Anybody want a Saturn I booster?

 history, Hmm..., news, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Aug 142019
 

NASA Giving Away Apollo-Era Saturn Rocket to Anyone who Wants It

It’s free to a good home. Just pay the modest $250,000 shipping fee.

I have an obvious choice: SpaceX. The Saturn S-1 stage was, as we all know, originally intended to be recovered after flight via parachutes with an ocean splashdown; this option was eliminated as a mass and cost savings measure, as were plans to add Rogallo wings or parafoils for a horizontal runway landing.  I suggest that SpaceX get this stage, refurb it, fix it up and fly it, using one of the several proposed recovery methods.

Why? Because it would be cool, that’s why.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 4:39 pm

Clearly times have changed

 art, history, Hmm..., humor, politics, spacecraft  No Responses »
Aug 112019
 

I have many boxes of aerospace stuff to scan to preserve it for the ages. A lot of it is technical documentation, but some of it is historical stuff of probably rather esoteric interest. For example, a few mementos of the 1963 “Old Timers” reunion. This was a get-together of the rocket scientists from Fort Bliss, 1945: you know, von Braun and the gang. One of the booklets included many photos… and many cartoons drawn for the occasion, including the one below. I suspect that if someone had the temerity to create and publish such a thing *today* there’d be a social media firestorm and a tussle down in HR.

 

 Posted by at 11:11 pm

SpaceX: Another Competitor

 Hmm..., news, politics, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Aug 112019
 

This time, Chinese.

Congrats, of course. But SpaceX might want to take a look at their security procedures. Not saying the ChiComs couldn’t have done this on their own, but it’s hardly unlikely that they cheated.

 

 Posted by at 4:17 pm

Star Destroyers

 art, awesomeness, models, new products, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Aug 092019
 

We’re in something of a golden age of model kits for the Star Destroyer from Star Wars. NOTE: this applies only to the Star Destroyers form the original trilogy; if you want a model of the Star Destroyer from the sequel trilogy, you’re just plain out of luck. Just as if you’d wanted the sequel trilogy to actually be *good* Star Wars, I suppose.

Anyway, the Japanese model kit company Bandai is soon to release two new SD models.  Bandai mostly seems to focus on kits of those ridiculous anthropomorphic giant robotic “mech suit” things that are apparently overly popular in anime, but their Star Wars kits are usually exquisite.

As always: if you order one of the items from the Amazon link below, or use the link to go further into Amazon and buy other stuff, I get a small pittance. So you can help a brother out while loading up on Star Destroyers.

First up a 1/5000 scale Star Destroyer, complete with in-scale blockade runner and Millenium Falcon. The SD is modeled after the one from “Empire Strikes Back” which is substantially different from the one in “A New Hope” (and “Rogue One”), so the blockade runner is a little out of place, but I don’t suppose too many people are gonna care.

At 12.6 inches long, it’ll be a little smaller and a lot more expensive than the smaller of the Revell kits, but the detailing should be vastly improved.

Also coming soon from Bandai, a dinkyscale model of the Super Star Destroyer. Small, but cheap and very likely ridiculously detailed.

If you want a more sizable (more than 2 feet long) Super Star Destroyer, and especially if you don’t want to have to put one together, this just came on the market. It seems to be well received.

Available for a few years now is the Bandai dinkyscale Star Destroyer. Cheap, but a beautiful little thing. I’ve shown one I built hereabouts before.

Also available for some years now is the smaller of the two Revell models, a “Snaptite Build and Play” kit. Low on detail, but reasonably accurate, with a built-in sound and light system. Designed more or less to be built by kids, assembly is easy and quick, and the parts thickness is such to make it pretty rugged.

Last is the gigantic 1/2700 kit, originally released by the Russian model kit company Zvezda, re-released by Revell. Pricey, but since it’s about twice the size of the new Bandai kit while being only 25%or so more expensive, it’s a pretty good deal. Assuming, of course, you have someplace to put it.

