Orbital Bomber

 aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, nukes, projects, spacecraft, weapons  3 Responses »
Oct 152009
 

In June, 1959, Boeing presented to the Air Force a concept for an orbital bombardment system based on work then being done on the Dyna Soar program. The bomber itself was a Dyna Soar derivative, with bombs that were each contained in lifting re-entry vehicles also based on Dyna Soar work. The bomber would carry one of the winged bombs under each of the bombers wings, and six more around the conical adapter behind the bomber.

The bombs would have a crossrange capability of up to 3000 miles. Coupled with a  30-degree inclination orbit, this would put essentially the entire Soviet Union within range of the system.
The Orbital Bomber would remain in a 125-nautical mile circular orbit with its three-man crew for up to two weeks. At the end of that time, assuming the Soviets hadn’t earned a dose of nuclear whoopass, the bomber would release its bombs. The bombs and the bomber would re-enter separately, gliding to a runway landing for refurbishment and relaunch.

<> Sixty-three bombers would be needed to wipe out 300 selected targets. An impressive 1683 launches would be required every year (five and a quarter per day). In order to cost effectively launch this force, a two-stage booster with a winged, turbojet-equipped flyback first stage would be used.

orbital-bomber.gif  orbital-bomb.gif  orbital-bomber-launcher.gif

Five launches of a reusable manned launch vehicle per day. NASA has a hard time pulling off that many launches per year.

 Posted by at 11:12 pm

Cabela’s take on the California ammo ban

 dumbassery, I'm from the government, news, politics, weapons  19 Responses »
Oct 142009
 

Oh, sure, it’s not really a ban, but it’s certainly outrageous. Imagien if you needed to jump through the same unConstitutional hoops to, say, buy a newspaper or go into a  church. Or even *vote.*

To: Cabela’s California Customers
From: Cabela’s Communications
Subject: California Assembly Bill 962
Date: Sept. 22, 2009

We are writing to inform you of pending legislation that will restrict purchases of handgun ammunition in California and will terminate our ability to service your needs for certain products.

On Friday, Sept. 11, the California Assembly passed Assembly Bill 962, by a 44-31 vote.

Among other regulations, AB 962 would:
• Ban all mail-order and Internet sales of handgun ammunition.
• Prohibit the retail sale, the offer for sale or the display of handgun ammunition in a
manner that allows ammunition to be accessible to a purchaser without assistance of a
vendor or employee.
• Require that the delivery or transfer of ownership of handgun ammunition occur in a
face-to-face transaction, with the deliverer or transferor being provided bona fide
evidence of identity of the purchaser or other transferee.
That evidence of identity, which must be legibly recorded at the time of delivery, includes:
• The right thumbprint of the purchaser or transferee.
• The date of the sale or other transaction.
• The purchaser’s or transferee’s driver’s license or other identification number and the
state in which it was issued.
• The brand, type and amount of ammunition sold or otherwise transferred.
• The purchaser’s or transferee’s signature.
• The name of the salesperson who processed the sale or other transaction.
• The purchaser’s or transferee’s full residential address and telephone number.
• The purchaser’s or transferee’s date of birth.
The bill is on the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, where it awaits his consideration. He will have until Oct. 11 to sign or veto the bill. If he does not veto the bill, it will become law.

If you wish to comment on AB 962, you may contact Gov. Schwarzenegger by phone at (916) 445-2841, or via fax at (916) 558-3160. To e-mail Gov. Schwarzenegger, visit
http://gov.ca.gov/interact

We encourage all Cabela’s customers who participate in the shooting sports to contact Gov. Schwarzenegger to voice their opposition to this initiative, which will limit your opportunities to shop with Cabela’s, and will restrict the sale of handgun ammunition everywhere in California.
 Posted by at 1:55 pm

New Aircraft Drawing: 727 full-color blueprint

 aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, models, new products  2 Responses »
Oct 142009
 

Now available is a full-color large format scan of a old-fashioned cyanotype general arrangement blueprint of the 727 jetliner. Originally drawn in July of 1961, this drawing shows geometry and contours for a 1/40 scale display model, but with dimensions given for the full-size aircraft. The blueprint is presented at 10012X3596 pixels… quite large! However, as big as this is, it’s half the size of the original. The original full-resolution scan will be made available at a later date, but for CD-ROM only… the full-rez image is a whopping 157 megabytes.

