An advertisement from 1960, illustrating Marquardts work on the Project Pluto nuclear ramjet:
If you want more on Project Pluto – and who wouldn’t, as the idea of a locomotive-sized cruise missile flying at virtually unlimited range at tree to level and at a blistering Mach 3+ is fascinating – check out Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N1.
Satellite imagery shows that the Russians seem to be packing up and going home, abandoning the”nuclear powered cruise missile” test site. The article suggests that this is because the missile isn’t working. Other explanations include that the Russians are simply testing elsewhere. In any event, some interesting photos here.
Huh. I’m not sure which is more unusual-seeming: that the second-in-command at SpaceX said that they would indeed launch American space weapons… or that it seems odd that an American aerospace firm would even be questioned about such a thing.
During an appearance on Monday at the Air Force Association’s annual symposium, Shotwell was thrown a question she said she had never heard before: “Would SpaceX launch military weapons?”
“I’ve never been asked that question,” Shotwell said somewhat surprised. Her response: “If it’s for the defense of this country, yes, I think we would.”
This should be such an uncontroversial point of view that you wouldn’t even expect it to be raised. But we do indeed live in a time different from when Republic advertised their fighters, Boeing advertised their bombers and Martin advertised their nuclear weapons-delivering rockets.
Reminds me of one of the more disturbing moments from my university education. I was in a class on orbital dynamics (of of my favorite subjects back in the day) when we got to ballistic suborbital trajectories: ICBMs, in other words. Who wouldn’t want to study that? Well… turned out half a dozen or so of my classmates decided that they didn’t, and refused to study that section. This baffled both the teacher and myself; but where I saw their position as foolishness worthy of nothing but mockery, the teacher buckled and allowed them to do something else (details escape me). Even if the idea of lobbing nukes to the far side of the world fills you with existential dread, studying the subject is just math. And getting better at the math of lobbing nukes makes you better at… oh, I dunno, getting better at the math of lobbing reusable first stages to land them on floating landing pads.
Vaguely related: promo art from 1961, published in Aviation Week, with a number of corporations proudly proclaiming their involvement in aerospace weaponry.
The YouTube algorithms occasionally throw out some odd videos. Like this one, which *seems* to show something cute and wholesome like schoolgirls firing a Barrett .50 BMG rifle. But since they are *Japanese* (I think?) “schoolgirls” I guess I gotta assume there’s something weird and creepifyin’ going on there. Note: some of the camera angles, coupled with the fashions, hint as much. Not, I think, truly NSFW, but maybe a little eyebrow-raising. Thus the “Continue Reading.”
But beyond the lurking threat of tentacles somewhere just off camera, what we see here are five rather dinky dames firing a very large rifle and to all appearances enjoying it. One wonders if, since these girls can clearly handle this weapon with aplomb, if the rampaging anti-gun nuts might benefit from some actual experience at the range.
I am not a drinker. Even so, I can assure you that there is not enough booze on the planet to get me drunk enough so that I could ever think I could do *anything* like what’s shown here:
The US Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon does stuff that Hollywood would need a team of CGI artists to pull off.
Beginning next year, ammunition dealers across the state will be required to maintain logs of all sales — one of many steps California has taken to limit access to bullets. … Next July, California will begin requiring stores to conduct point-of-purchase background checks on ammunition buyers.
I can buy ammo and magazines at the grocery store. Because this is Utah, and we’re not a pack of crazy cowards, ammunition is no more challenging to buy than a can of soup.And yet, Tremonton has had a total of one murder in the last 53 years.
The A-10 is a hell of a plane. There will be no more of them, and no more like them. And that’s a shame ona certain level; a plane that can bring a pilot home after taking a Mighty Blow from the enemy is of course a wonderful thing. But the role of the A-10 is being taken by the likes of the F-35 and drones; the F-35 *should* be survivable by dint of its stealthiness and high altitude; the drones will be survivable because, well, there’s nobody to kill. A drone might have the ruggedness of a Faberge egg, but if one gets blown to bits…meh. Only money.
On the other hand, no drone pilot will ever have a story like this guys:
So, how many school shootings are there in a year? The government says 240. NPR, of all organizations, says the number is *slightly* lower: 11.
Even that 11 doesn’t mean “mass murders,” or even “one murder,” but just a “shooting at a school. And of course there’s this problem:
The government’s definition included any discharge of a weapon at school-sponsored events or on school buses.
That is *incredibly* vague. Did a rabid Dire Wolf break into the school and start eating the kids and a school guard shot it? School shooting. Did the school have a sanctioned target shooting exercise? School shooting. Did the cops have a running gunbattle with gangbangers through a school parking lot? School shooting. Described in the piece is a Wisconsin school that was confused about whether or not to report students engaged in a paintball battle as an “attack with a weapon” or a “possession of a firearm.”
We are forever being told that “this sort of thing happens in America all the time.” And yet, a school shooting where kids are actually shot makes the news, far and wide. Stuff that happens all the time is, by definition, not newsworthy. If it’s newsworthy, it’s rare.
As described hereabouts back in March, Vladimir Putin claims to have himself a nuclear powered cruise missile. I remain dubious, but the fact is that the Russians launched *something* and it crashed into the Barents sea. The Russians seem to be looking for it… and chances are fair that the United states Navy is as well.
Back in July the Russians released a video that purported to show bits and pieces of the supposedly nuclear-powered Burevestnik missile:
The video does not show the configuration with any clarity. What can be made out is that it seemed to have a fairly conventional forward fuselage designed for low radar reflectivity, with relatively simple flip-out wings of the type common to cannisterized cruise missiles. Two further points can be gleaned from the video:
1) The missile isn’t that big… seems right in line with something like a Tomahawk.
2) The facility almost seems like a high school gym.
Both of these argue against taking the claim of nuclear propulsion too seriously. Of course, it’s a video produced and released by the Russians, so it’s impossible to say whether it is remotely accurate; it could be pure deception. But assuming it truly depicts the weapon system, it seems *real* *small* for nuclear propulsion, and the facility and the workers in it seems to be pretty lackadaisical about working around nuclear systems.
So, Defense Distributed won the right to post their own designs online without government prior restraint. Huzzah! But then a single judge came along and put the kybosh on that, at least for the moment. Boo. However it works out, though, there are a few statements that I believe should be recorded for the ages regarding these designs for a big, heavy, unreliable and expensive plastic zip guns:
“The people who make them will be state actors or well-financed criminal cartels who have the ability to execute well-organized criminal attacks in the United States and elsewhere,” said Avery Gardiner, the co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
…
Gardiner fears it will make it easier for terrorists and people who are too dangerous to pass criminal background checks to get their hands on guns.
“I think everybody in America ought to be terrified about that.”
Let me repeat that for those who think that the anti-gun nuts are reasonable people and that it’s those who want to keep their rights who are the fear mongers:
“I think everybody in America ought to be terrified about that.”
“I think everybody in America ought to be terrified about that.”
Never forget who the *real* gun nuts are: those who so live in terror of inanimate objects that they will lie and try to scare people in order to keep law abiding citizens from being able to defend themselves.
