Pluto art onhand!

 aircraft, APR, drawings, projects, weapons  2 Responses »
Jul 012008
 

The first very limited run of Pluto posters is on hand. I have 11 posters, 10 inches by 30, printed glossy on heavy paper. In short, they look fricken’ *sweet.* I’m quite pleased at how they turned out… it’s a quality product.
I’d been planning on reserving selling the posters until the Pluto issue of APR comes out… but I kinda need to recoup some costs (as well as the Pluto posters, I also had a boxload of photos printed, and that really added up in a hurry). So, at this time the cost is $25 per poster, postage extra. Not quite sure what postage is yet… I’ll find out tomorrow when I mail one off to the artist. So if you are interested, send me an email.

I’m hoping these sell quick, so I can run and get another larger print run made.

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 Posted by at 7:03 pm

This is why I publish APR electronically

 APR, blather  No Responses »
Jun 282008
 

A few APR subscribers (and former subscribers) have complained that they don’t care for the electronic version, that they liked the paper version better. Hey, I agree. I vastly prefer reading an actual paper honest-to-Odin book to text on a screen. However, confirmation that sometimes electronic is better came yesterday when I had the three most recent issues of APR printed off at a print shop. These were printed single-sided, with pages with color being printed in color, and 11X17 pages printed on 11X17 pages. Total price? More than $40. And there wasn’t even binding, never mind postage. A full years worth would, after switching to double-sided and with volume discounts, likely still cost more than $60 simply to print off.  For a while I’ve been contemplating having a few copies made of Volume 1 printed complete and bound, but with binding and whatnot, the selling price would have to be on the order of $100. And who the hell would pay *that?* Sure, it’d be more than 500 pages (damn, that’s a lot when I think about it) and probably technically worth it… but a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks.

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Now, if anyone is actually interested in a bound version of Volume 1, let me know.

 Posted by at 12:23 pm

Orion Shall Rise

 APR, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, projects, science fiction, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Jun 112008
 

Before I started Aerospace Projects Review, I had taken a few stabs are writing other, somewhat similar, aerospace history items. One of the earliest – and in retrospect, least sensible – ideas was to write a massively illustrated book on the Orion nuclear pulse concept. This was not a good idea at the time, because there was virtually nothing of value available on the design of Orion vehicles. That information was not to become available for a few more years yet.

Nevertheless, one of the chapters in my little Orion book was going to be about fictional depictions of Orion. One of these depictions was in Poul Andersons book “Orion Shall Rise.” Sadly, the book did not include technical schematics (a common failing amongst most novels, in fact). But I managed to get in touch with Mr. Anderson, explain my project, and trade a few things back and forth. One of the things he sent me was a pencil sketch of the Orion Shall Rise ship. I made a simple 3-D computer model of it at the time, and suggested a few minor changes; these files and illustrations have long since been lost. However, I still have Mr. Andersons letters and the sketch, so… here ya go.

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 Posted by at 10:18 pm
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