Here are the main dimensions of the Prometheus model, assuming a 560-foot length and 1/500 scale. Dimensions are in millimeters. If you want it in inches or feet or yards or li or rods or fathoms or furlongs or leagues or parsecs… well, it’s late, I’m tired, and what, is your arm broke? Use a calculator.
After more than a month (yay, H1N1!), here are some progress shots on the Prometheus. The vast bulk of the modeling is done (antennae and details on the lower “nose” being the main gaps now), but that doesn’t mean the project is done. The parts need to be hacked and carved and turned into printable, moldable and castable *kit* parts. This means turning the fat brick that is the main body into a series of shells, something my version of Rhino cannot do with the push of a button. So it needs to be “carved” out. The main body is here shown in four colors for the four parts it has currently been sliced into; this may reduce to two parts, top and bottom. Most of the hollowing is done; the extreme tail needs doing.
Since the last update images were posted, the engines have been brought inboard to their correct position. The ball-and-socket joint should allow the engines to be modeled in landed, flight, or anywhere-in-between positions. Built right, it should be possible to build the whole thing so you can move them as desired, rather than fixed in place. However, the landing gear itself is being modeled in two distinct positions… if you want to scratchbuild that mess of pistons and hinges to be movable… well, you just go right ahead.
Issue number 06 of US Bomber Projects is now available (for background, see HERE). This issue includes:
USBP#06 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
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US Bomber Projects #07 is also now available. This issue includes:
USBP#07 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
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A commercial I just saw online for the University of Phoenix. The “story” here is a little girl inspired by the Apollo program gets herself appropriate schooling so that she, too, can go into space (on perhaps the strangest Apollo-type rocket to date, but whatever).
[youtube FYa8mRZOB2c]
Carried to 46,000 feet, used its hybrid rocket engine for 20 seconds to attain Mach 1.4 and 71,000 feet. Note that the insides of the vertical stabilizers are shiny. I wonder how that was achieved? Possibly a reflective surface like mylar, but that would seem prone to peeling off. There are also several paint processes that produce chrome-like finishes. And of course, maybe it was actually chrome or aluminum plated, or perhaps a metal foil application. The latter would make sense (so long as peeling can be prevented) as a way to reflect radiant heat from the rocket exhaust.
Also note the “aabar” on the rear fuselage. “Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, aabar Investments PJS (aabar)…” Spectacular.
Lawrence Livermore National lab has turned on the Gemini Planet Imager, a ground-based device designed specifically to spot distant planets. One of the first images is of HR4796A, a relatively young stellar system with a well-defined ring of dust and rubble likely left over from planet formation. Left image is natural light; right image is polarized light.
The primary target is Abell 2744, a cluster of galaxies 3.5 billion lightyears away. But galaxies up to 12 billion lightyears distant are visible, many brightened and enlarged due to gravitational lensing from the foreground galaxies.
Various resolution images can be downloaded HERE.
Every speck of light here is an entire galaxy… some 1/10,000 the mass of the Milky Way, some 100 times more massive. But if you assume that every little blip is a billion stars, seen as they were anywhere from 3.5 to 12 billion years ago, you can’t help be feel a little… impressed.
Once again an ad agency hearkens back to Apollo to try to sell us stuff, in this case the Cadillac CTS. While scientifically inaccurate in it’s imagery, the very last scene *is* very, very pretty.
[youtube jXsWeGUJP9M]
How many other government programs – and, better, government programs from more than *40* years ago – can be expected to serve as a source of inspiration? I wonder if a business case could be made that a modern American return-to-the-moon can be funded by and run for American ad agencies, in order to provide fodder for the next couple generations of sellin’ stuff? Whatever it takes, man…
Issue number 5 of US Bomber Projects is now available (for background, see HERE). This issue includes:
USBP#05 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
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