Nov 202009
 

The server crashed this AM, and it took about 12 hours for tech support to get everything back up and running. Even changes to my webpage were blocked until just a little while ago.

So, I’m still here. Feel free to send me money, however.

PS: Anybody know of a straightforward way to save WordPress blogs like this? I have this suspicion that one of these days there’ll be a server issue that will simply wipe it out. If I had it backed up somehow, hopefully I could just dump it back into place. I’ve been backing up all the images, but that doesn’t get the text and links and whatnot.

 Posted by at 5:08 pm
Nov 192009
 

Britain got labelled the “Nanny State” because they have so many rules and laws designed to keep people ‘safe” while at the same time sucking all the fun out of life. But then this comes along:

The former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq appears as a seductress in a tongue-in-cheek web video ad that aims to show young people that it is OK to kiss someone with HIV.

Really? This is considered a good idea?

From the Centers for Disease Control:

Open-mouth kissing is considered a very low-risk activity for the transmission of HIV. However, prolonged open-mouth kissing could damage the mouth or lips and allow HIV to pass from an infected person to a partner and then enter the body through cuts or sores in the mouth. Because of this possible risk, the CDC recommends against open-mouth kissing with an infected partner.

So on the one hand, Britain is quashing basic human civil liberties in the interests of safety… but on the other hand, the British Red Cross is actually advocating doing something that they know can not only transmit a deadly, uncurable virus… the activity itself is a “gateway activity” that can lead to far more dangerous activities.

Gah.

AIDS is a rather anomalous disease. Throughout history, when there was an outbreak of some viral or bacterial disease that killed people in vast numbers, societies dealt with it the best way they could… which was typically quarantine (and of course, a whole lot of superstitious – and often counter-productive – nonsense as well). Those who had the disease were expected to *not* engage in activities that would spread it further. But then AIDS comes along, and all the rules go out the window. Had there been a quarantine of those infected with AIDS back when HIV was first testable, AIDS in the west would by now be a distant memory. But no.  Just as political correctness allowed Nidal to murder thirteen fellow Americans, political correctness has allowed AIDS to become a massive epidemic.

Kiss someone with AIDS? How about someone with ebola or smallpox? Sure, the chances of transmission are reduced, but Dead Is Dead.

Worst of all is not that this sort of PR bullcrap will lead the uninfected to think “It will be ok for me to kiss that person with the deadly infection,” the worst of it is that it will lead people with that deadly infection to think “I can kiss/make out with/boff whoever I like.”

Look. If you have AIDS, chances are *really* high that you got it not acidentally, but through unwise/downright stupid behavior. Sad for you. But it’s evil of you to engage in behavior that could spread it further. If your self gratification is more important to you than the lives of others… we really don’t need you in society.

 Posted by at 12:11 pm
Nov 192009
 

OK, hands up anyone who didn’t see this coming…

Orlando Sentinel:

But the launch came amid major worries about NASA’s future, as the agency has been told by the White House to consider cutting its 2011 budget by as much as 10 percent. Based on the agency’s proposed 2009-2010 budget of $18.7 billion, that would equal roughly $1.87 billion.

That kind of cut would end human spaceflight for at least the next decade — and likely longer — according to a presidential space panel that recommended last month a $3 billion-a-year spending increase so NASA could run a “meaningful” manned-space program.

On Monday, NASA associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier told reporters that he does not expect to know what the White House will do until February. But he said the uncertainty has made it difficult for NASA as it flies out the remaining missions.

“How do we keep our workforce and ourselves focused on what we are doing and don’t get too distracted by all the ‘what if’ scenarios?” he said.

I’ve seen what budget cuts can do to operations in an aerospace firm. I’ve seen what rumors of bugest cuts can do. Back around late 2002, when things started going screwy at United Tech in California, many people could see that the company was facing troubles. And as the troubles mounted, those who could began to split. And “those who could” were, often enough, “those the company really needed to help them pull through.” So as Obama dithers on whether or not to end America’s role as a modern nation, expect to see a lot of the more qualified people at NASA decide that Now Is The Time, and either retire or go into the private sector. And this does not mean that they will simply transfer to other aerospace programs, ready and able to help the private sector take over after NASA is reduced to a shell… many of those who left United Tech went into Dot Coms, fiber optic cables, computer manufacturing, etc.

