An Aerojet illustration of an interceptor designed to take out targets such as incoming nuclear warheads by the simple expedient of ramming into them at several kilometers per second, the old “hitting a bullet with a bullet” cliche.
Mar 242021
Mar 212021
The Left’s war on the future of mankind has been understood for a while, but Bernie Sanders said the quiet part out loud:
‘We need to focus on Earth’: Bernie Sanders responds to Elon Musk’s space plans with call for progressive tax
“We are in a moment in American history where two guys” – Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos – “own more wealth than the bottom 40 per cent of people in this country,” Mr Sanders said.
“That level of greed and inequality is not only immoral,” he added. “It is unsustainable.”
Mr Musk responded by saying that he is “accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary [and] extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
Mr Sanders then circled back on the Space X founder on Sunday: “Space travel is an exciting idea, but right now we need to focus on Earth and create a progressive tax system so that children don’t go hungry, people are not homeless and all Americans have healthcare. The level of inequality in America is obscene and a threat to our democracy.”
One of these men wants a better future for mankind. The other wants stagnation and squalor from now until the sun dies.
I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2021
Sanders and his ilk and their supporters would, in a sensible world, be laughed right out of public life as the morons they are. And that’s the generous view. There’s the saying “don’t attribute to malice what can be explained with incompetence,” and there’s a lot of validity to that. But malice *does* exist, and it is more and more difficult to explain away the far lefts’ damaging policies and beliefs as being purely the result of being naive idiots. More and more the explanation that many of them are legitimately crazy or – witness a certain Representative from California – bedding the enemy. What’s Sanders story? He was buddy-buddy with the Soviets back in the day. He was a fellow traveler with their policies. While the Soviets are properly in the dustbin of history, sadly their hatred of the United States and capitalism survives. Those who screech the loudest about “fascism” should be looked at with skepticism for their acceptance of and often support of socialism. If western civilization survives and leaves the Earth, it will look back on socialism and socialists as cancerous burdens gratefully left behind.
Mar 192021
A video on the Douglas ICARUS/Ithacus, a 1960’s concept for a rocket vehicle to lob 1200 Marines anywhere on the planet in 45 minutes:
This video is based in large part on the article I wrote and illustrated in Aerospace projects Review issue V2N6, AVAILABLE HERE.
Why not sign on for the Aerospace Projects Review Patreon, why not? You’ll not only help make sure that this sort of research is done, you’ll get a fat stack of monthly rewards int he form of aerospace documentation.
Mar 152021
A photo of a piece of art that was on eBay some months ago:
This probably dates from the 70’s or perhaps early 80’s… no air launched cruise missiles, no Peacekeeper, no Trident.
Mar 122021
The “gangsta” in its urban reality is one of the most detrimental forms of human life. Thus it has always been… the “gangster” before the “gangsta,” the pirate, the marauder, all terrible people doing terrible things. And yet… there is a drive behind them that, while aimed badly, can instead be used for good, and the spirit behind them can be at least vaguely seen in those who do great things.
What this world now needs is Space Vikings.
Mar 072021
A video (made with a few contributions from yours truly, and, yes, attributed as such within the video) describing the 1970s Boeing design for an ICBM-carrying airliner, the MC-747. This is described and illustrated in US Bomber Projects issue 21, AVAILABLE HERE.
An interesting idea to be sure, but an unsafe one. Were one of these aircraft to go down for whatever reason, the results would be No Damned Good. Almost certainly the warheads would not go nuclear, but it’s always possible that the combo of the crash, the burning jet fuel and the solid rocket propellant merrily burning away might cause the chemical explosives in the warheads to go off, potentially scattering plutonium all over hither and yon. Worse still would be if the plutonium got sprinkled with the solid propellant and the plutonium combusted, scattering not just chunks and bits of plutonium, which would be bad enough, but clouds of plutonium oxide or plutonium chloride.
Perhaps more dangerous would be the Soviet reaction. They’d be in a constant state of freaking out every time one of these took to the sky, and they probably would have difficulty telling an MC-747 from an E-4 or a civilian 747. And, of course, they’d have to have their own. the AN-124 would be the logical choice for an ICBM carrier, and chances are good they’d do as good of a job with it as they did with Chernobyl, the Kursk or the Polyus.
Mar 052021
An Aerojet concept for a boost-phase ICBM interceptor.
