A few hundred thousand years of recoverable uranium is available in seawater, and technology improvements are making it economically feasible. Chemical adsorbtion nets are collecting about 6 grams of uranium per kilogram of adsorbent per fifty days, for a cost of about $200 per pound of uranium oxide… about twice the current market rate. And even at that rate, the technology exists to negate any argument about nuclear power being a limited energy source.
Enough uranium is available to also negate any argument against constructing a fleet of 4,000 ton Orion vehicles to conquer the solar system out to Ceres.
The techosphere is going kinda bugnuts over the revelation that May saw the first fatality in a self-driving car. The Tesla Model S has a feature called “Autopilot” which does some very basic driving for you… keeps you on the road and from banging into other automobiles. But it’s not a true autonomous mode; it’s far more basic. Kinda like the standard autopilot in an airplane in the era before GPS… keeps you on course, speed and altitude, but dumb as a post when it comes to dealing with the unknown. The Tesla Autopilot model requires that you keep your hands on the wheel; if you take your hands off, the car will begin to slow down. It seems in this case the Tesla whammed into a truck that had turned in front of it because the truck was white and the sky was brightly lit; the simple systems in the Tesla couldn’t distinguish the truck in that case.
So, the driver of the car might have had “Autopilot” engaged, but it was still up to him to maintain situational awareness. The Mark One human eyeball remains the best system to judge what’s actually going on around a car, and while truly autonomous cars have some spiffy radar, lidar and optical systems,. the Tesla Model S *doesn’t.* So, that makes this little detail seem kinda important:
It *seems* that it wasn’t just a matter of there being a DVD player sitting somewhere in the car. Instead,a witness who was on the scene right after the accident claims that the DVD player was seen to be playing a Harry Potter movie. Ooops.
The message: until you have a truly autonomous self-driving car… Pay Attention.
Secondary lesson learned: a lot of Social Jusice Warriors are perpetually cheesed off that every new advance is made available to rich people before po foke. Well, guess what: the rich folk are basically being used as guinea pigs during the beta test phase of that new technology. By the time the tech is cheap enough for average people to access, a whole lot of the bugs will be worked out, largely by beating the tar out of bagrillionaires who willingly put themselves at risk.
Tertiary lesson *probably* to be learned: play stupid games, win stupid prizes. If the guy had simply killed himself by being a dumbass… oh well. But not only did he hit another vehicle, he also opened the door to bureaucrats to come in and regulate the bejeezus out of autonomous cars. It is *possible* that this guy might turn out to single-handedly turn the technology from a winner for the American economy into a winner for, say, the Japanese or German economies.
A photo of a McDonnell Douglas X-30 NASP display model that has seen better days. Has anyone seen another copy of this model, or art depicting the same configuration? The tails on both sides are missing, so reconstruction without references would be at best speculation.
The configuration seems fairly generic. McD released a lot of art on the NASP back in the day, along with the vaguely-related “Orient Express” idea for a hypersonic transport. While the NASP and the OE were *not* the same vehicle, they were meant to at least share some similar technologies, but the aerodynamics was something that differed substantially, for example, here’s a McD Orient Express model in the National Air and Space Museum:
The two clearly come from the same line of thinking, but the NASP has a much deeper fuselage. This makes sense… going to orbit as an SSTO requires stuffing as much fuel as possible into the fuselage, and the relatively flat HST has a less efficient volumetric efficiency.
It has been my contention since the original reboot “Star Trek” in 2009 that the best feature of the whole effort has been Karl Urban’s Dr. McCoy. Sure, Quinto’s Spock looks pretty much like Spock, but that’s perhaps as much makeup as anything; Urban, though, just *nails* DeForrest Kelly’s characterization.
A pop singer has released a pop song with a music video that incorporates effects and scenes from the upcoming “Star Trek: Beyond.” Has the Trek franchise ever done this before?
If nothing else, there’s some pretty imagery here.
U.K. stocks surged nearly 4% on Wednesday, helping the FTSE 100 erase all of its losses and then some in the wake of the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union. … The midcap FTSE 250 index MCX, +3.22% also leapt Wednesday, up 3.2% at 16,002.90. But that index is still below Friday’s close of 16,088, which marked the start of a two-day rout.
A client has asked me about restoring one, made by the Lockheed model department back in the day. I’d like to see another, more-or-less intact one to nail down some questions I have. Anybody know of such a thing?
Trying to come up with a practical application of that. The best I’ve got is as a weapon. Not to set things on fire, but to blind optics and enemy combatants. Imagine turning that on and sweeping it across an attacking force of Taliban; it would cause them to duck for cover perhaps even more effectively than a machine gun. Of course the soldier using it would have to wear a helmet that completely covers his eyes; I’m think that the best approach wouldn’t be lenses that selectively block the laser wavelength, but a mask that completely cut the eyes off from the outside world and replaces it with augmented reality vision. Anybody fighting alongside this laser weapon would have to be similarly equipped.
Of course it’s so bright that the air itself lights up via Rayleigh scattering, so it would serve as a dandy “here I am, shoot at me!” beacon.
NOTE: Not the best photos, but… ehh, what’re ya gonna do…
I have a new batch of physical media… digital prints and old-school cyanotype blueprints. What sets these apart is that they are BIG.
First, a book: Space Transportation System Diagrams. This is a collection of 27 wide format (the standard 11 inches high… but up to *40* inches wide) Space Shuttle diagrams. They are all official NASA.industry diagrams, painstakingly cleaned, depicting all aspects of the STS. Includes numerous instrument panel diagrams as well as structural arrangements, general arrangements, insulation/tile layouts, etc. This is available for $75. Ten were printed. NOW SOLD OUT..
STS Diagrams book: $75
Second, some very large digital prints of the Shuttle orbiter underside tile maps. Three maps provided… left wing, right wing and fuselage. They are all 20 inches high, with the centerline diagram being about 80 inches long. Shows you where every tile goes, all for only $30.This has sold out. If you are interested, send me an email and I’ll let you know when/if more are made available.
Third: 1/72 scale cyanotype blueprints, handmade, of the Space Launch System Block 1 launch vehicle. This blueprint is 24 inches wide by about 67 inches long, based on a CAD layout of my own creation and is available for $80.
1/72 SLS Cyanotype Blueprint: $80Sold out
All of these are likely going to be available for only a limited time. I’ve had ten copies of the STS Diagram Book printed; each is individually numbered. So far, one sold. The 1/72 SLS is also likely to be only limited print run; while undeniably awesome, it is kinda big, and I think I’d do better to replace the 1/72 diagram with a 1/144 version. So snap ’em up fast before they become collectors items!
As always with physical items, postage is required. A single flat fee is charged no matter how many items… if you’re in the US, you pay $10 in postage is you order one item or a dozen (so order a dozen). Elsewhere… costs a little more.
