Yay! Star Destroyers!

 art, awesomeness, science fiction, spacecraft, youtube  13 Responses »
Apr 072016
 

The first trailer for “Rogue One” was released today:

It’s out in December, and has already been picked apart frame by frame:

Every Cool Detail We Spotted in the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Trailer

There are two bits I found of particular interest.

  1. The actress chosen to play the role of Mon Mothma played her before, in “Revenge of the Sith.” And she really, really does look like Mon Mothma from “Return of the Jedi,” except with a slightly longer neck

2: Old-School Star Destroyers. Even better, the one shown most clearly is dressed up like the Star Destroyer seen in the original “Star Wars,” rather than the slightly modified versions from “Empire” and “Jedi” (the antenna or whatever above the bridge stands up in “Star Wars,” is laid down in “Empire” and “Jedi”).

In short:

spaceship

The one issue I have: in the scene showing the Death Star laser dish thingie being put into place… it’s moving in at a closing speed of *kilometers* per second. That’s gonna make touchdown kinda rough.

 Posted by at 9:49 am

Storytime: “Going to Gimli,” part 1

 art, blather, My Fiction, science fiction, spacecraft  17 Responses »
Apr 042016
 

Promptly upon finishing the sci-fi story “Mass Disappearance,” I began work on followups starring the same characters. One such story fell by the wayside, but another continued on. “Going to Gimli” – which I acknowledge is a lame title – is the one that survived. Given that I released “Mass Disappearance” almost two years ago, it should be reasonably obvious that I’m not up to Steven King’s class when it comes to banging out prose in a hurry.

I’m going to release “Gimli” in bite-sized chunks in PDF and EPUB format. While I have no doubt that a good editor would take a chainsaw to this, perhaps cutting half of it out… well, since there’s essentially zero chance of it ever getting published, I’m happy just putting it out there as-is. I write these particular yarns because I want to. There are scenes, images, visions, whatever, that I see from time to time and, lacking the ability to paint or otherwise create visual works of art, enscribblating the visuals down in prose form is the best I can do.

“Gimli” features the same Sarah, Zane, Loff and George characters from “Mass Disappearance,” again flying between worlds in their hyperdrive cargo ship. The plot is otherwise quite unlike that of “Mass Disappearance.” There is no charge for these. But if you read them and like them, feel free to tell your friends… and putting a little something in the tip jar would not be unappreciated.

Any comments, critiques, criticisms, suggestions or praise are welcome in the comments section.

 

 

EPUB version

PDF version

 


Fiction Tip Jar



 Posted by at 8:17 pm

I was just the coolest

 art, awesomeness, blather, history, rockets, science, spacecraft  12 Responses »
Mar 302016
 

A quarter century ago when I was in college, it was the fashion of the day to put posters on your dorm room wall. For a lot of the straight guys, that meant posters of improbably hot babes… cheerleaders and models and such. Other guys put up posters of football and basketball players; by process of elimination, these would not seem to have been other straight guys.

This is one of the posters I put up:

theoretical performance of rocket propellant combinations 1988 side A

I picked up this “Theoretical Performance of Rocket Propellant Combinations” poster by Rocketdyne at the Dayton Air Show sometime around 1989, and now it’s in pretty rough shape. It was stuck to a dorm wall with blu-tack and tape, and torn and taped back up; it survived college to wind up stuck to the walls at various places of aerospace employment  and followed me all over the continent. I’ve finally gotten around to scanning the thing, and will expend some effort in fixing it up.

Never mind semi-naked hotties, *this* was the thing to have on your wall. This and the cutaway diagram of the starship Enterprise and the posters of nuclear mushroom clouds were *way* better. Yes, I was the coolest.

Some time ago I scored two other variants of the Propellant Performance poster off of ebay. The one below dates from 1964 and is printed on what has got to be the worst paper ever created… no flexibility whatsoever. I have books centuries old that have paper far less brittle that this thing. Fortunately I got it scanned and am well on the way to restoring the image.

theoretical performance of rocket propellant combinations 1964 side A

And the third one? Frakked if I know where it is. I assume one of my cats has hidden it for some nefarious purpose.

 Posted by at 12:13 am

Saturn C-5

 art, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  1 Response »
Mar 292016
 

Some photos (from ebay) of a NASA PR glossy from December, 1961, showing the then-current Saturn C-5 configuration. Note the fairly obvious signs of some retouching of the engines on the first stage… either the engines were originally larger, or they were larger in number. Note the lack of the small but distinctive stabilizing fins on the first stage.

saturn c5 3 stages 2 saturn c5 3 stages

 Posted by at 7:46 am

Pax Orionis: The Blast From Jackass Flats, Part Two

 art, books, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, Pax Orionis, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft  14 Responses »
Mar 272016
 

I’ve just released Part Two (of two) of “The Blast from Jackass Flats,” describing the maiden voyage of the USSC Columbia. This was the first manned Orion vehicle in the Pax Orionis universe… the alternate history that starts with the Cuban Missile Crisis gone wrong and results in America conquering the solar system in ships powered by atom bombs.  Included in this issue is a Technical Data Sheet describing the Columbia, including modifications needed for atmospheric flight. This and other Pax Orionis tales are available at the Pax Orionis Patreon.

blast 2

 Posted by at 4:49 pm

Get on board the Pax Orionis bandwagon

 My Fiction, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, Pax Orionis, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Mar 262016
 

It has been a while since I’ve put out a new piece of Pax Orionis; since the last one, other obligations have jumped up and down on me. But in the next day or two Part 2 of “The Blast From Jackass Flats” will come out. If you’re on the Pax Orionis Patreon, the story will be only a buck; for two bucks you get the story and some extras, including a technical diagram, this time showing the USSC Columbia.

So, sign up now so you don’t miss each new installment. Because your Arch Nemesis just might be signed up, and you don;t want *that* dirtbag to get the jump on you here!

Pax Orionis

 Posted by at 6:27 pm
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