Based on the generic NASA 040 configuration. This was clearly getting close to the final Orbiter configuration as actually built, but differed in several important respects… wingtip RCS units, 4 J-2S engines (rather than 3 SSMEs), a raised cupola over the cockpit, two manipulator arms, a docking adapter in the nose, two turbojets.
The new camera takes some interesting pictures of insects. When using the telephoto lens up close, the range over which it’s in focus is notably less than an inch, so part of a dragonfly 6 feet away is clear, while the rest is blurry. This is less of a problem with the regular lens.
Another set of the odd “billboards” I mentioned earlier are located above Brigham City. So on a trip there today (oil change, plus state-mandated “safety check” for registration renewel), I stopped, for the first time ever, at the tourist info station on I-15 and asked the guy just what the hell they are. His story – which seem reasonable – is that they are “repeaters” for TV signals to hop over the mountains.
You can see the Brigham City repeaters on Google Maps here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=41.531257,-111.981565&spn=0.000528,0.001203&t=h&z=20
<> The Logan repeaters are here:
<>http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=41.756879,-111.763712&spn=0.000526,0.001203&t=h&z=20
<>Note that they are not quite parallel. I’m not quite sure just how they are supposed to work. Radio ain’t my schtick.
Ruh-roh…
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,544362,00.html
The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.
Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.
The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely critizised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.
This should prove entertaining. Or it will simply evaporate from the press.
Before there was the SR-71, there was the WS118P program. Weapon System 118P called for new high altitude recon birds, with three different categories:
1: Subsonic U-2-like aircraft
2: Supersonic planes in the Mach 3+ range
3: Suborbital rocket-boosted gliders
Shown below is one of the North American Aviation entries. It clearly shares much in common with the contemporary B-70 and F-108 designs. Had things gone notably differently, one can imagine that there would have been numerous photo ops and air shows featuring all three aircraft flying in formation.
Much more info on the NAA WS-118P design (and some on the Bell design) for supersonic cruise can be found in the V1N4 issue of Aerospace Projects Review. Information on the Bell design for the suborbital WS118P, and the Northrop subsonic design, can be found in the V2N3 issue of APR.
On a few mountaintops around here are some odd billboard-looking structures. Now that I have the zoom lens, I can get some decent photos. Shown below is the setup on a peak just to the east of Logan, Utah. It looks like two billboards facing each other, but that’s obviously silly. Is it some sort of communications array? Radar? Perhaps the two “boards” really do face each othe, and the are measuring some quality of the air between them?
<>Today I picked up the remote control for my new camera… it’s a tiny little IR device with naught but a single button. But it allows me to operate the shutter release without actually touching the camera… great for long exposure shots, such as the one below. About 15 minutes worth of the northern sky. It’s a kinda-cloudy, moon lit night, so the background ain’t as black as I’d like, but it gets the idea across.
A predecessor to the JSF/JAS/X-35/F-35 was the McDonnell Douglas 287-1006, shown below. Dating from 1991, it was a single engine fighter in the F-16 class, optimized for stealth. Shaping clearly had much in common with the F-23.
This is both friggen’ awesome… and friggen’ spooky. The Glenn Beck program remixed a Reagan speach on socialized medicine (with music and sound tinkerings) and produced this five minute audio segment.
What can we do about this? Well, you and I can do a great deal. We can say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms and that you demand the continuation of our traditional free enterprise system. You and I can do this. The only way we can do it is by writing to our congressmen, even if we believe that he’s on our side to begin with, write to strengthen his hand. Write those letters now. Call your friends and tell them to write. If you don’t, this program, I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country… until one day as Norman Thomas said, we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don’t do this and if I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.
Other Youtube takes on Reagans speech:
And rather strikingly, overlaid atop an Obama “town hall meeting” HERE