Biden’s non-binary nuclear waste guru Sam Brinton LEAVES role at DoE over claims they stole two suitcases from airports
Unclear whether he quit or was fired. Just so long as he’s gone.
Dec 132022
Biden sure knows how to pick ’em
AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, nukes, politics, ಠ_ಠ
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Dec 092022
Non-binary Biden nuclear official Sam Brinton accused in second luggage heist
Here’s a thought: if someone projects an image of being a weirdo… take them at their word. They’re a weirdo. Avoid.
Details about the alleged theft are scarce, but 8 News Now stated that Brinton, 35, was charged with grand larceny with a value between $1,200 and $5,000.
Stealing *anything* should be a career-ended for someone like this. Consequently, basic games theorizing should tell you that if you are going to put your future at risk for theft… make it worthwhile. Do like the Bidens or the Clintons and go after those multi-million dollar jobs. Then if you get caught, you can simply blow it off, because for some reason those sort of crimes get a pass. But stealing *luggage?* That’s just *stupid.*
Imagine being an expert in your field. Your field is nuclear fuel, processing, waste treatment, etc. And now imagine showing up for work and being told you have to report to THIS guy.
This is how you get underlings selling secrets to the Russians or the Chinese, because you are clearly disrespecting them directly to their faces. I would feel monumentally insulted if I was told that someone so clearly insane was just installed as my boss. Pretty sure I wouldn’t sell out the country, but I’m pretty sure my work ethic would suffer.
Nov 262022
Oddly, the PBS special “In The Event of Catastrophe” from 1978 is age restricted. Click on it, it’ll take you to YouTube directly. Shrug.
“First Strike” from the RAND Corporation. A docu-drama depicting a Soviet first strike that effectively wipes out America’s nuclear retaliatory capability and leads to the capitulation of the USA. Bits of this were used in “The Day After” a few years later.
This one from the National Film Board of Canada runs kinda light on pointing out that the Commies are setting off the nukes. Instead, the nuclear explosions just sorta happen, some vague result of American actions.
And just for fun, here’s a German 1998 alternate history show (“Der Dritte Weltkrieg”) where 1990 goes a little differently:
Nov 072022
The model AGM-86 Air Launch Cruise Missile began life as a decoy missile, sort of an updated “Quail.” it was decided that the decoy could carry a nuclear warhead, and thus provide a lot more service; this began its development as a cruise missile. As originally envisaged, it had to fit in the some bays that could hold the AGM-69 SRAM missile; this made sense in a lot of ways but strictly limited its capabilities due to the short length. Efforts to increase the range of the missile included adding a droppable belly tank and stretching the fuselage for more internal fuel volume. The latter route was chose, along with making the nose much blunter and more voluminous.Both the external tank and the fuselage stretch meant that it could not long fit in internal SRAM bays, a tradeoff that was deemed worthwhile.
The illustration below dates from mid 1976 at the latest.
The full rez scan has been uploaded to the 2022-11 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for $4 and up APR Patrons/subscribers.
Nov 032022
An Aerojet rendering, unfortunately not in color, of the Small ICBM (MGM-134 “Midgetman”) from the 80’s. This was a single-warhead missile meant specifically to be carried by and launched from an off-road truck/trailer capable of withstanding a reasonably nearby nuclear blast. The image hear focuses on the second stage; like all post-Minuteman US ICBM’s, the SICBM was solid fueled. The USSR gave up the ghost and as a consequence the SICBM program was cancelled in 1992.
Oct 302022
The YouTube channel “Found and Explained” just released a video on the 4,000 ton Orion Battleship, with the model used based on my reconstruction from issue V2N2 of “Aerospace Projects Review.” The video was sponsored by a “Star Trek” video game, so there are a *lot* of Star Trek references in the video.
For more information on the project, including blueprints, be sure to check out issue v2N2.
Oct 202022
Seems unlikely, but…
Deranged Putin has ALREADY tried to detonate nuclear bomb but was scuppered in last-minute ‘sabotage’, insider claims
The article seems distinctly lean on actual details and evidence. Claim is made that *two* attempts to test nuclear weapons – including an underwater test in the Barents Sea – were aborted due to emergencies of some kind, actually caused by people somewhere in the chain realizing that the whole idea was nuts. How the quoted “expert” would know this is unclear.
I can see Putin deciding to set off nukes as a show of force. I can see his own people sabotaging the effort, because they don’t want their families to be evaporated. But while such events are plausible, I’d need evidence before I believed they actually happened. And the thing is, incidents like this will almost certainly never have adequate evidence… until an actual bomb actually goes off.
In any event, I’m glad that some time back I got me a functional radiation detector.
Oct 122022
I’m at work on a new series of CAD diagrams (see HERE for the first run) to be released as PDFs formatted for printing at 18X24. For example, here are first drafts of a few:
- Boeing Space Sortie (3 sheets)
- Saturn C-8/Nova
- Jules Verne’s “Columbiad”
- A-12 Avenger II (2 sheets)
- Lockheed CL-400 “Suntan”
All of these require a bit more dressing-up, as well as explanatory text. But I think they’re starting to look pretty good.
I’ve selected a fair number more to work on. If any of these are of particular interest, or if any of the many, many diagrams I’ve made over the years would be of interest, let me know.
- BIS “Daedalus” straship
- Rockwell MRCC
- Northrop Tacit Blue
- Space Shuttle Main Engine
- Boeing Bird of Prey
- General Atomic 86-foot Orion
- General Atomic Orion battleship
- General Atomic 10-meter Orion
- Martin SeaMistress
- Space Launch System
- Have Sting orbital railgun
- Casaba Howitzer
- X-20 Dyna Soar
- B-47E
- DB-47E/Bold Orion
- DB-47E/RASCAL
- B-52G
- B-52H
- B-52H/Skybolt
- Boeing Space Freighter
- Boeing Big Onion
- Shuttle C
- Rockwell Star Raker
- Lockheed STAR Clipper
- Lockheed SR-71
- Lockheed A-12 (early canards)
- Lockheed A-12
- Lockheed A-12 (honeycomb panels)
- Lockheed A-12 “Titanium Goose”
- Lockheed YF-12A
- Lockheed M-21/D-21
- Lockheed AP-12
- Republic YF-103
- North American XF-108
- Bell MX-2147
- Convair Kingfish
Oct 122022
Oct 102022
A model built by or for Raytheon depicting their concept of a “Space Defense Platform.” Shown in early 1962 (possibly late 1961), this is a very early concept for a space-based weapon system meant to destroy other space vehicles. Scale is unknown, but if it is 1/1 scale, it seems fairly small. It is surrounded by what look like interceptor missiles, missiles which bear a resemblance to the contemporary FIM-43 “Redeye” shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile. The space missiles seem to have infra-red seekers like the Redeye, four small fins up front much like the Redeyes (which of course doesn’t make any sense in context of a space-based missile), but no tail fins, unlike the Redeye. Presumably steering would be accomplished by vectoring the main nozzle or the use of divert thrust near the nose, or both. Perhaps the four small “fins” are in fact thrusters, each pointing “sideways.” Much later interceptor missiles for use in space used gas generators that ran non-stop and fired from all of the thrusters non-stop; doing so negated their thrust, until a valve closed on one or more thruster, making the thrust asymmetric.
Redeye missile for comparison:
The model has few other features of note. Some ports, some antennae, some ill-defined projections near the bottom… and a spherical item, held aloft by a short boom, at the top. Notice a small “radiation” symbol on the sphere, indicating that this spacecraft was to be nuclear powered. Presumably some sort of low-power system, an RTG or the like, rather than a full reactor. in either case, radiators are not in evidence.
For those lookign to nail down the size of the model:
1) Assume the missiles are Redeyes.
2) Down at the bottom is a shiny hemisphere… it *might* be someone’s head.
3) The ceiling lights and contours are likely made to standard sizes.