Jul 242019
 

McDonnell Douglas spent much of the 1970’s trying to get NASA, the Marines and the Navy to fund the development of a lift-fan-based VTOL aircraft concept, the Model 260. This general concept showed up in a number of different forms, from strike bomber to carrier onboard delivery transport to Marine troop transport. Shown below is a”Research Technology Aircraft,” a proof of concept prototype to be assembled from existing aircraft components, much as Rockwell did with the XFV-12.

I’ve made the full resolution version of the diagram (equivalent to 37 inches wide at 300dpi) available to above-$10-subscribers of the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program/Patreon.

If this sort of thing is of interest, consider subscribing. Even a buck a month will help out; but the more you subscribe for, the more you get… and the more you help me get from eBay and save for the ages.

 

 Posted by at 1:00 pm
Jul 232019
 

A while back I sold a few copies of a prototype of a “Booklet of General Plans” for the Space Station V from “2001.” The feedback I got suggested that the idea has merits, and with some refinement it might be something interesting.

Along with Space Station V, I have made mention of wanting to do the same sort of thing with Clavius Base and The Orville. Clavius Base is a concept at a fabulously early stage. The Orville’s 3D model is long completed, but recent news is that Eaglemoss will release a line of Orville ships starting in 2020. Since the Eaglemoss Star Trek ships come with a small magazine that provides canonical in-universe data, I will wait to see what comes out at that time.

I have a number of other Booklets in various stages of completion. Some are still in the modeling stags; some require a whole lot of tinkering with the diagrams, some are in the writeup stage. Each will have text to go along with them that will be an in-universe description of the vehicle; the “Bird One,” for example, depicts a US government attempt to reverse engineer the design as best they can based on fragmentary data. The Ajax will be another US Government attempt to describe Mongo tech after the events of “Flash Gordon.” And of course some of these, such as the Dyna Soar and the 10-meter Orion, will be non-fictional descriptions.

For those nerdy and old enough to remember the glory days of the “Booklets of General Plans” that were released for various Star trek ships, you’ll remember the pages and pages of deck plans. With a lot of these, “deck plans” won’t really be possible… for Dyna Soar, there really wasn’t a deck, and for the Helicarrier there were *way* too many decks. So each Booklet will be its own thing, with diagrams, inboard profiles, etc. that are appropriate. I’m thinking of pricing these something like $2 per page, more or less. The basic set will be 11X17 sheets, folded in half and put in a letter-sized envelope; but I’m also contemplating a limited run of each possibly on better paper, and either rolled or bound within a 12X18 binder.

If this sort of thing is of interest, take a look and let me know in the comments which one or more appeal. This is a sloooow, long-term project, more hobby than anything. So if you want one… let me know. And let your friends who might want one know. A few others arne’t included below, such as the “Men Into Space” ship and the Boeing IMIS Mars craft, which will be a *huge* set.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 9:18 pm
Jul 232019
 

An investigation into suspected sex-selective abortions has been launched by magistrates in a district of northern India after government data showed none of the 216 children born across 132 villages over three months were girls.

Yeah, that’ll work out greeeeaaaaat. Those boys grow up and find no girls… why, what could *possibly* go wrong?

 

I’ll be interested and amused to see the intellectual flailing by those who support “abortions at any time for any reason” but who are opposed to “abortions selecting for things we don’t want people selecting for.” I’m hopeful to see the day when in utero genetic/epigenetic tests for things like “intersex” and homosexuality become reliably available. Should be interesting to see what abortion based eugenics goes on after *that.* Yay, chaos!

 Posted by at 2:09 pm
Jul 222019
 

Heh. Billie Eilish came outta nowhere less than a year ago, gaining fame with some seriously odd songs and videos. I’m seeing this one, “Bad Guy,” all over the place these days:

 

But you know she has really made it when there’s a Donald Trump cover of the song…

Snerk. Wall.

 Posted by at 6:09 pm
Jul 222019
 

This story is just plain entertaining…

Georgia Democratic Lawmaker Appears To Be Caught Lying About Alleged Racist Encounter

Short form: it appears that there *was* an incident in a grocery store. The Black Democrat Lawmaker was in the “express” checkout line with too many items in her cart, and got in a screaming match with another customer who was annoyed at either her inability to count, or her inability to not be a rude fill-in-the-expletive. This much everyone seems to agree on. Where stories differ: the lawmaker claims that the Racist White Man told her to “go back where you came from.”

How do we know that stories differ because when the lawmaker showed up back at the grocery store with local press in tow in order to raise some sort of a fuss, it turns out that the Racist whit man was *right* *there,* and got into it with her. And it turns out that the Racist White Man is a Cuban Democrat Immigrant who hates Trump and thinks that the lawmaker is embellishing the story in order to Smollett-up her career.

Heh.

What’s entirely predictable: a good chunk of the media ate up her story and ran with it uncritically.

Interesting: compare two videos of the lawmaker in question. The first, where she makes the claim, and plays up her victimhood status for all it’s worth:

I’m about to be very Transparent because this racism and hate is getting out of control! I feared for my life!

Posted by Erica Thomas on Friday, July 19, 2019

And now, a video where sh tries her best to pretend to Righteous Indignation, outraged that the guy she’s making apparently false accusations against  had the temerity to disagree with her publicly:

This is one of those stories that has it all.

 

On one hand, it’s entertaining theater. On the other hand, it’s depressing that this is the quality of politician we have (not just this particular politician, but all the others, including Presidential candidates, who tried to ride the coat-tails of this incident until the facts started coming out). But on the gripping hand, this is just one more nail in the coffin of the political utility of unfounded claims of racism. This, Smollett, the Smirkening, the Goon Squad… all steps toward the public finally no longer paying any serious attention to this sort of nonsensical political theater.

 Posted by at 3:54 am
Jul 212019
 

The best seat in the house is the topmost perch in the living room cat tree. I’m honestly surprised that they don’t fight over it; instead; whoever gets there first gets it, and the rest simply accept it. Here we see Buttons surveying his domain.

 Posted by at 11:00 pm
Jul 212019
 

Now available… the newest and biggest issue in the US Aerospace Projects line.

US Launch Vehicle Projects #6

Cover art was provided by Rob Parthoens, www.baroba.be

US Launch Vehicle Projects #06 is now available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #6 is devoted to the launch vehicles proposed for the 1970’s Solar Power Satellite program. This required millions of tons of payload delivered into Earth orbit over a span of decades, with flight rates of several times per day for each vehicle. This program produced some of the largest and most ambitious launch vehicles ever designed, and was the last time that launchers of this size were ever seriously contemplated. Appropriately, USLP#6 is by far the largest issue of US Aerospace projects to date at over seventy pages, three times the size of a usual issue.

Topics in this issue include the Rockwell Star-Raker, several Boeing Space Freighters, the Boeing “Big Onion” Low Cost Heavy Lift Vehicle (antecedent and descendant designs), a Grumman two-stage HLLV, a Rockwell HLLV and “small” HLLV, NASA-JSC heavy lifters, a Boeing/Rockwell Personnel Launch Vehicle and a Boeing winged SSTO. Along with orthogonal views, a number of perspective diagrams are also included.

 

 

USLP #6 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $9:

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 Posted by at 4:46 am