The Cost of Falcon 9

 awesomeness, Hmm..., rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 052020
 

How Much Cheaper Are SpaceX Reusable Rockets? Now We Know

A direct price list apparently isn’t available, but the authors attempt to put together what the cost of the reusable Falcon 9 will be once all the government contracting is figured out: originally $62 million, now potentially $36 million. With a payload to LEO (with a reusable booster) of 34,400 pounds that works out to $1,047 per pound. Still a tad high to horse my dead ass into orbit for a weekend jaunt, but a substantial improvement over anything else out there, save perhaps boosters that are massively subsidized by governments. SLS will reportedly cost $2 *BILLION* or so per launch (not counting development cost) in order to plop 290,000 pounds into LEO… a cost of $6896 per pound.

Starship/Super Heavy is hoped to be able to put 100,000 pounds in LEO for $2,000,000. This optimistic goal works out to 20 dollars per pound… cheap enough to dream of any of us seeing space (or, perhaps, at least our still-warm corpses, having keeled over from heart failure or a stroke on the way up as the vibration and G-forces crush our bodies as badly as 2020 has crushed out spirits). But it will be quite a while before people are buying steerage class tickets to LEO.

 Posted by at 6:47 pm

Once again, I can’t tell if this is satire

 Crazy, Forward!, Hmm..., politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Oct 052020
 

“Biden Beauty” claims to be selling a “makeup sponge” as well as flacking Gropey Joe for President. I have no idea what the design specifications for such a device are, but I’ve seen enough of the weird side of the internet to know what this thing actually looks like:

The fact that one of the nicknames of Joe Biden is “Plugs” makes this all the more… ahhhh… odd.

Is this for real? Is it satire? I honestly  don’t know. The fact that the things costs TWENTY BUCKS argues for it being satire… or it argues that the same people who rail against the “pink tax” would be willing to throw buckets of cash at pennies worth of foamed polymer and thus should not be relied upon to opine rationally on fiscal responsibility.

 

Also not helpful in the “real or satire” debate are the pictures the website has up showing the results of their product. I mean, honestly… this could be a Biden supporter just as easily as a satire of a Biden supporter:

 Posted by at 6:25 pm

Turnabout is fair play

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Hmm..., news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Oct 052020
 

I have previously mentioned the possibility that if Harris/Biden wins in November, right wingers will do to left wingers what left wingers have been doing for the last four years… i.e. “behave badly.” Here’s some polling to back that up:

Americans Increasingly Believe Violence is Justified if the Other Side Wins

In September, 44 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of Democrats said there would be at least “a little” justification for violence if the other party’s nominee wins the election. Those figures are both up from June, when 35 percent of Republicans and 37 percent of Democrats expressed the same sentiment.

If this poll is accurate, Republican now agree that violence would be justified. The differences are meager, though… pretty much equal, within a reasonable margin of error. the only really big difference is in the category of “very liberal vs very conservative” on the issue of there being a “great deal” of justification for violence if their side loses. 26% of veryLibs vs 16% of veryCons would seem quite enthusiastic to see some violence.

So will this pan out? We’ve seen a third of a year of nonstop leftist violence in this country, people using fantasies about mythical episodes of police racist violence as an excuse to try to destroy the country in order to put in its place a racist, totalitarian communist state. So if Harris/Biden win, will right wingers flip the script and start burning down cities? An important difference: up to this point, leftists have largely been working to destroy the infrastructure and economies of both minority communities and white-majority leftist-majority communities. If right wingers take on the task of violence… I kinda see them going after the *same* *exact* targets. I don’t see right wingers burning down their own homes and businesses and employers.

And on the topic of turnabout: here is Comrade Bernie blathering on (to a crowd of crickets, from the looks of it) about how he supports Gropey Joe because Gropey Joe will help institute economic policies to help impoverish and dis-employ the poor and low-skilled (doubtless while importing millions more unemployed and unskilled). Nothing unusual there until an old lady comes along and disrupts his speech by holding up a flag. She commits no acts of violence… doesn’t chuck a rock, doesn’t set anything on fire, doesn’t shine a laser in anyones eyes, doesn’t break any windows, doesn’t attack anybody. But by simply holding up a flag Comrade Bernie gets shut down until the supporters of Bernie shove her to the ground and steal her stuff. Thus kinda proving her point…

