Starship landing flip maneuver pic.twitter.com/QuD9HwZ9CX
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 10, 2020
Dec 102020
Dec 092020
Trying again…
OH SNAP!
OK, one minor malfunction, but that was still the best show I’ve seen since the first dual-booster landing.
IT WAS GLORIOUS!
Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2020
I found that I still have my own YouTube channel. Who knew? Anyway, if you’ve ever been *desperate* to find out what I sound like, here’s your chance, where I provide scintillating commentary during the touchdown maneuver:
Some of the audience…
Dec 082020
Eaglemoss has released information on their “subscription” model of the Enterprise-D:
It’s big, to be sure, at more than 2 feet long. Like other Eaglemoss kits, this thing shows up a bit at a time (four kits per month), taking you a while to amass all the components to complete the full model. Each kit costs about £11 each (doubtless there’ll be a USD $ option soon enough). Which doesn’t sound too bad, until you scroll waaaaaaaay down to the bottom and click on the FAQ and they kinda shyly point out that this thing is composed of 120 separate kits. That’s 120 times £11 which is… £1320, or about $1770. Yikes. Plus it’ll take 30 months for all the bits to get to you.
This Enterprise was first announced nearly two years ago, if it sounds vaguely familiar. Note that the final product does look substantially better than the earlier-shown prototype.
Dec 072020
… maybe. Looks like it’s scheduled for starting Tuesday at 8 AM. We shall see.
Nov 302020
The rewards for APR Patrons and Monthly Historical Documents program subscribers have been sent out. Included in the November 2020 rewards package are:
1: A diagram of a proposed DC-9 aft propfan research configuration
2: A Kaman K-Max brochure
3: A preliminary draft/outline for a report on F-108 employment
4: A CAD diagram of the M61A1 Vulcan
If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
Nov 282020
Planet Labs has tweeted out some photos of the Arecibo telescope taken by their Earth observing satellite.
August 10, 2020:
The Arecibo Observatory has been shut down after a structural cable failed, punching a 100-foot-long gash in the dish.
Seen here, SkySat imagery of the damage captured on August 10, 2020. pic.twitter.com/WOAx7od0yp
— Planet (@planetlabs) August 14, 2020
November 17, 2020:
In unfortunate news, the #AreciboObservatory radio telescope will be decommissioned after sustaining catastrophic damage earlier this year that can be seen from space. Read more in @nature: https://t.co/IUsruNvbjR pic.twitter.com/IHcqjqSiwh
— Planet (@planetlabs) November 19, 2020
It’s pretty much a mess.
Nov 242020
Hey! Anybody hereabouts interested in unbuilt variants of the North American B-70 bomber? I know a guy who can hook you up:
https://media.defense.gov/2020/Nov/23/2002540204/-1/-1/1/B-70%20VARIANTS.PDF
An official publication from the AFMC History Office, edited by noted aerospace author Tony R. Landis. Recommended.
Nov 232020
Stratolaunch starts building Talon hypersonic plane for Mach 6 flights
Construction is underway of an unmanned rocket-powered aircraft to be carried by the Stratolaunch “Roc” aircraft. The Talon-A is supposed to be something like the proposed X-24C… a lifting body hypersonic platform that can have various experimental units – including scramjets – attached to it. The Roc would be capable of carrying three Talon-A’s at a time, though it seems unlikely that there’s a really good reason to do so.
Nov 212020
Documentary film maker Werner Herzog has this to say about mankind trying to become an interplanetary species:
“The thought alone is an obscenity.”
Turns out he’s one of those misanthropes who compares humanity to locusts, who thinks we need to solve all the problems Here before moving There (one wonders if he thinks hominids should have stayed in Tanzania, or if he’s upset that amphibians left the ocean), and who somehow compares Nazism and Communism (ideologies that were all about limiting human options) to interplanetary expansion (which is all about expanding options).
One wonders if Herzog is at the top of BidenHarris’s list of people to run NASA.
Nov 192020
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket successfully launched from New Zealand and put 30 small satellites into orbit. Additionally, the first stage seems to have come down under parachutes for a splashdown in the ocean; it seems recovery operations are planned and/or underway. The eventual goal is to air snatch the booster with a helicopter; not as elegant as SpaceX’s hoverslam recovery, but, hey, better than anything Soyuz or Atlas or Delta does.
The view of the main chute from Electron's first stage as it returned to Earth. https://t.co/3YcSvrYIGi
— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) November 20, 2020