This release includes not only the large color blueprint, but also a cleaned grayscale version of the same and reduced-size versions of each for easier viewing and printing.

The 727 blueprint can be downloaded for $6.50.


727.jpg

 Posted by at 7:51 am

New aircraft drawing: BOMARC diagram

 aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, models, new products, nukes, weapons  1 Response »
Oct 132009
 

Now available is a Boeing digram for a 1/20-scale BOMARC display model. This shows the missile in good detail, giving dimensions and cross-sections. Perfect for anyone wanting to scratchbuild a BOMARC either static model or flying model rocket. Or for the truly adventurous, a flying RC model… preferable with a solid rocket booster in the fuselage and two turbine units in the “ramjet” pods. The drawing is in grayscale and is 11031X7184 pixels, and comes with a half-size version for easier viewing and printing.

The BOMARC drawing can be downloaded for $5.50.


bomarc.jpg

 Posted by at 7:30 am

Plaster will KILL YOUR CHILDREN

 dumbassery, news  4 Responses »
Oct 132009
 

Art class girl loses eight fingers after putting hands in plaster of Paris

A pupil has lost eight fingers after putting her hands in plaster of Paris, suffering agonising burns in a horrific classroom  blunder.

The 19-year-old’s terrifying ordeal began when the liquid quickly set around her skin, creating temperatures of up to 60C.

Frantic classmates and her teacher desperately tried to hack off the plaster with hammers. She was rushed to hospital with her hands wedged in the solidified block.

Photos of the aftermath at the link.

Clearly, Something Needs To Be Done. Perhaps a system of registering such  “assault art materials.” A licensing system where an art instructor needs to pass a rigorous series of tests and be issued a government ID before being allowed to distribute carefully measured quantities of plaster – say, one gram at a time – to students.

For the children. 

 Posted by at 7:22 am

Ooops.

 awesomeness, news, religion  3 Responses »
Oct 122009
 

God is not the Creator, claims academic

Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis “in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth” is not a true translation of the Hebrew.

…She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb “bara”, which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean “to create” but to “spatially separate”.

The first sentence should now read “in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth”

Yeah, this’ll go over well.

 Posted by at 7:40 pm

Here. Have some cancer.

 dumbassery, I'm from the government, politics  11 Responses »
Oct 122009
 

Anyone who complains about European-style universal health care is clearly a racist. To find out if you are a racist, take the following test.

A) Does this news story bother you?

A leading UK hospital has defended its practice of using organs donated by smokers after the death of a soldier who received the cancerous lungs of a heavy smoker.

Corporal Matthew Millington, 31, died at his home in 2008, less than a year after receiving a transplant that was supposed to save his life at Papworth Hospital — the UK’s largest specialist cardiothoracic hospital, in Cambridgeshire, east England.
…
Less than a year later, doctors discovered a tumor in the new lungs. Despite radiotherapy, Millington died on February 8, 2008, at his family home near Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire.

The inquest found a radiographer failed to highlight the growth of a cancerous tumor on the donor lungs.

Tests found that he had received the lungs of a donor who smoked up to 50 cigarettes a day, the inquest at North Staffordshire coroner’s court heard.

If your response to this story was anything to the right of “Fox News is evil and should be barred from the airwaves,” then you are a racist and you should report to the nearest ObamaCare Clinic for immediate organ extraction. For the children.

 Posted by at 7:36 pm

New Aircraft Drawing: B-29 full-color blueprint

 aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, new products  1 Response »
Oct 122009
 

Now available is a full-color large format scan of a old-fashioned cyanotype general arrangement blueprint of the B-29. Originally drawn in June of 1942, this drawing was printed off somewhere around 1951 (based on a dated notation regarding the declassification of the drawing). The blueprint is presented at 12590X5402 pixels… quite large! However, as big as this is, it’s half the size of the original. The original full-resolution scan will be made available at a later date, but for CD-ROM only… the full-rez image is a whopping 128 megabytes.

This release includes not only the large color blueprint, but also a cleaned grayscale version of the same and reduced-size versions of each for easier viewing and printing.

The B-29 blueprint can be downloaded for $7.00.

15-101971.jpg

 Posted by at 7:22 am
 Older Entries  Newer Entries