This would be a space-based anti-missile system composed of two high thrust solid rocket motors and a kill vehicle composed of a substantial set of optics, some impressive late 1980’s computers and most likely a hydrazine monoprop divert system. The missile would be meant to physically impact an ICBM while still being lofted by the first stage; this is an bigger, slower and brighter target than the later, faster, smaller stages and warheads, but you have to be *fast* to reach out and tag a missile in the first moments of flight.
Mar 042021
A hit piece on Elon Musk and his plans for Mars:
Mars Is a Hellhole
The money quote:
Sagan did believe in sending humans to Mars to first explore and eventually live there, to ensure humanity’s very long-term survival, but he also said this: “What shall we do with Mars? There are so many examples of human misuse of the Earth that even phrasing the question chills me. If there is life on Mars, I believe we should do nothing with Mars. Mars then belongs to the Martians, even if [they] are only microbes.”
Musk, by contrast, is encouraging a feeling of entitlement to the cosmos—that we can and must colonize space, regardless of who or what might be there, all for a long-shot chance at security.
Huh. There’s a fair amount to disagree with here.
Firstly, Sagan, much as I like a lot of what he did, was wrong about the microbes. If there are Martian microbes… great, wonderful, huzzah. If they do not pose a threat to terrestrial life – and they probably wouldn’t – then the proper place for them in the future is in the Marsopolis Public Zoo And Museum. Life on Mars had its shot. The planet is dying, if not already dead; if Mars is to become a living world, it will be because humans do it. Microbes do not have rights; they certainly do not have the right to Mars that even *rabbits* do.
Now, if the author wants to get into a debate about what right to life alien microbes have, I can put her in touch with some folks who have some things to say about the right to life of human embryos.That, I suspect, would make for some entertaining debating.
Secondly, her dismissal of Musks notions about colonizing Mars: the man is right. We, especially the Western World, more especially America, *should* feel entitled to the cosmos. Whenever I hear some woke MFer tell me to “stay in my lane,” my immediate response is “Lady, I’m an American: the entire accessible universe is my lane. See you on Titan, chump!”
Everywhere we look in the heavens we see resources free for the taking. And everywhere we look – at least so far – we see no sign of those resources being owned. It’s a universe of riches and possibilities, and it is, so far as we can tell, friggen’ empty. It’s not just our right to colonize, commercialize, industrialize and exploit, it’s our responsibility. Everywhere we go for the most mundane or venal reasons, we will take along the ecosystem of Earth, or at least some fraction thereof. We will spread life throughout the cosmos.
Woke nags like this sure as hell won’t, though.
Legitimate reasons exist to feel concerned for long-term human survival, and, yes, having the ability to travel more efficiently throughout the solar system would be good. But I question anyone among the richest people in the world who sells a story of caring so much for human survival that he must send rockets into space. Someone in his position could do so many things on our little blue dot itself to help those in need.
To laugh at Sagan’s words is to miss the point entirely: There really is only one true home for us—and we’re already here.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhgh. Do I have to trot out Tsiolkovsky?
There was only one true home for us… the Olduvai Gorge. Until it wasn’t.
And note how she seems to think that *she* should be able to tell Musk how to spend his money. How many billionaires are there on Earth who *aren’t* spending their funds on building rockets? How many middle east oil billionaires are blowing far more than Musk is on SpaceX on truly useless self-aggrandizing crap? Why isn’t the author over yonder protesting the building – often with virtual slave labor – of vast and rather silly skyscrapers in the desert, or giant artificial island complexes? Why aren’t these billionaires instead following Israeli leads and making their deserts bloom?
Nah. Easier to whine about rockets because reasons.
I truly hope that Martian colonial craft will have names like “the Cecil Rhodes” and “the Rudyard Kipling.”
Mar 032021
It launched, flew up, hovered, came down and landed. Woo! But then it bounced slightly when it landed, but still stayed upright. But then, some five or so minutes later, the damn thing popped up in the air and exploded; the lower propellant tank seemed to have cut open.
Mar 022021
SpaceX’s Starship SN10 is slated to fly this week (tomorrow, last I heard). These demonstrator craft have three rocket engines and require two of them for a safe landing. But on the last flight, when the landing engines were started, one failed and the ship tried – and failed – to land on a single functional engine. This time, the plan is to ignite all three engines and promptly shut one down if all three work… or shut down the one that’s not running correctly.
With luck, this flight will look something like this: