Well, this sucks. But it was pretty much bound to happen eventually… a three-engine Grasshopper blew itself to flinders today.
SpaceX Test Flight Detonated After ‘Anomaly’ Over Texas Town
Aug 222014
Aug 222014
Now here’s a photo worth seeing:
This version doesn’t do it justice. Check out the NASA link for the full-rez:
ISS040-E-090540 (9 Aug. 2014) — One of the Expedition 40 crew members aboard the International Space Station photographed this nighttime image showing city lights in at least half a dozen southern states from some 225 miles above the home planet. Lights from areas in the Gulf Coast states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, as well as some of the states that border them on the north, are visible.
Aug 222014
This claim seems a little odd:
Sea plankton ‘found living outside International Space Station’
Russian cosmonauts claim to have discovered tiny marine creatures thriving in zero-gravity on the outside of the International Space Station
There is only one explanation for this…
Aug 202014
In restored glorious ExtraColor.
[youtube aT1s5s2LurM]
Seeing as how I don’t speak Russian and all, much of it sorta blew past me. However, some interesting points:
At around 25 minutes, full color footage of the first spacewalk. History worth watching.
Starting around 30 minutes, the future of lunar colonization, including some unusual space suits.
At around 47:30, a mass driver in Space:1999 model form.
Aug 192014
With the recent cat illnesses, serious dropoff in business and increase in vet bills, stress levels hereabouts have been at near-historic levels. But hey, at least I haven’t yet contracted a life threatening case of bronchitis in 2014 (that’s me, always looking on the bright side). One of the consequences of stress is a decrease in lesser creativity… I might still be able to creatively think myself out of some emergency situation, but art? Feh. Gone.
Fortunately, things are starting to crawl back towards the normal only-slightly-apocalyptic level of DOOM stress, and creativity is starting to slooowly return. So, some updates:
Aug 172014
Found on ebay, an artists impression of a Hamilton Standard concept for a one-man rocket propulsion system for use by lunar explorers. Dating from 1964, this is a “rocket belt” similar to that built and flown by Bell. The lack of atmosphere would give the rocket nozzles better performance than in Earths atmosphere, and the lower lunar gravity would mean that lower thrust would be needed. Still, performance would likely have been rather disappointing… at best a few minutes of thrust.
Aug 152014
*So* close to being entirely awesome…
[youtube uIlu7szab5I]
Aug 152014
North American Aviation artists impression of the Apollo CSM and LEM, circa 1963. There are quite a few details here that are substantially different from the vehicles actually built and flown.
Aug 132014
Found on ebay, a bit of NASA promo art depicting a 1966 Apollo Applications Program concept for a LEM Shelter. This would have been a more or less stock descent module with an ascent module without the ability to ascend. It would thus have been capable of transporting more cargo to the surface, including a habitat better capable of supporting a crew for a week or more. Transport back up to lunar orbit would have been accomplished via another LEM.
Aug 122014
From 1973, a magazine ad for the Garrett Corporation (avionics manufacturer) showing Robert McCall paintings of the Space Shuttle system as then envisioned. At that point, the basics of the Space Transportation System were worked out, but the details were up in the air…
As shown here – which appears to represent a Rockwell design – the Orbiter features a “ridge” down the centerline of the cargo bay doors. This was originally where the manipulator arm (or “arms” as shown here) was supposed to go. The cargo bay was a cylindrical volume, and when filled with a cylindrical payload there would obviously be no room for an arm. So the arm had to fit *outside* that cylindrical volume.
Additional details: it was originally thought that exposed RCS thrusters on the sides of the nose would get roasted on re-entry, so they were hidden behind doors in earlier designs. The proboscis at the front o the ET was a solid rocket motor, used to de-orbit the tank. As originally envisioned, the tank would make it to orbit, or nearly so; it would need to be propulsively de-orbited so that it would come down over the ocean and cause no damage. In the end, the role of the orbital maneuvering system was bumped up so that staging off the ET was carried out just a bit below stable orbit; as a result the ET would naturally re-enter over the Indian Ocean without further effort.
And a lot of early art depicted the Shuttle with lots and lots of paint. Not only on the External Tank, but on the *underside* of the orbiter. I assume that this is just artistic license rather than anyone actually believing that white paint would survive re-entry.