Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Gah., Hmm..., news, nukes, politics, russian empire, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 252021
 

Russian Citizens Are Now Being Prepped for Nuclear War

Neato.

In short, Putin is demanding that NATO stay out of former Soviet vassal states like Ukraine and Lithuania,  because he wants a buffer. But what buffer do those states have against the Russian military? Perhaps a good compromise would be if NATO stays out of the Soviet states while the Russian military pulls back behind the Urals.

Russian state propaganda somehow feels that Ukraine or Poland being secure is a threat to Russia. Why that would be is not clear. Does Putin think that Estonia is going to suddenly start baying for Russian blood and then sweep across the border? Will Latvian special forces take Moscow?

So, now Russian propagandists are promising to nuke American and European cities if former slave states cozy up to the West. Doesn’t seem a particularly effective way to calm everyone down to the point that Ukraine and the like no longer have a desire to have military backup, but maybe that’s just me.

I’m just glad we have such competent, on-the-ball leadership in Washington.

 Posted by at 6:23 pm

A Suck Ride in a Sub

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Gah., history, news, nukes, ships, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 132021
 

The voyage of the USS Connecticut to San Diego sounds like a month of food poisoning.

Damaged Submarine Likely Had A “Nightmare Voyage” To San Diego Says Veteran Submariner

Likely did 6000 miles at 10 knots on the surface. Ride would have been rough because the friggen’ nose got ripped off… and because submarines aren’t designed to sail on the surface, the boat would have rolled like a drunken Bill Clinton.

They estimate repairs could take *years.* This is not the sort of industrial capability that wins wars with near-peer opponents. Early in WWII, the USS Yorktown was blowed the ᚠᚪᛣᚳ up and returned to sea after 48 hours of repair, serving admirably to lay a historic beatdown on the Japanese navy at Midway before finally being taken down by masses of aircraft and a salvo of torpedoes. None of that “years in drydock” ᛒᚪᛚᛚᛋᚻᛁᛏ… it was rebuilt in a damn hurry and sent back to the fight like a boss. Today the Navy runs one of only *three* Seawolf class subs into a friggen’ rock and it’s out of commission for a Presidential administration.

 Posted by at 8:44 pm

Senior moment: early nuclear war novel

 AARRRGH, books, Gah., history, Hmm..., nukes, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 122021
 

I can remember a scene from an *early* (late 40’s, early 50’s) novel about nuclear war that has a nuclear bomb going off in or just above an American city. The scene in question goes into some detail about the effects of the blast; I recall being impressed with not just the detail, but the grimness of the description. But for the live of me I can’t recall what the book was. I *thought* it was “Alas, Babylon,” but I’ve gone back and forth through the book, and it doesn’t seem to be there.

I know that’s vague, but does this sound at all familiar to anyone? Sadly my collection of fiction books got thinned out after Utah (and will thin out some more shortly). I used to have a great big dedicated “apocalypse” section, but it’s scattered and tattered now.

 Posted by at 4:07 am

November 2021 APR Rewards

 aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, projects, rockets, science, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 012021
 

The rewards for November, 2021, have been sent out. Patrons should have received a notification message through Patreon linking to the rewards; subscribers should have received a notification from Dropbox linking to the rewards. If you did not, let me know.

Document: “Galactic-Jupiter Probe Program Concept:” 1967 NASA-Goddard brochure describing a Pioneer/Voyager type of space probe

Document: “Mixed Mode Rocket Vehicles for International Space Transportation Systems,” 1973 paper describing modified Shuttles and other launch vehicles

Document: “Nuclear Physics Made Very, Very Easy,”1968 NASA NERVA test operation publication that summarizes nuclear physics

Diagram: Navalized Advanced tactical Fighter (Northrop NF-23) general arrangement

CAD Diagram ($5 and up): “Disney Bomb,” British designed and built, American dropped rocket-boosted submarine pen penetrating bomb from the end of WWII

 

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. *ALL* back issues, one a month since 2014, are available for subscribers at low cost.



 Posted by at 12:42 am

The UN makes the case for active nuclear weapons development programs

 blather, Hmm..., Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, paleo, rockets, science, spacecraft, wisdom, youtube  No Responses »
Nov 172021
 

And a space program!

