An early NASA sketch for a 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Note that it is essentially what actually got built, except for:
1) It doesn’t have the vertical stabilizers on the tips of the tailfins
2) It has aerodynamic fairings over the aft Shuttle supports
Utah has one of these. Does your state or country? No, I din’t think so.
One of the more striking individual “hoodoos” at Bryce Canyon National Park is known as “Thors Hammer,” and for obvious reasons.
A piece of Rockwell artwork showing two Shuttles simultaneously working on a large space structure. Ah, the late 1970’s, when disco music, lime-green polyester leisure suits, Jimmy Carter, Pyramid Power, Pet Rocks and the forthcoming Ice Age had so numbed peoples minds that we actually thought the Shuttle was going to make this sort of thing a common occurrence. Sigh.
Back in August I posted a few posts about the guns on display at the Rock Island Arsenal Museum. A week or so ago I got back there, this time with a better camera and a determination to get at least a decent photo of most every modern-ish firearm, as well as much of the documentation (such as it is).
If you like this sort stuff I post, you can support the cause by Buying My Stuff, which includes aerospace drawings and documents, as well as the journal of unbuilt aircraft and spacecraft projects, Aerospace Projects Review. Or you could just Donate.
British nanny-statism seems to be getting more bizarre by the millisecond. From the Mail Online:
Warwickshire Police’s handbook Policing Our Communities, issued to every member of its staff, gives advice on communicating with people from different ethnic groups in a section entitled Communication, Some Dos & Don’ts.
It states: ‘Don’t assume those words for the time of day, such as afternoon or evening, have the same meaning.’A force spokesman explained: ‘Terms such as afternoon and evening are somewhat subjective in meaning and can vary according to a person’s culture or nationality. In many cultures the term evening is linked to time of day when people have their main meal of the day.
‘In some countries, including the UK, the evening meal time is traditionally thought of as being around 5-7pm but this might be different, say, for a family from America who might have their main meal earlier and thus for them evening may be an earlier time.’
What? Really? they are afraid they’ll offend an American by calling the period from 5 to 7 PM “evening?”
Really?
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Uranium ore can be purchased on Amazon.com. Who knew?
But apparently not all purchasers are happy with their product.
Great Product, Poor Packaging, May 14, 2009
By Patrick J. McGovern “Procrastinating Evil Sci… (Hollowed Out Volcano Lair) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
I purchased this product 4.47 Billion Years ago and when I opened it today, it was half empty.
Other good product reviews can be found for these items:
Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz (for only $69.99!!!)
The Mountain Men’s Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tee
Note… this is not to be confused with Three Keyboard Cat Moon By Oxen – Men’s And Women’s Black Shirts!
JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank
<> DH Classic Yellow Cake 12ct
That’s right, the Unwanted Blog surfing the InterWebTubes so that you don’t have to!
During the campaign, Obama suggested that he could be judged by the people he chose to surround himself with. Well… the judgement is starting to come in… not just Communist, but Mao-ist. Does that sound like hyperbole? Normally, yeah. But there are two lines of reasoning here:
1) Look at the policies being pushed… a fiscal policy that seems to target the dollar and the American economy for destruction, coupled with a “blame the capitalists” strategy, leaving massive government takeovers as the supposed only choice.
2) Oddly, more and more of Obamas advisors and Czars keep dropping little hints that they think that Chairman Mao was just the coolest. Behold Ron Bloom, Obama’s “Manufacturing Czar,” talking to a group of investors, telling them about the steelworkers union:
A) They “are loyal – when we’re bought, we generally tend to stay bought”
B) They “have no inheirant loyalty”
C) They “agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun”
D) “The free market is a joke”
And there’s Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, praising Mao as one of her “favorite political philosophers.” The best video of that I’ve found is from the Glenn Beck show, so it comes with commentary.
The third lesson and tip actually come from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse-tung and Mother Teresa. Not often coupled with each other. In 1947, when Mao Tse-tung was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, the Nationalist Chinese helped the cities, they had the army, they had the Air Force, they had everything on their side. And people said, “How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this? Against all the odds against you?” And Mao Tse-tung said, “You fight your war and I’ll fight mine,” and think about that for a second.
She also calls Mother Theresa another one of her favorite political philosophers, a notion that also does not win her any points with me… but that’s a seperate rant.
And then there are the other jackasses in the White House, as I pointed out before.
Now, it’s certainly possible that Dunn and Bloom were joking in their glowing references to Mao. Oh, sure, there’s certainly nothing funnier than invoking the memory of historys greatest mass-murderer in a context that seems to indicate that you think imposing his policies of genocide upon your political opponants would be just neato-keen. Why, just the other day I invoked the memory of Stalin while cleaning the little box. Who doesn’t?
But the thing is, why would they select Mao to not only quote, but make it clear that they agree with him? As opposed to, say, Hitler, Napoleon, Jim Jones, Hannibal Lector, Jimmy Carter or any of the other great monsters of history?
The thing is, while both Bloom and Dunn have claimed “humor” as their excuse, there’s zero evidence of that. For that to be humorous, the point of bringing up Mao would be to either disagree with him, or mock him and his philosophies, something like that. Instead, the context shows that they agree with Mao.
So. Obama spent decades associating with “black liberation theologists” (basically, Marxism and racism melded together intoa neat little religious package), and packed his administration with outright commies (Van Jones) and others who praise commies. So, if one were to follow Obamas advice and judge him by the people he associates with, what would one come up with?
Two early 1960’s concepts out of Martin Aircraft were the EGRESS survival system (a modified B-58 Hustler ejection seat/capsule married to a re-entry heat shield and an attitude control system) and the Astrorocket, which was a series of concepts for spaceplanes for the Air Force, meant to launch on short notice and be truly “operational.” Putting the two together is kind of obvious, but as can be seen in the artwork below, the volumetric packing efficiency wasn’t that great.
On display at the Strategic Air & Space Museum in Nebraska. A similar panorama was made a few months back with the old point & click… the Nikon D5000 makes a far superior image once all the separate shots are stitched together.
The above image is dinkysized. Click the link below for the high-rez version (which is still only 1/4 full size).
If you like this sort stuff I post, you can support the cause by Buying My Stuff, which includes aerospace drawings and documents, as well as the journal of unbuilt aircraft and spacecraft projects, Aerospace Projects Review. Or you could just Donate.
