Photos of the mockup of a late-model Dyna Soar cockpit design. Courtesy Dennis R. Jenkins.
Dec 082008
Dec 062008
<>An early 1960’s Convair display model for an SST based on the generic NASA SCAT-16 configuration. From the Jay Miller archive.
What purpose was to be served by having the flight crew split up under separate cockpit canopies, I’ve no idea.
Dec 062008
NOTE FOR NEW VISITORS WHO MAY BE A BIT HARD OF THINKING: The purpose of this posting was not to bash the photo of a cow. It is, I suppose, nice enough as cow photos go. My point is that NatGeo chose as their Number One nature photo… a *cow.* A cow is a spectacularly uninteresting and non-newsworthy critter, especially when it’s just standing there not doing anything that cows don’t normally dow. Sharks in flight? That’d be spiffy. Squirrels kung-fu fighting? Yes, that’s special. Pigeons tearing Hillary Clintons hair off? That’d be worth seeing. But a cow just standing in a field? Feh.
Back in October my friends and family convinced me to enter some of my photos in the National Geographics photo contest. Didn’t expect that I’d win… and I didn’t. The fact that I didnt win doesn’t bother me much… hell, there had to be about a million people sending them photos. What does bother me is that the winning photo in the Nature section (the section I entered the bulk of my photos in) is of a cow.
Now, if you look at a photo of a cow in National Geographic and say, “But… that’s just a cow,” then welcome to my world.
A cow. A friggen’ COW.
For Bog’s sake, the cow wasn’t even on fire or anything.
But the topper comes in the comments from the Nat Geo judge: “It’s the knowing and sophisticated look of the cow at the photographer and the viewer” that makes this photo so special, said judge Susan Welchman, National Geographic magazine senior photo editor.
“Knowing and sophisticated look of the COW?!?!” It’s the New-Agey nonsensical PETAfied bullshit that really gets me.
Dec 052008
Dec 042008
Don’t say I never gave ya nothin’. This here is a photo – reduced to 1/3 full resolution – of the SR-71 on display in the Strategic Air and Space Museum in Nebraska.
Click the link below to embiggen the picture.
sr71a.jpg
Dec 032008
If you must, you can read further about this here.
Dec 022008
From 1954 comes this odd result of a mating of a helicopter and a flying wing. With seating for two crew and 40 passengers (18 of whom had window seats), this was a “flying bus” concept. Power was to be provided by two Wright R-1820s or two Pratt & Whitney R-2800s. Dimensions currently lacking.
Dec 022008
I used to watch “The Daily Show” with some regularity. But like “MASH,” at some point it jumped the shark and transitioned from comedy to leftist rantings. As memory serves, the Hurricane Katrina disaster was pretty much the point at which I turned the channel… Jon Stewart going *insane* about how the Bush administration failed utterly was not only so far off the mark in terms of accuracy, but also in terms of humor, that it was just not worth watching anymore. Haven’t really watched since.
However, a clip dealing with the Mumbai Religion Of Peace Outreach Effort from a few days ago was pointed out to me… and I have to say, it was both funny *and* accurate:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=210920&title=mumbai-tragedy
Give it a watch.
Dec 012008
Seriously: go here and watch this.
Some of the best Saturn V launch footage in good quality set to music.
Men of the West were once capable of such things. Now…