Welp, looks like this is one to see on opening day (October 12):
Jun 082018
Jun 052018
What Has NASA’s Curiosity Found on Mars? We’ll Find Out Thursday
The Mars rover found something sufficiently interesting to hold a press conference this Thursday, but details are embargoed until that time.
NASA will webcast Thursday’s Curiosity Mars rover discussion on its NASA TV channel, as well as Facebook Live, Twitch TV, Ustream, YouTube and Twitter/Periscope. You’ll be able to ask questions of the panel via social media using by tagging your posts with #askNASA.
So, what did it find? It will probably be something along the lines of a scientifically interesting mineral deposit… something indicating the past or recent existence of water, perhaps. Perhaps it stumbled across an actual sign of liquid water bubbling up. Or just maybe, it found something that looks like a fossil… not a fossilized trilobite, but fossilized algal mats or something.
But heck, why not… it found a chunk of processed plastic. It found footprints in the sand. It found Nazi memorabilia. It photographed an alien. It peeked around the curtain at the edge of the set and saw an aged but obviously still alive Stanley Kubrick.
May 302018
Box art of Fantastic Plastic’s 1/144 Rocinante model has been released. The kit will be released soon, I gather. Sign up and get in on the list before the only ones that are available are on eBay…
May 292018
A piece of 1960’s aerospace concept art depicting a sizable (50 to 100 crew) space station equipped with three modules at the ends of arms, intended for artificial gravity via centrifugal force. Presumably the conical structural at the left would contain the nuclear reactor, shielding and radiations; presumably the modules on the hub at the far left would be non-rotating to aid spacecraft docking. Unclear what the source is… but I’d bet on either North American Aviation or Lockheed.
I have uploaded righ-rez scans of both sides of this B&W photo glossy to the 2018-05 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for APR Patrons at the $4 level and up. If you are interested in these images and a great many other “extras” and monthly aerospace history rewards, please sign up for the APR Patreon. What else are you going to spend $4 a month on?
May 262018
The ironic thing: how well the main theme of “The Expanse” works with footage from Jeff Bezos’ main rival…
May 192018
OK, physical prep work on the 3D printed parts is now complete and the model is ready to be shipped off for casting. Below are photos of the model parts simply taped together (the lower loop is bent upwards a bit due to being simply held together with tape). The model kit should prove fairly straightforward to build; there are only a few pieces:
1: Top shell
2: Bottom shell
3: Bridge
4: Lounge
5: Top loop
6: Mid loop
7: Bottom loop
8: Underside of shuttlebay
And that’s it.
If you want one – and you really should – it will be available from Fantastic Plastic. Send them an email to reserve a copy. this is an important thing to do… let’s ’em know roughly how many to make. Like a lot of kits like these, only a limited number will be made.
May 182018
In the 1960’s, prior to the Space Shuttle program, General Dynamics/Convair studied using the Atlas ICBM as a space launch system. no surprise there. But one concept called for a nearly fully reusable Atlas, equipped with wings, jet engines, landing gear and a cockpit to recover the booster in one reusable piece. It would be topped with either an expendable Centaur and satellite/space probe upper stage or a smallish manned lifting body spaceplane with its own built-in propulsive capability. At the time General Dynamics released sizable “educational” cards with information and photos of models of the reusable Atlas. Unlike the normal Atlas, this version did not drop the outboard “booster’ engines, but kept them throughout the mission. An inflatable, deployable afterbody was proposed to fair over the engines after burnout to reduce base drag.
I have uploaded righ-rez scans of both sides of this poster-sized card to the 2018-05 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for APR Patrons at the $4 level and up.
Additionally, a report on this concept is available as Space Doc 52.
If you are interested in these Reusable Atlas model images and a great many other “extras” and monthly aerospace history rewards, please sign up for the APR Patreon. What else are you going to spend $4 a month on?
May 142018
A set of books, being sold as a lot. The prices in parentheses are what they seem to be going for on Abebooks.
“Space Colonies, a CoEvolution Book,” published in 1977 by the Whole Earth Catalog. Filled with technical information an papers, but also a lot of terribly 1970’s semi-hippie cartons and such. Paperback, in pretty good shape. ($20)
“Space Manufacturing Facilities – Space Colonies,”published in 1977 by the AIAA. Hardbound, cover’s a bit scuffed, but the book itself is quite good. ($40 to over $500… go figure)
“Space Manufacturing 5 Engineering with Lunar and Asteroidal Materials,” published in 1985 by the AIAA.Hardbound, good shape. ($25)
“Space Manufacturing 7 Space Resources to Improve Life on Earth,” published in 1989 by the AIAA. Hardbound, great shape except for some light spotting inside the front cover. ($35)
“Space Settlements A Design Study,” published by NASA in 1977. Paperback, slight scuffing on the cover but otherwise great shape. ($15)
Total, ($135). If anyone wants it, the price is $125 plus postage (media mail for cheapness, or whatever else if you want fastness). If more than one person wants the lot, I guess I’ll do a bit of an auction between interested folks. If interested, either comment below or send me an email: 
I’ll give it a day or so to see who’s interested.
SOLD.
May 132018
Took some better-quality (tripod) photos of the Star Destroyer model. Actually mostly in focus now, with different exposure levels. Should have a black background, but whatryagonnado.
May 132018
Some weeks back I posted photos of a preliminary experiment using “black light” paint to illuminate starship models. Included was a small Bandai Star Destroyer model, which had windows on the left side of the ship and the engines painted and lit up with UV to demonstrate that it could make a convincing lighting system. After taking the photos I tried to put the model back on its shelf, fumbled, and broke one of the “shield generators” off of the bridge. Whoops. But that presented an opportunity to try something new… modeling the ship as being under attack and exploding.
The photos kinda stink, largely due to being shot under dismal lighting conditions (what do you want… it’s 4 AM) and the camera being handheld. So everything is blurry. Even so, I think it turned out pretty well. This would certainly be a hell of a chore to light up using LEDs.
