A month of aerospace

 aircraft, art, drawings, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Mar 182020
 

Given the craziness going on, I decided that what the world clearly needs is something consistent. Like, say, me posting one piece of aerospace diagram or art every day for a month or so. So I’m going to do that. But in order to keep people from getting too complacent, I’m posting some of them on this blog, some on the other blog. Why? Because why not, that’s why. I’m slapping the posts together now and scheduling them to show up one at a time, one a day. Given the pandemic… who knows, this little project might well outlive *me.*

So, check back in (on this blog or the other) on a daily basis. Might be something interesting.

 Posted by at 1:46 pm

I’m no comic book expert, but…

 AARRRGH, art, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 182020
 

… does this seem more like “an exciting new approach to Marvel comics” or “this is the end of Marvel?”

This sounds *horrible.* Is this the comic book version of “The Producers?” SJW writers have done a dandy job of torpedoing not just the likes of Star Trek, Star Wars and Doctor Who, but also the comic book industry. At the same time that crowd-funded non-SJW independent comic books can get  thousands of buyers and make a quarter to half a million dollars or more each (“Expendables Go To Hell:” $200 grand; “Cyberfrog:” $538,000; “Cyberfrog 2:” $374,000 so far; “Trump’s Space Force:” $72,000; “Jawbreakers – Lost Souls:” $404,000), the like of Marvel can struggle to make ends meet… at the same time that Marvel movies crank out a billion dollars profit a year.

 

A video commentary on this nonsense:

 

 

 Posted by at 11:18 am

An alternate history Star Trek III

 art, awesomeness, science fiction, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Mar 172020
 

“The Search for Spock” is hands down my favorite of the Trek movies. Sure, it might not be the *best* Trek movie, but for various reasons (it was the first one I saw in the theater, it introduced the BoP, the Grissom, the Excelsior, the Spacedock and the Clydsdale) I just like it the most. So this CG-ified fan re-edit gave me the chuckles.

 Posted by at 11:52 pm

Universal Basic Income: Incoming

 Hmm..., news, politics  No Responses »
Mar 172020
 

Mnuchin pitches GOP on $1 trillion response package that involves paying Americans directly

The numbers are as yet undetermined. There seems likely to be a income limit in the range of $75,000 to $100,000 to receive this boon, and it seems likely there is a consensus of sending out $1000 checks. Where will this trillion dollars come from? Presumably Mike Bloomberg, since he can obviously afford to send everyone a *million* dollars (disagree with that statement at your social peril).

The question then will become “what shall I do with this shiny new thousand dollars in my bank account?” The unwise man will decide to invest in something like hand sanitizer or toilet paper. The wise man will, instead, invest in educating himself.

Like any major government program, once instituted it will be nigh on impossible to stop. So, a universal basic income, like it or not, good idea or not, is looking not all that unlikely to be on the close horizon.

 Posted by at 8:59 pm

D-558-I Skystreak

 aircraft, art, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon  No Responses »
Mar 172020
 

Cutaway artwork of the Douglas D-558-I Skystreak, a transonic research plane designed and built in the mid 1940’s for the US Navy. Like the contemporary Bell X-1 rocket plane, it had straight wings; but unlike the X-1, it had a turbojet engine and could take off under its own power. It could only get supersonic in a dive. Douglas followed the D-558-I with the D-558-II Skyrocket, a very different and much more advanced aircraft that could fly much faster.

The full-rez scan of this cutaway has been made available to all $4 and up APR Patreons and Monthly Historical Document Program subscribers. It has been uploaded to the 2020-03 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for Patreons and subscribers. If interested in this piece or if you are interested in helping to fund the preservation of this sort of thing, please consider becoming a patron, either through the APR Patreon or the Monthly Historical Document Program.

 Posted by at 5:49 pm

It’s no “flamethrower from a drone,” but…

 art, awesomeness, youtube  No Responses »
Mar 162020
 

The original source seems to be here:

 

 

 Posted by at 6:18 pm

Non-helpful journalism

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., Meh., news, science, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 162020
 

People are freaking the hell out. Not surprising given the reporting in the media… a combination of actual bad/scary news, and overblown hysterics. I am, perhaps oddly, fairly calm about things even though I know that if *I* catch the Wu Flu chances are pretty good it’ll kill me. Anyone been on this blog long enough may remember a number of bronchitis episodes some years ago that almost did me in then… something like the corona virus seems like it would ride the coattails of that issue to piledrive me straight into my grave. Yay. But a whole lot of people are losing their damned minds to panic. It is thus incumbent upon the media and the political leadership to try to put forward a calming influence.

And then THIS article comes out:

Asteroid Could Cause Atmospheric Explosion If It Gets Too Close

But the article *ends* with:

CNEOS said the asteroid is expected to approach Earth on March 18 at 11:15 p.m. EDT. During this time, the asteroid will fly past Earth from a distance of 0.04241 astronomical units or roughly 3.9 million miles from the planet’s center.

For frak’s sake. That’s not even close from an astronomical standpoint. There’s no valid math that would put that asteroid on anything like an impact trajectory, and thus “could” is in my opinion inaccurate to the point of dishonesty.

 Posted by at 3:27 pm
 Older Entries  Newer Entries