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Panoramas

 awesomeness, photography, Utah  2 Responses »
Jan 262016
 

Some recent panoramas of the local area. Dates in the filenames.

2015-12-03 pano 3 2015-12-03 pano 2 2015-12-03 pano 1

Below: The field across the street here in Thatcher.

2015-12-31 pano 1

Below: two views from a hill overlooking Bothwell (Thatcher off to the right in the distance, Tremonton to the left). Most of the time the winter skies are overcast and the air is a dreadful brownish color due to inversions, but yesterday it cleared up for a bit. The sad state of affairs of the high population density can be seen. Hopefully after the zombie apocalypse wipes out the dystopic humanzoos of Chicago and LA and New York colonization expeditions will set out to resettle those areas, and the severe overpopulation of *this* area will abate somewhat.

2016-01-25 pano 2 2016-01-25 pano 1 2016-01-03 pano 2 2016-01-03 pano 1

 Posted by at 7:24 pm

What idiot thought *this* was a good idea???

 Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., news, ಠ_ಠ  9 Responses »
Jan 262016
 

Residents evacuated from seaside homes teetering on the brink as California cliffs crumble into the ocean amid violent El Nino storms

Take a look at the glorious photos at the link showing many, many homes built right at the edge of cliffs in California.

I grew up not far from the Mississippi river in Illinois. Seemingly every year the Mississippi or one of its tributaries would bloat out of its banks, flooding numerous homes. My question then as now was “who thought it was a good idea to build a house someplace you *know* will try to kill you, sooner or later?”

Thing is, a lot of the houses along the banks or the Rock River were built on stilts three or more feet high. This was enough to lift them above century-level flood stages, though of course every now and then a 500-year flood would come along and make a mess of things. But flooding is something that cane be seen coming, and the damage is, while often devastating, generally not very dramatic. But the ground on which your home is built simply crashing into the sea a hundred feet below? That’s hard to top. River floods rarely come out of nowhere; when the heavy rains come, you can have hours to day to gather your bits and git. But an earthquake comes out of nowhere, and a house built on a cliff can simply vanish into a cloud of dust and a pile of rubble.

Additionally… back home the houses down by the river were often not much better than a van down by the river. But in California, houses costing millions seems to spring up like shrooms on the edges of cliffs and on the sides of hills made out of mud. Madness.

 Posted by at 10:55 am

DC-X reborn?

 history, Hmm..., news, projects, rockets, spacecraft  3 Responses »
Jan 252016
 

After the Delta Clipper came the X-33. And before the decision was made to award the project to Lockheed, McDonnell-Douglas was in the running, basing their X-33 on their Delta Clipper.

When they lost X-33, the Delta Clipper idea and design faded into extinction.

‘Cept it seems to be back now:

New player Masten eyes Space Coast for launches, research

Some notable changes in the design, of course, but the heritage is obvious.

I kinda wonder about the future. It seems reasonably obvious that from the NASA/national point of view, the future of manned spaceflight is pretty damn bleak. The Orion capsule is a useful space taxi… but to where? NASA has no real plans on going *anywhere.* And come January 2017, the new President could sweep what little planning there is away. But from the point of view of private companies, from SpaceX and Blue Origin to Virgin Galactic and Masten and Xcor, things seem remarkably hopeful. It’s been distressingly obvious for some years now that, despite my earlier hopes and dreams and training and work and career, I’ll play no part… but it’s good to see that chances are good that *someone* will.

Anybody need a used, factory-second and obsolete aerospace engineer?

 Posted by at 2:07 am

US Spacecraft Projects #4, Transport Projects #5 now available

 aircraft, history, new products, projects, rockets, spacecraft, US Spacecraft Projects, US Transport Projects  3 Responses »
Jan 232016
 

USSP #04

US Spacecraft Projects #04, the Lander Special is now available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #04 includes:

  • GE Electrically Propelled Cargo Vehicle: A lunar lander with a nuclear reactor and ion engines to reduce the cost of lunar logistics
  • Douglas LASS: Landing an S-IVb stage on the moon
  • Convair PLAME: VTOL crew return with jet engines
  • North American Mars Excursion Module: the iconic conical Mars lander
  • Martin-Marietta Ballistic NIMF: A nuclear “hopper”
  • Early LEM: One of the first recognizable designs, by Maxime Faget
  • ROMBUS: probably the largest lunar lander seriously proposed
  • Boeing Lander Module 2: A recent Mars crew lander

ussp04ad1 ussp04ad2

USSP #04 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $5:

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USTP #05

US Transport Projects #05 is now available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #05 includes:

