A Rockwell diagram showing the configuration of the Shuttle for ferry flight, with the aerodynamic tailcone.
Oct 242015
Oct 242015
A three stage vehicle to transport 10 passengers to space stations and the like. I’ve recently come into possession of a whole bunch of reports on the Reusable Aerospace Passenger Transport and Reusable Orbital Transport programs; at some point these might make the makings of an APR article.
The third stage bears a vague similarity to the Boeing Dyna Soar in configuration, but is an entirely different vehicle. This concept helped set the course towards the Space Shuttle.
Oct 182015
If you find yourself near Ashland, Nebraska, you could do far, far worse than giving this museum a visit.
It’s a shame that New York City got a Space Shuttle but this museum – or the USAF museum in Dayton – did not. Heck, Hill Aerospace Museum or Wings Over the Rockies would have been good locations. Why not locate such things closer to the *middle* of the country, on well traveled paths? New York City hardly needs new attractions, nor is it an important waypoint on the road from one side of the country to the other (while it might be between, say, Washington D.C. and Boston, I suspect few sane people are going to go *through*Manhattan to get from D. C. to Boston).
Oct 152015
Not strictly Project Orion, since it seems to date from the 1980’s, but it certainly represents an Orion-style vehicle. But was it attached to an actual program?
Oct 142015
Almost certainly not. Still, the data from the Kepler spacecraft suggests that a Dyson swarm (a *vast* number of spacecraft, space colonies and solar power satellites surrounding a star, so numerous that they intercept a measurable fraction of the light emitted from the star) *may* surround the main sequence F3 star KIC 8462852. This star is 1480 light-years away in the constellation Lyra.
The less interesting explanation is that the star is surrounded by a substantial cloud of comets. The problem here is that it is an old star, and shouldn’t have such a cloud; in order to have a cloud like that at this age, it would have to have been gravitationally disturbed by a passing nearby star within the last few millenia or so. Not impossible, just statistically unlikely. Sadly, thought, probably a more likely explanation than an alien megastructure.
The official paper (which, perhaps wisely, doesn’t mention the idea of aliens) is available HERE.
The Popular Science article on the subject:
Have We Detected Megastructures Built By Aliens Around A Distant Star?
Oct 122015
Someone took a number of NASA still photos from the Apollo program and animated them, creating a short movie. It’s not one hundred percent effective… no matter what tricks you play, a still photo of a human is going to remain unconvincing as “video,” since humans are always in some form of chaotic motion. But on the whole it’s interesting.
Oct 112015
Recent photos of the HL-20 lifting body spaceplane mockup on display at the Wings Over the Rockies aviation museum near Denver. An attempt at art on the photographers part, I suppose.
Oct 102015
The first private mission to the moon has signed a launch contract for a SpaceX Falcon 9, to launch in the later half of 2017. Extra entertainingness: the team behind the lunar lander, SpaceIL, is Israeli. Imagine how that’s going to tweak Certain Parties.
Private Moon Race Heats Up with 1st Verified Launch Deal
Oct 042015
Quick review: a damn fine flick. Sticks remarkably close to the book; the changes aren’t the usual sort of dreck that changes the meaning of the story, or adds needless characters, or any of that. The visual effects are largely flawless (though the gravity centrifuge was apparently static, unlike the USS Discovery’s centrifuge, with the result that in some scenes it’s pretty obvious that actors are walking “down” the floor). The science is pretty good, the acting is good, the dialog works. There are no villains; the drama comes from the situation, not mustache-twirling badguys or steaming morons.
…
Oct 012015
Neato:
Pluto’s Big Moon Charon Reveals a Colorful and Violent History
An exaggerated-color photo of Plutos largest moon:
The brown spot it thought to be a polar cap composed of nitrogen and methane than have been acted upon by ultraviolet light. Presumably over a *long* time.
Here are Charon and Pluto to scale and as they would actually appear, roughly:
