It’s time to post my first batch of cyanotypes to ebay. But I ran into a conundrum… how should I categorize them? I started entering the first one, the Sat Ib, as “collectible-historical memorabilia-astronauts & space travel-etc” but then I realized that these were made by me over the last few weeks. The *sources* for the blueprints are of course historical, but the actual items themselves are brand new, hand made “art” items. Suggestions?
They found the radioactive capsule in Australia.
Interesting if true. A 5.9 magnitude earthquake as a direct result of an explosion would indicate a yield on the order of one megaton. more likely would be a sizable *bang* near a fault line, which would be stupid in its own right. The epicenter was apparently a number of kilometers below the ground, so it was almost certainly a perfectly natural quake… but hardly impossible that it was triggered by a sizable explosion.
The resulting earthquake in Iran from the detonation of whatever was struck underground registered 5.9 magnitude on the Richter scale. pic.twitter.com/OzSm3EFH7I
— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) January 29, 2023
“Creature Features,” a YouTube channel that shows less-than-spectacular movies interspersed with segments with a trio of characters (a format made popular on TV decades ago with the likes of Elvira), found a better-quality copy of the movie “Meteor.” It remains a *terrible* movie with atrocious visual effects and models that can’t even be considered half-assed. But it somehow is rather entertaining. I remain vaguely interested in the notion of someone doing a Special Edition where all the model shots are replaced with insanely good CGI, maybe even tinker with the other visual effect. Ain’t nuthin’ gonna help the plot, though.
The capsule fell off a truck somewhere along a 1,400 kilometer trip. What they’re hoping to find:
Any motorists who have travelled along the Great Northern Highway between Newman and Perth since January 10 should check their tyres, in case the capsule has become lodged in them.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
A 1950’s film describing the “Lobber” rocket from Convair. This was a small battlefield cargo delivery system… rations, medical supplies, ammo, that sort of thing. Kind of a neat idea, but obviously it didn’t go into service. The ability to launch 50 pounds of stuff eight miles just wasn’t that spectacular when cargo planes could para-drop tons of stuff hundreds of miles away, when choppers could zip in and out in the time it would take to pack stuff into the rocket. Today i imagine drones would take on the task… not as fast, but less harsh on the cargo and much more precise.
Note that it is also described as a system capable of delivering *nukes.* Well, any rocket that you can swap out the payload could be a nuclear delivery system if it’s got the capability. Fifty pounds just barely covers it. It would be safer for the launch crew than a Davy Crockett with a range of only a couple miles, but 8 miles is still pretty close. The W54 warhead weighed right about 50 pounds and could yield up to about one kiloton. Eight miles would be a safe distance… so long as the fallout didn’t rain down on your head.
I recently had a disturbing online conversation with a Russian aeronautical expert on the subject of Ukraine. One can reasonably expect a Russian will have a different point of view on the subject than a westerner would… but this was an *experience.* In short: It’s good and proper that Russia exterminate the Ukrainian people, because their culture, history and identity don’t exist; they’re a fiction, it’s all part of Russia and Russias destiny to retake that plot of land. “The history of Ukraine began with the betrayal in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in 1991 and will end in 2023.” Any who stand against the Russians goals deserve death and the nuking of western/NATO cities would be a small price to pay for Russia reclaiming it’s former empire.
Yeesh.
And of course one of the main excuses for why the “special military operation” is a wonderful thing? The need to get rid of all the Nazis in Ukraine. Ukraine, under the leadership of a democratically elected feller who I understand to be a Jew, is somehow being controlled by Nazis. Uh-huh. After years of weirdo whackaloons here in the west constantly banging on about fascists and Nazis – by which they mean anyone with politics to the right of FDR – I have no sympathy for Russians bleating on about Nazis. Especially when *this* is who the Russians are sending into battle against the Ukrainian people:
Hey @Seveerity, here's your video [ai] translated from Russian as requested by @Joe29707949. https://t.co/nBkg5bzrdD
— VidTranslator – targum.video AI bot (@vidtranslator) January 19, 2023
It’s bad enough that Russian leadership is clearly bugnuts, but that this has seeped out into the general populace is unnerving. I was told that Putin is felt to be too soft on the west, and: “If Kadyrov becomes president, the whole world will remember the beautiful and humane Vladimir Vladimirovich with tears.”
There have been more and more reports that NATO countries are running out of weapons and ammo. Again, this is both good and bad news. The bad is obvious. But the good is that the West is figuring this out *now* while our economies are still running and our factories are still standing. If the relatively tiny amount of ordnance the west is sending to Ukraine is drying up western armories… that’s a damned good sign that we need to start stocking up in a serious way.
An article by Sandia Labs discussing the disposition of an old, old, OLD Mk 17 nuclear bomb “trainer.” Obviously this isn’t, never was, an actual thermonuclear weapon, but a training device; as such, it doubtless included a lot of the same parts as the actual bomb.
The Mk 17 was a giant of a bomb, deliverable only by the B-36; with a yield of about 15 megatons, it was delivered in 1954, withdrawn from service in 1957. Consequently, this thing is pushing seventy years in age. The article states that it was “transported to Kirtland Air Force Base for its end-of-lifecycle dismantlement and disposition.” One *hopes* that means it’ll be lovingly restored and sent to a good museum for display. One fears it means it’ll be disassembled and scrapped. That *seems* to be its fate based on the vague descriptions of what’ll happen to it.
The “Enzmann Starship” is named after Robert Enzmann, who “designed” it decades ago. Just exactly *when* has been an issue of some confusion in recent years.
It first came to light in the late 60’s or early 70’s, with claims that he thought it up around 1964 or so. The design is unique: a giant spherical ball of frozen deuterium fuel at the front, followed by a cylindrical ship, ending with a series of Orion-style nuclear pulse engines. It was an *ok* concept for a practical starship, though relatively recent analysis presented in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society argued that it was not nearly as good as imagined. It became something of a sensation in the 70’s after appearing on the cover of “Analog” in 1973.
Nothing has ever been produced, so far as I’m aware, backing up the concept with any sort of detailed design of analysis until that JBIS paper. No reports, proposals, pages of math, from Enzmann seem to be available… just text descriptions of a few sentences and some art. And that’s fine. But in recent years the claims have become more and more expansive. Enzmann, near the end of his life, claimed that the design for a nuclear-pulse vehicle dated not from the time of the Orion program, but back to the *40’s*.
I spoke to Enzmann on the phone a few times over the years. He was enthusiastic, verbose… and baffling. He made lots and lots of claims about having worked on this or that amazing program, but when asked for verifiable details… it was classified. Those who have picked up his mantle and are trying to carry his torch seem to be following in his footsteps there, continuing his claims without much apparent criticism. I’ve recently engaged their twitter contact to get some sort of verification of his claims… but we have now reached the point where not only am I convinced that no such evidence will be produced, I feel no reason to assume anything remarkable is true at all. Behold:
He published nothing on his Starship before NYAS conference #1 other than his own words. ANP aircraft were built in the 50's, and buried deep under a NM mountain, according to Enzmann, who was there. He is the reference.
— Enzmann Archive (@EnzmannArchiv) January 2, 2023
Claiming that nuclear powered aircraft were actually built in the fifties and then buried in a mountain? Yeah… no. I’m out.
Where the thread started:
Enzmann Starships refueling at Saturn's moon.
Paining by RDE, 1949.
“We stand today upon the doorsill of manned inter-stellar flight. It will happen swiftly.” =RDE pic.twitter.com/tgNZYzMoCY— Enzmann Archive (@EnzmannArchiv) January 1, 2023
Unclear whether he quit or was fired. Just so long as he’s gone.