  • Boeing Model 820-100: The B-52 can haul more than bombs…
  • Lockheed Nuclear Tug: Want to tow two C-5s across an ocean?
  • Martin Super Ocean Transport: A WWII-era design for a post-war giant passenger transport
  • HOT EAGLE: 13 Marines to Benghazi in minutes
  • Sikorsky SST: An early supersonic transport concept
  • Lifting Body Cargo Airplane: A wartime design for a multibody design with a separate cargo module
  • Resource Air Carrier: A giant “flying pipeline” to haul petroleum
  • Boeing Model 763-165: A side-by-side New Large Airplane design

ustp05ad2 ustp05ad1

USTP #05 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:

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 Posted by at 7:31 pm

Auctioning off some books

 books, news, sales & specials, science fiction  No Responses »
Jan 222016
 

Auctions over.

Due to some recent expenses, I’m unloading some stuff.  I figure a silent auction on my website would be quicker and easier than Ebaying it. So what I have: two lots of sci-fi books. First lot:

Lot 1:

Hardback: “Dune, The Machine Crusade.” Good shape w/dust jacket.

Hardback: “The Forge of God.” Good shape, first edition, first printing, w/dust jacket.

Hardback: Haynes Owner’s Workshop Manual, Millennium Falcon. Like new.

Paperback: “revelation Space.” Decent shape, 2002 printing.

Paperback: “Spock Must Die!!” OK shape, 6th printing, 1970. The first real Star Trek novel published.

Paperback: “Sandworms of Dune,” got wet and puffed up a tad, but still perfectly readable.

Paperback: “Contact.” 1997 printing, good shape.

 

scifiset1

Lot 2:

Hardback: “The Integral Trees,” First edition/printing, good shape w/dust jacket. Some tears on the jacket.

Hardback: “God Emperor of Dune,” First edition, fifth printing. Books in good shape, dust jacket is a bit beat up.

Hardback: Haynes Owner’s Workshop Manual, Imperial Death Star. Like new.

Paperback: “Eon,” 1986 printing. Used condition.

Paperback: “The Making of Star Trek,” 6th printing, 1970. Good shape!

Paperback: “The Tranquility Alternative,” 1997 printing. Almost new condition.

Paperback: “The Time Ships,” I think 1st paperback edition. Pretty good condition.

 

scifiset2

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Either of these lots should be worth at least $30 or so, but I’ll set the minimum at $15. So if you are interested in either lot, email me your bid (*not* comment) here:

The winner(s) will also be dinged for postage. For the US, they’ll go out media mail, so it should be cheap. The auction will end Sunday. I’ve never done an auction like this; the process is that you bid without know what the other folks are bidding… if anything. Highest bidder wins. If by Sunday there are two or more identical bids, I’ll contact the bidders and let ’em know, see what they want to bump up to.

 Posted by at 6:51 pm

Punish the rulebreaker!

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., I'm from the government, ಠ_ಠ  6 Responses »
Jan 222016
 

Eight-grader Anthony Ruelas walked out of his class without permission, and received a suspension as a result. Yay! Finally, a school that has rules and actually applies them!

So… why did this kid wander off? Well… a friend of his has having a bad asthma attack and the teacher sent an *email* to the school nurse. Three minutes on there’d been no reply, so Ruelas just picked her up and carried her to the nurses office. So… the school gave him a two-day suspension.

And then on the first day of his suspension the school called his mother to ask him why he wasn’t at school that day.

 Posted by at 9:34 am

S-60 Passenger Pod

 aircraft, art, history, projects  5 Responses »
Jan 212016
 

A piece of Sikorsky concept art from 1959 illustrating a commercial passenger pod for the S-60 flying crane helicopter. Into the 1960’s there were a lot of people thinking that commercial helicopter “airliners” would soon be a practical reality… and obviously, helicopters are perfectly functional in the role of hauling people to and fro, but the idea never really caught on. And in retrospect it’s not difficult to see why.

Compared to turbojet or turboprop passenger planes, helicopters are creakingly slow and quite short ranged. So the idea was that helicopter-liners would serve as short range feeder vehicles, transporting businessmen and the like from city centers to outlying regions. A popular goal was to fly passengers from the top of skyscrapers to distant airports, saving considerable time and trouble with ground traffic. But in the end, while helicopters could do that – as many a multi-millionaire with his own helicopter can attest – the cost was always high, and the noise of regularly scheduled very large choppers was excessive. There was also always the fear of helicopters this big zipping up and down the city streets, and building the infrastructure to support in-city commercial heliports just seemed like too much effort.

1959-11-02-23

 Posted by at 9:30 am
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