 Posted by at 1:31 am

I would watch the hell out of this series

 art, awesomeness, science fiction, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Aug 062019
 

But it’s not a series, rather some sort of video game for mobile devices.  If Amazon or Netflix or even the SciFi channel were to make a proper multi-season series out of it with the same quality and seriousness as “The Expanse,” I would be all over it. But as a game for telephones? Meh.

Still: watch it. It’s freakin gorgeous. And how often does anyone use a voiceover from President Reagan to extol the virtues of space exploration in a science fiction setting? I belive it’s from his post-Challenger address to the nation.

 

 Posted by at 1:54 am

Starship to fly soon?

 awesomeness, Hmm..., news, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Aug 042019
 

Hmmmm…..

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says first orbital Starship prototype flight debut is just weeks away

An update on the whole program is due August 24, and flights of a full-scale Starship “prototype” soon thereafter.
SpaceX is building *multiple* flight test vehicles, both in Texas and in Florida. They are building them outside, which is pretty much by definition as far from “clean room” conditions as you can get, unless you go the extra step and build them within a malfunctioning and overflowing sewage treatment plant. The Starship prototypes are clearly not space-capable, but seem to be aimed mostly or entirely as subsonic or just maybe low-supersonic aerodynamic “flying mockups.” The skins are far, *FAR* from the smooth, featureless outer mold lines you want to have for something that will deal with hypersonic airflows. Still, if they can demonstrate a death swoop and pinpoint landing with a vehicle with the same aerodynamics as a true Starship, with the same weights, propulsion systems, center of gravity, etc. as the real deal…. they’ll be a heck of a lot closer to a truly reusable large launch system than anyone else ever.
 Posted by at 7:52 pm

SLS vs. Progress

 AARRRGH, Gah., Hmm..., news, projects, rockets, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Aug 012019
 

It seems that Boeing, prime contractor for the Space Launch System, tried to shut down development of orbital fuel depots and orbital propellant transfer. Because if you can stash a lot of fuel in orbit easily and cheaply, you don’t *need* the bloated irrational monstrosity that is SLS.

The SLS rocket may have curbed development of on-orbit refueling for a decade

What’s interesting; if this story is true, Boeing opposed fuel depots because they threaten SLS. But SpaceX, now working on “Super Heavy” rockets with roughly the same capability as SLS, are *actively* supporting fuel deports. Why the difference? Because SLS was never meant to really do anything. Launch once a year, one extremely expensive mission maybe to the moon, call it good. Pretend to be moving outwards again, but the minimum possible steps taken as slowly as possible. SpaceX wants to lob dozens of people to *Mars* in just the next few years. Same launch capability, but fundamentally different goals.

*IF* this story turns out to be true, someone needs to have their ass handed to ’em. Congressional investigations at least on par with the “Trump is a Russian stooge” investigation, because this one has had clear and obvious impacts on the US: Billions spent on a system nobody wants, years wasted that that the US could have used to conquer the heavens. Hell, just imagine what we could have done with SLS money by way of building breeder reactors.

 Posted by at 10:12 pm

A “Man Conquers Space” quandary

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, Gah., history, Hmm..., rockets, science fiction, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Aug 012019
 

So I was cleaning out some junk when I stumbled across a printout of a circa 2009 version of the “Man Conquers Space” screenplay. At that time the story was in constant motion, with major changes and updates occurring very rapidly. It had, honestly, become damned bloated by that point, encompassing a *lot* of history and events and characters; it would have been a nightmare to actually get made, and probably would have been a mess unless there had been  *lot* of trimming and good editing. Of course, we all know how MCS ended up; it will never be made.

Finding the printout made me go digging through old digital storage, and I found two versions of the screenplay, one from 2008, another from a few months later in 2009. It’s made me wonder what, if anything, should be done with them. They are marked “Copyright” both David Sander and one other fella who may well now wish to remain completely and permanently anonymous.

At some point I plan on reading through them again, just for giggles. I may well also print them out, plug them into a binder and place it on my growing “well, THAT didn’t work” shelf.

I’m left to wonder what else can and should be done with them.

 Posted by at 1:26 am
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