A few weeks ago the United Nations put out a video where an indifferently rendered Utahraptor goes before the United Nations and argues that he knows a thing or two about extinction, that extinction is a bad thing, and that humans should not subsidize their own extinction. Rather, humans should work *against* extinction. These are all good points. And the logical conclusion to draw from this is that mankind should, at once and without delay, convert the money currently being wasted on social welfare programs into industrial-scale efforts to develop gigaton-yield thermonuclear devices, deep-space comet and asteroid detection and tracking systems, fast and efficient interplanetary transport system. The nukes would be used to divert potential threats; the improved propulsion and power systems would have the secondary benefit of opening the entire solar system and its resources to exploitation and colonization. heavy industry and its pollution could be moved off-world; Earth could be converted into a garden. By doing so, mankind – and every species we choose to bring with us – would be rendered *almost* immune from extinction. Nothing else mankind could possibly do would have a hope in hell of being even a minuscule fraction as impactful.

 Posted by at 10:12 am

October 2021 APR Rewards

 aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, news, nukes, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 312021
 

The rewards for October, 2021, have been sent out. Patrons should have received a notification message through Patreon linking to the rewards; subscribers should have received a notification from Dropbox linking to the rewards. If you did not, let me know.

Document: “C-131C Tactical Unit Support Airplane,” 1953 Consolidated Vultee briefing on cargo aircraft military capabilities

Document: “Aerodynamic Model test Report Titan IIIM Final Posttest Report 0.0535 scale Force and Pressure Model Phase II,” 1967 Martin Report Of Unusual Size (ROUS, 353 pages) describing with charts, data, model photos and diagrams, of the proposed Titan IIIM topped with a Manned Orbiting Laboratory.

Diagram: General Arrangement of the Douglas D-558 research aircraft (provenance unknown)

CAD Diagram (for $5-level and up): Medusa Spinnaker, second illustration of giant but lightweight nuclear pulse propelled spacecraft

 

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. *ALL* back issues, one a month since 2014, are available for subscribers at low cost.



 Posted by at 6:46 pm

News flash: Nukes can nudge rocks. I’m shocked, SHOCKED!

 Hmm..., news, nukes, science, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Oct 302021
 

Planetary Defense: Nuclear Explosion Can Disrupt Hazardous Asteroid To Protect the Earth

Lawrence Livermore Labs simulated popping off a 1 megaton nuke *above* the surface of a 100-meter asteroid. Low and behold, it blows the asteroid into flinders, an expanding cloud of bits. If done two months prior to an impact with Earth, 99.9% of the mass of the asteroid *misses* the Earth. And the thing is: even if it all still hit, from a certain point of view you’d rather have it blown apart into a bajillion tiny rocks than one big one. Yes, every satellite and spacecraft on that side of the planet is now likely in a  world of hurt… but if your 100 meter rock is turned into gravel, ain’t none of that getting down to the ground as anything that could cause any real damage.

It’s easier to replace a sky full of comsats than a city or a country.

 

 Posted by at 1:10 pm

“The untold story of the world’s biggest nuclear bomb”

 awesomeness, history, Hmm..., nukes, projects  No Responses »
Oct 292021
 

As previously mentioned, the story of Flashback is starting to come out. This article by Alex Wellerstein in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is mostly about the Soviet Tsar bomb, but also describes American responses with giant nukes of our own including the BTV and the Flashback.

An unearthly spectacle

The untold story of the world’s biggest nuclear bomb

 Posted by at 7:12 am

Flashback: Engage Smug Mode

 awesomeness, B-47 and B-52 Origins and Evolution, blather, history, Hmm..., news, nukes, projects, science, weapons  No Responses »
Oct 192021
 

Almost four years ago I posted about a project known as “Flashback,” a vaguely-described mid 1960’s program to carry and drop a giant *something* from a B-52. What it was, exactly, was not described with any clarity, but there were enough clues that I tentatively speculated that it was a design for an American “Tsar Bomb” with a yield of fifty or more megatons. To my knowledge I was the first person to yap about it publicly. I sent what I’d found to a few atomic and aerospace researchers to see if they knew anything. At the time, they were as mystified as I was.

Today there’s less mystery. I was contacted by one of the researchers I had contacted back then, letting me know he’s writing an article to appear in a month or so in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, covering Flashback among other things. He has Found Some Stuff. In short… Flashback was a design for a 50 to 100 megaton hydrogen bomb.

Giggitty.

 

 Posted by at 10:49 pm
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