The Pluto poster, along with the cover art for APR issue V1N4, is now available for purchase as a high quality full color print. Check it out.
Only dirty Commie rats wouldn’t want one of these gracing their wall….
Jul 102008
Jul 102008
Credible Sport was the code name given to a program to create a super-short takeoff and landing version of the C-130 Hercules. This was during the Iranian hostage crisis; the idea was that these planes would land in a soccer stadium across the road from where the hostages were being held. In order to pull this off, the planes needed to be able to land and take off again from within a very confined area. To make this possible Lockheed simply attached large solid rocket motors pointing down to provide lift at very low speed, forward to provide braking thrust after touchdown, and aft to provide a massive kick in the pants to boost the plane skyward again. Data and video of Credible Sport have been difficult to come by; fortunately, someone posted a very clear video to Youtube (and I really wish I coudl get embedded Youtube videos to work in this blog, but they refuse to): http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fSFjhWw4DNo
Here are some highlights of a Credible Sport prototype taking off:
Here it is coming in for a landing:
And here’s what happens when you fire those braking thrusters before you actually touch down:
Thus explaining why Credible Sport was never used.
Jul 092008
The passenger-carrying versions of Dyna Soar could have attached directly to a space station via either a passageway that ran after through the transition section or througha hatch in the “roof” of the passenger compartment. The aft approach seems to have been preferred due to it’s simpler and more reliable nature (the actual attachement system to the station woudl be left in space, not stuck to the outside of the spaceplane during re-entry. But the passengers could also leave by the simple expedient of opening the roof much like the paylaod bay of the Shuttle. This would be used not so much for normal space station logistics missions, but for repair missions and the like.
Jul 092008
Shown below is a photo of indifferent quality from a Boeing report showing a 4-seat Dyna Soar payload bay with two real live astronauts in Dyna Soar space suits. The two astronauts are apparently Henry Gordon and William Knight. It looks somewhat less than entirely comfortable, but they both clearly fit.
Jul 082008
OK, I have a new “stupidest thing I’ve heard all day” report. The passenger zapper from earlier pales in comparison to this insanity:
The National Children’s Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.
This could include a child of as young as three who says “yuk” in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.
The mind boggles.
Jul 072008
A United Technologies concept for a recoverable Titan III SRM. Nothing major needed doing, mostly just the addition of the parachute pack on the nose. This would have added weight and reduced payload performance slightly, but would have permitted recovery of the SRMs. This proposal was very similar to what has actually been done with the Shuttle SRBs; had this program gone ahead, it likely could have flown well before the end of the sixties, and could have informed the Shuttle programs decisions. Either the SRB recovery and reuse procedure would have started out from a smarter and more efficient base… or NASA could have decided on the basis of the Titan III experience that it was just too much of a headache.
The obvious alternative to the recoverable SRM approach would ahve been the flyback booster… like the Boeing 979.
Jul 072008
Raedthinn from his best (?) angle…
Jul 062008
Jul 062008
Been busy framing the prints I’ve had made, starting with the easier ones (ready-made frames that fit panoramas being somewhat difficult to find). I’m contemplating having something of an “open house” for my neighbors, as well as signing up for a few of the local art fairs and such.
Turns out that I have a catalog of 20 distinctly separate photos. That’s more than I expected. I’ll eventually set up a page for the photos, possibly on a whole new non-up-ship website. If any of the prints you see here interest you, framed or unframed, just let me know.
Irritatingly, the blog setup won’t let me post thumbnails (the images are too big, I guess). So click the links to see…
Additional note: Here are the first art critics, including one of the models. Their verdict: “good enough to not poop on.”
Jul 062008
Looking at my records… wow. Subscriptions to APR have *really* fallen off a lot in the last two months. I thought for sure that the Orion and submarine aircraft carrier issues would get lots of subscribers. Nope. I know for a fact that APR should appeal to a vastly larger audience than the current miniscule subscriber base. I know the price ain’t unreasonable… $28 for 500 or more pages of actual content seems like a bargain to me. So why are people not subscribing?