Zenith Star Mockup

 history, models, nukes, projects, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons  3 Responses »
Jul 052012
 

The “Orphans in Space” DVD set contains a bunch of really rather odd old films about space, from the early part of the 20th century up to the 1980′s. The video of most interest to readers of this blog is a Martin-Marietta promotional video for the Zenith Star laser satellite, featuring snippets of a speech by President Reagan at the Martin Marietta facility (near Denver?) in front of a full-scale Zenith Star mockup.

The video was copied to DVD from a videotape, which is why the resolution is a bit low.

 Posted by at 10:25 am

Missile launching satellite

 art, nukes, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons  13 Responses »
Jun 282012
 

Here’s a mid-1980’s Martin Marietta painting depicting a satellite  capable of holding and launching a multitude of missiles. As this came from a promotional video dealing with the Star Wars program, these missiles are presumably anti-missile missiles. Oddly, they seem to launch from both ends of the satellite.

Was this painting derived from a serious engineering design? I don’t know, but I do know that it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Soviet bomb satellite model built for (but cut from) “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

 Posted by at 11:15 pm

Yay! Lightning guns!

 awesomeness, news, science, science fiction, weapons  2 Responses »
Jun 272012
 

Didn’t I see this on Flash Gordon?

Picatinny engineers set phasers to ‘fry’

The Laser-Induced Plasma Channel is not actually a new idea. A laser beam is used to ionize a path through the air; a lightning bolt (for lack of a better term) is directed down that path to the target, or at least to wherever it finds a more conductive path.

ZZZZZZAP

The money quote:

“We never got tired of the lightning bolts zapping our simulated (targets),” said George Fischer, lead scientist on the project.

 Posted by at 2:03 pm

Eric Holder – 1995

 dumbassery, I'm from the government, Obamazombies, politics, weapons, youtube  1 Response »
Jun 202012
 

When contemplating why the current US Attorney General does what he does about programs like “Fast and Furious” which seem to have been calculated to make firearm owners and dealers look like villains, keep in mind what his views on firearms actually are. In 1995, he gave a speech where he makes it plain that he wanted a “brainwashing” campaign to convince citizens to disarm themselves.

[youtube GDCQTzBzl1A]

 Posted by at 8:15 am

NYC stabs its way into the news again

 news, politics, weapons  8 Responses »
Jun 122012
 

Bible-college student’s pocketknife spoils trip to New York City

So not only can a properly licensed American get arrested in New York City for the perfectly legal act of carrying a concealed firearm, you can also get arrested for having a small pocketknife. And since the Mayor of NYC now wants to make 16.1 ounce soft drinks illegal and lemonade stands are basically illegal, and you cannot actually legally break into the taxicab business…

 Posted by at 2:11 pm

Slide Fire

 awesomeness, blather, politics, weapons, youtube  11 Responses »
Jun 062012
 

It has been illegal for your average American to own a fully automatic weapon since the 1930’s, due to the manifestly unConstitutional National Firearms Act. There are only two legal ways around this:

1) Getting a federal firearms license, which is not only expensive but it also deletes your 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure

2) “Bump Fire” tricks.

“Bump Fire” refers to techniques or gadgets that let you simulate high cyclic rate full-auto firing. You still only get a single round fired per trigger pull, but the trick is that the gun rocks as you fire, and the result is that it slams back and forth in your hand and thus your finger functions the trigger quickly. This can be accomplished – sometimes – by simply holding the gun loosely. There are small spring loaded widgets that you can buy that fit up against the trigger to help you do this. Sadly, bump firing might be a dandy way to blow through a whole lot of ammo in a hurry, but it’s not been a good way to fire “full auto” while actually aiming at a target. In order for bump firing to work, you pretty much have to fire from the hip; makes for entertaining Hollywood movie-crap, but it’s a terrible way to do anything productive.

But it seems this problem may have been solved. The “Slide Fire” replaces the buttstock of an AR-15 or an AK-47; the weapon can slide back and forth within the stock. When the trigger is pulled, the gun slides back due to recoil; the hand holding onto the forestock pulls the gun forward, which brings the trigger back up against the trigger… rinse and repeat. You control rate of fire, and number of rounds fired, by controlling the forestock.

It sounds dodgy, but from the looks of it, it seems to work. It’s not as good as an optimized fully automatic weapon, but since it’s only a $370 or so additional cost to a $700 or so gun, and a fully automatic AR-15 would run you well over ten grand *and* cost you your soul, if you really feel the need to throw a hell of a lot of lead downrange in a hurry, this seems like a decent way to go about it.

[youtube wMQe3zBuNRY]

Obviously this would seem to be the sort of product that the BATF would love to ban, but their basis for doing so would be dubious since the firearm operates on the basis of one shot per trigger pull. It’s just lets you pull the trigger *really* fast.

 Posted by at 8:43 pm

U-Boat launched V-1s

 aircraft, blather, history, news, weapons  12 Responses »
May 282012
 

An interesting article from USA Today about Andy Rooney hearing rumors and reports that a German U-Boat fired a V-1 “Buzz Bomb” at New York City. Nothing here is remotely definable as hard evidence of such a launch, but rumors of such efforts on the Germans part have been floating about since late 1944. The concept is reasonable enough… basically an early version of the “Regulus” system. But so far as I’m aware, no verifiable hardware, drawings or even artists concepts from the war years have come to light to support the idea that the Germans were seriously developing a sub-launched V-1.

Did Andy Rooney miss big WWII scoop?

The reported reactions of the military officials Rooney talked to certainly seem like the reactions of military types trying to stamp out a story. There are two obvious reasons for this:

1) The Germans really did launch a V-1 (that either crashed or was shot down), and the military wanted to keep it secret to prevent a panic

2) The Germans didn’t launch a V-1, and the military wanted to prevent false rumors from leading to a panic.

 Posted by at 11:14 am
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