A photo of a bit of NASA concept art, found on eBay. Dating from 1968, this shows an astronaut doing some geology (“seleneology?”) with a six-wheeled rover and a remarkably slim space suit.
Dec 172013
Dec 162013
LLNL artwork depicting the hit-to-kill terminal stage of the Brilliant Pebbles, sans the booster drop-stages. It does not seem to have a go-forward thruster; that would seem to have been provided by the boosters. What it does have is a fair amount of divert capability provided by the thrusters mounted at what should be the center of gravity.
While dimensions are unknown with any certainty, this would be a fairly small system. The kill vehicle – which in this case is somewhat difficult to distinguish from the propulsion system – had a mass goal of only 2.5 kilograms (according to THIS), while the booster was to mass about 100 kilograms. THIS source said the vehicles were about one meter long.
Dec 152013
I just saw this today. HOLY CRAP. Might this, at very long last, finally be the pro-space exploration movie we’ve been waiting for? There’s not a whole lot available about the plot (see IMDB), but at the very least this teaser has *exactly* the right message.
Dec 142013
Here is the Brilliant Pebbles anti-missile vehicle just after cocoon (“life jacket” here) separation. The kill vehicle is shown as a multi-stage vehicle with four drop-tanks; this capability usually isn’t shown. However, it would certainly allow for blisteringly fast interception speeds.
Dec 142013
Dec 142013
The NASA “Morpheus” lander, to be a bit more specific.
[youtube RlbTx4fo5Tw]
This is an evolved version of prior Armadillo Aerospace lander work, and is the second Morpheus lander to fly. The first one flew in August 2012… and burned down, fell over and then sank into the swamp.
Dec 142013
Dec 112013
Lawrence Livermore National Lab artwork of the Brilliant Pebbles anti-missile satellite within its protective “cocoon.” Compare to artwork HERE. Dimensions remain elusive.
Dec 092013
I’m not a secret agent by any rational reckoning. Even so, I’m pretty sure that most intelligence services try to downplay what they do. Except, apparently, the National Reconnaissance Office.
‘Nothing is beyond our reach,’ National Reconnaissance Office’s new logo claims
Yeah. Great. Spec-friggen-tacular.
And then there’s this not-at-all-embarassing headline:
NSA spied on ‘World of Warcraft,’ other online games, leaked documents show
Dec 062013
Until December 18, the AIAA is selling 25 books for $25, and ten books for $10. Some good stuff here at some pretty substantial discount. You don’t have to be an AIAA member to get the discount.
NOTE: I have no relationship with the AIAA, and don’t make a nickel off these sales. So.. if you want to buy stuff and still feel like you are Supporting The Cause, feel free to navigate to Amazon.com through the “Search’ box that’s to the upper right of this page. i get a tiny fraction of the sales prices for items purchased via search & referral. I suggest buying stuff like laptops and computers and cars and such. So long as I’m getting a small percentage, it might as well be a small percentage of a large dollar value…
The Aircraft Designers: A Grumman Historical Perspective
Michael V. Ciminera
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Meeting the Challenge: The Hexagon KH-9 Reconnaissance Satellite
Phil Pressel
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Space Shuttle Legacy: How We Did It and What We Learned
Roger D. Launius; John Krige; James I. Craig
$49.95
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Augustine’s Laws
Norman R. Augustine
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100 years of Flight
Frank H. Winter and F. Robert van der Linden
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Have Blue and the F-117A: Evolution of the “Stealth Fighter”
David C. Aronstein and Albert C. Piccirillo
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Advanced Tactical Fighter to F-22 Raptor: Origins of the 21st Century Air Dominance Fighter
David C. Aronstein, Michael J. Hirschberg, and Albert C. Piccirillo
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Aerodynamic Principles of Flight Vehicles
Argyris Panaras
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Voyager Tales: Personal Views of the Grand Tour
David W. Swift
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Hans Von Ohain
Margaret Conner
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Road to Mach 10: Lessons Learned from the X-43A Flight Research Program
Curtis Peebles
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Eleven Seconds into the Unknown
Curtis Peebles
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Blazing the Trail: The Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry
Mike Gruntman
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The Rocket Company
Patrick Stiennon and David Hoerr
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Rocketdyne: Powering Humans into Space
Vince Wheelcock
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Space Exploration and Astronaut Safety
Joseph N. Pelton
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Shades of Gray
L. Parker Temple III
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Unmanned Aviation: A Brief History of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Laurence R. Newcome
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Starting Something Big: The Commercial Emergence of GE Aircraft Engines
Robert V. Garvin
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The Power to Fly: An Engineer’s Life
Martin Ducheny and Brian Rowe
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Aerospace Engineering Education During the First Century of Flight
Barnes McCormick; Eric Jumper; Conrad Newberry
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The History of North American Small Gas Turbine Aircraft Engines
Richard Leyes II; William Fleming
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Methods to Extend Mechanical Component Life: Lessons Learned with Space Vehicle and Rocket Engine Components
Dieter Huzel
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The Engines of Pratt & Whitney: A Technical History
Jack Connors
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From Rainbow to Gusto
Paul A. Suhler
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Experiments in Aerodynamics
S. Langley
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Skycrane: Igor Sikorsky’s Last Vision
John A. McKenna
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Hired Minds
Bryan Gardner
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Terminal Chaos: Why U.S. Air Travel Is Broken and How to Fix It
George L. Donohue; Russell D. Shaver II
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Space: The Fragile Frontier
Mark Williamson
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Rocketeers and Gentlemen Engineers
Tom Crouch; Buzz Aldrin
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The Superpower Odyssey: A Russian Perspective on Space Cooperation
Yuri Karash
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Centennial of Powered Flight
Gerard Faeth
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When the Airlines Went to War
Robert Serling
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Advice to Rocket Scientists
Jim Longuski
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