 

 Posted by at 4:41 pm

The Snoopy Show: I’m baffled

 art, history, Hmm..., youtube  No Responses »
Oct 032020
 

I’m not baffled that Apple has decided to make a “Snoopy” TV show. Digging up old cartoons and rebooting them is half of what Hollywood does these days. What *is* baffling is that the show looks, to my tired old eyes, almost exactly like the Snoopy cartoons shows and specials and movies from when I was a kid. Where is the 3D CGI? Where are the lens flares? Where is the “all new, all modern, all grimdark” we’ve come to expect? Apart from an upgrade in resolution, this really does look like exactly the animation style from 40 + years ago.

 

 Posted by at 7:22 pm

Turbo Three Colossus

 aircraft, art, history, Patreon, politics  No Responses »
Oct 032020
 

The “Colossus” was a proposed cargo aircraft from the early 1970’s by the “Turbo Three” corporation. It was to be made from a mix of new parts and old… the nose of a C-97, the wings of the Turbo Three “Virtus,” an even bigger plane designed to carry the Space Shuttle. I have made the full-rez of the art below, along with a 600-dpi scan of the three-view that went with it, available to above-$10 Patron/subscribers.

 

 

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 Posted by at 7:09 pm

Trump seems ok…

 news, politics, youtube  No Responses »
Oct 032020
 

He has released a video from Walter Reade Hospital today, and it sure seems like standard Trump. If he’s sick, he’s not showing it much.

Yup, he rambles on and on. Compare that to this:

 Posted by at 6:54 pm

Another Communism success story

 AARRRGH, Forward!, Hmm..., news, photography, politics, ships, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Oct 032020
 

Who says Communism can’t lead to booming businesses? Here’s a story how the Chinese Communist Party has successfully created a bunch of jobs in Turkey:

The covid cruise ship graveyard: Passenger liners are stripped for scrap at Turkish dock after the multi-billion pound industry was smashed by the coronavirus crisis

Communism is a *fantastic* way to turn good times for the western world into misery and financial ruin. But hey, at least there are some snazzy photos to look at while you ponder what sort of world we’ll have one not only has the Commie Cough had its way with the world, but the Harris Administration strips the citizenry of human rights and the ability to travel. Good times ahead!

 

Ponderable: Let’s say Trump succumbs to the Pinko Pox before the election. What happens to US/China relations in a theoretical Pence administration? Not much point in contemplating such things in a Harris administration; safe to say she’d stay their lapdog. Hell, the new administration would probably be even *more* grateful to the ChiComs for having taken out Bad Orange Man. Sure, they will have taken out a quarter million other Americans to get him, but a Communist can’t make an omelet without scrambling a few kulaks, amirite?

 Posted by at 4:17 pm

Rick Moranis victim of Knockout Game

 AARRRGH, Crazy, news, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Oct 022020
 

Yes, *that* Rick Moranis (Dark Helmet, Bob McKenzie, Louis Tully, Vinz Clortho, etc.), was the victim of “random” violence in New York City.

NYPD: Actor Rick Moranis Victim Of Unprovoked Attack Caught On Camera In Manhattan

Not sure if the attacker was one of those right wing extremist Proud Boy Trump supporters or not.

 Posted by at 10:58 am

Trump has COVID

 news, politics  No Responses »
Oct 022020
 

He and the FLOTUS have tested positive. A few thoughts, because of course there are:

1: Took long enough. I expected this *months* ago.

2: He’s old. This could well be bad for him. Could end up with Pence vs Biden.

3: If it does go badly for him, Trump will be the first President since Kennedy to be killed by communists.

4: Even if he only has a mild case, the next month is going to be even more spectacularly bonkers.

5: The conspiracy nuts are going to have a field day with this:

  •       “He doesn’t really have it, it’s just a campaign ploy.”
  •       “He doesn’t really have it, he’d just in the pocket of The Mask-Industrial Complex.”
  •       “He contracted it on purpose at just this moment to garner sympathy votes or to get out of the next debate.”

Now is the time for those who enjoy such activities to scour Twitter and Instragram and Facebook and whatnot for all the gloating posts by those who wish death upon Trump & Co. Such posts will live forever, long after the posters are made to realize that such things are not a good look.

 Posted by at 1:56 am
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