman who is seemingly opposed to logic and knowledge, and she’s in charge of education. Socialists wind up in charge of the economy. Bureaucrats end up in charge of regualting new industries. It’s perverse.

 Posted by at 8:44 am
Dec 222015
 

Well, not really.

Remember back in May I posted this:

Atlantic Airlines Flight 423 lost – 2,304 feared dead

This was a made-up headline used on astronaut Frank Poole’s IBM News Pad during the course of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In the new book “The 2001 File,” a photo shows astronaut Dave Bowman reading an article titled “Archaeologists Find a Viking Ship in Maine” on *his* News Pad. Sadly, the resolution is nowhere near enough to actually read the article. But if the “Atlantic Airlines” episode tells us anything, no doubt a complete story was written describing the finding of a Viking boat in Maine.  If anyone knows of a readable version of that, I’d be interested.

 Posted by at 6:24 pm
Dec 222015
 

I’ve finally received a copy of The 2001 File: Harry Lange and the Design of the Landmark Science Fiction Film which covers the work done by designer Harry Lange on “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Included within it is a *mass* of preliminary sketches and he like… and one “Space Station-5 Final Design Blueprint.” The model is shown as being 8 feet in diameter. The scale of the model is given as 1/32″ = 1’0″ which, if I’ve done my math correctly equates to 1/384 scale. Und zo… overall diameter of Space Station 5 is 8*384 feet… 3,072 feet.

UPDATE, two years later: Welp, turns out I made a stupid mistake. The 1/384 scale is correct… but for the *drawing,* not the *model.* The Drawing was reproduced at 1/4 the full scale of the model, so the diameter of the full-scale space Station V would be 1/4 X 3,072 feet = 768 feet, much more in line with understanding and logic.

Around about a year ago I got some vague rumors that one of the forthcoming books would have a reliable blueprint of the Station; awaiting this was one of the reasons why my work on my Space Station V diagrams ground to a halt. I figured the diagrams would show the station to be smaller than I had estimated. I did not expect that it would be *way* bigger. Well, there it is. When the facts don’t match your cherished theory… change the theory to match the facts.

The diagram is a close match for the model as built; it’s not some really early concept (though there are lots of those). So it is as close to “canon” as you can get.

As for the book: this is one of those books us “2001” engineering nerds have been waiting for. it doesn’t commit the dreadful sin of trying the force the pages into some weird shape or size; the pages are about 10″ by 11.” It’s more than 300 pages, *filled* with sketches and art and diagrams, including many of the Orion III, the Station, Discovery, Moon bus, etc. Layout map of Clavius Base, satellite designs, secondary vehicles, the works. If you haven’t ordered a copy, do so. It’s worth the price.
The 2001 File: Harry Lange and the Design of the Landmark Science Fiction Film


 Posted by at 1:08 pm
Dec 212015
 

Live webcasts start around 6:30 Mountain time, a couple different places. Seems the land-landing attempt has gone to “may try it.”

http://www.spacex.com/webcast/

http://spaceref.com/live/spacex-webcast.html

 

 Posted by at 5:46 pm
Dec 202015
 

OK, so I wrote about the “Have Sting” orbital railgun, and produced some provisional diagrams of it, publishing them in US Space Projects #3. A blog article was written for War Is Boring discussing “Have Sting,” based in no small part on my diagrams. OK, so far so good. But then other blogs start writing about Have Sting, and an error is introduced.

Whenever a blog post links to my blog, a “pingback notification” is sent to my blog dashboard. I’ve just glanced at these, haven’t given them much thought. For the most part they seem to be just parroting the verbiage from the War is Boring piece. But with one change: “Have Sting” has become “Have Sling.” A “T” became an “L.”

Examples:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/219718-exploring-the-death-star-space-gun-america-never-built

In September, the Aerospace Project Reviews Blog published some fascinating diagrams depicting “Have Sling,” which aerospace historian Scott Lowther described as “[a] General Electric design for a gigantic orbital railgun.” Have Sling was never built, of course.

http://www.usaspeaks.com/news/exploring-the-death-star-space-gun-america-never-built/

September, the Aerospace Project Reviews Blog published some fascinating diagrams depicting “Have Sling,” which aerospace historian Scott Lowther described as “[a] General …

http://www.usaspeaks.com/news/exploring-the-death-star-space-gun-america-never-built/

http://www.viralnewstrend.com/exploring-the-death-star-space-gun-america-never-built/

And a bunch more, all seemingly the same post over and over.

And if you Google “have sling” and some other terms, some seriously wacky stuff appears, which I’m guessing is the result of some weird auto-translation:

http://www.bbtechnonews.com/index.php/2015/12/19/exploring-the-death-star-space-gun-america-never-built/

In September, the Aerospace Task Reviews Blog site released some remarkable layouts portraying “Have Sling,” which aerospace chronicler Scott Lowther

“Aerospace Task Reviews?”

And:

http://journalfocus.com/2015/12/exploring-the-death-star-space-gun-america-never-built/

Exploring the ‘Fatality Celebrity’ space gun America never built

UNITED STATE protection coordinators did at one time think about constructing a huge Fatality Star-like gun in space as component of the “Celebrity Wars” rocket protection program, as Warisboring’s Steve Weintz advised us this week in the middle of the hullaballoo of the position of The Pressure Awakens.

In September, the Aerospace Job Reviews Blog site released some interesting representations portraying “Have Sling,” which aerospace chronicler Scott Lowther…

… the styles explain a space tool the dimension of the International Space Terminal, each Lowther.

Buh?

So now when people try to research orbital railguns, there’s every chance that they will be presented with the fallacious designation “Have Sling.”

I just did a Google search on “railgun” and “Have Sling.” It spat back 741 results. “Railgun” and “Have Sting” only produced 321 results. The lie traveled around the world while the truth was still putting on its boots. And entertainingly, in doing some Googling for this post, I found this blog post. It is illustrated in part by “Do NOT try this at home:  schematics for the orbital railgun . (Image courtesy up-ship.com.)” I found this illustration amusing for two reasons… firstly, when you say “Image courtesy whoever,” generally you’ve asked whoever for permission to republish. I usually don’t mind people reposting the images I create, but I wasn’t asked here, just sayin.’ More entertainingly, the diagrams of the “orbital railgun” are in fact my diagrams for the 10-meter USAF Orion. Which ain’t a railgun.

 Posted by at 11:12 pm
Dec 202015
 

Right up front: I care not for beauty pageants. Just… meh. Still, I can think of few things more embarrassing and just downright disconcerting than being involved in a situation where the *wrong* winner is announced. Like tonight, when Miss Colombia was erroneously announced the winner of the Miss Universe pageant rather than first runner up, instead of actual winner Miss Philippines.

Behold:

Here is Miss Colombia giving Steve Harvey a  death stare as she begins to understand what’s going on:

doh

Witness the birth of a new super villain:

daggers

Lest you think that this necessarily means that Harvey is utterly at fault, here’s the actual card he was reading from:

Sure, the card provides accurate information. It even provides accurate information in a clear and concise manner. what it fails strikingly at is clarity in a moment of stress. The winner should be picked out in GREAT BIG RED LETTERS.

Somebody’s got some splainin’ to do.

 Posted by at 10:19 pm
Dec 202015
 

If all goes well, SpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 later today (between 6:30 and 7 PM, Mountain standard time) sending 11 Orbcomm satellites into orbit… and the fist stage will return to the launch site for a land-landing. If all goes well.

UPDATE: put off till tomorrow.

The launch will be webcast here:

http://www.spacex.com/webcast/

ORBCOMM? Damn. My first Real Job out of college was a distressingly short stint at Orbital Sciences. Got hired to design the thrust structure for the X-34B… which was cancelled the week after I got there. I was cancelled shortly after that… last in, first out. In the three or so weeks of panic between the cancellations, when everyone who knew the system better than me  was running around finding new jobs within the company, I attempted to get onboard the ORBCOMM project. Odd to see satellites I kinda-sorta worked on (but not really) very nearly 20 years ago are just now being launched.

 Posted by at 2:20 pm