And so come 2013, if we have a new President determined to try to reverse the numerous bad decisions made by Obama, returning the United States to space might prove difficult. In the best of times you can’t simply pick up where you left off with a program that was cancelled just a few years before. And history, especially the history of science and spaceflight, is unlikely to view the Obama years as “the best of times.”

More discussion from Examiner.com:

The problem is that having spent eight hundred billion dollars on a “stimulus package” that has failed spectacularly to stimulate the economy and having been attacked without mercy for proposing to spend trillions of dollars on “health care reform” that would raise health care costs, cut services, and ration care, the Obama administration is contemplating an election year conversion to fiscal frugality.

There is as yet no confirmation that the proposed ten percent cut will take place nor how Congress might react. But should such occur, it would prove devastating to areas of the country dependent on aerospace already reeling from the impending end of the space shuttle program. It can also be suggested that cutting NASA would constitute a breaking of faith, not only with Obama campaign promises, but with the future. Yet another cancellation of human space exploration would more than ever mean that the Obama administration is just not serious about doing space. As someone once suggested, every Obama promise has an expiration date and the one for NASA may have just about come due.

 Posted by at 9:48 am
Nov 182009
 

Union troubled by Eagle Scout project in Allentown

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.

Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

“We’ll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails,” Balzano told the council.

Balzano said Saturday he isn’t targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city’s decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said “there’s to be no volunteers.” No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.

I suspect Eagle Scout Anderson may soon be getting a merit badge in Broken Kneecaps.

 Posted by at 5:26 pm
Nov 182009
 

A NASA briefing on orbital payload planning from 1969 suggests that Skylab (then known as an “orbital workshop”) would be followed by a space station to be launched by Saturn V’s in 1975. Sadly, Saturn V production had been ordered stopped in 1968. No other data on the station presented.
station.jpg

 Posted by at 12:33 pm
Nov 182009
 

Now available: Space Drawing Set 18, containing 22 drawings of the Model 256-20B McDonnell-Douglas/Martin Marietta manned, reusable, flyback Space Shuttle booster from 1971. The Phase B baseline booster was a wing hydrogen/oxygen powered launcher fitted with canards… and fitted within the canards were a multitude of turbofan engines for use in getting back to a landing field for a powered runway landing.

This drawing set contains:

McDonnell-Douglas drawings:

256-20-0001: General Arrangement Model 256-20B Booster (also shows Model 255 orbiter): B&W, 6416X3263 pixels

256-20-0010: Layout – Installation Main Landing Gear: Color (with an additional clear grayscale version), 11362X3290 pixels

256-20-0011: Layout – Installation Nose Landing Gear: Color (with an additional clear grayscale version), 7298X3230 pixels

256-20-0015: Nose Section, Booster: Color (with an additional clear grayscale version), 10568X3168 pixels

256-20-0020: Main Propulsion System installation : Color (with an additional clear grayscale version), 11760X2140 pixels

256-20-0027: Inboard profile: Grayscale (with an additional “cleaned” version), 9368X3120 pixels

256-20-0032: ECLS Installation: Color (with an additional clear grayscale version), 8656X3032 pixels

Martin Marietta drawings:

899-A-2010-599: Wing Structural Assembly: Grayscale (with an additional “cleaned” version), 6902X3143 pixels

899-A-2010-639-1: Canard Structure Assembly, B&W. 4216X3287 pixels

899-A-2010-639-2: Canard Structure Assembly, B&W. 4216-3287 pixels

899-A-2020-648: ACPS Installation: Color (with an additional clear grayscale version), 8632X3040 pixels

899-A-2020-650: Airbreathing Enginge [sic] Installation: Color (with an additional clear grayscale version), 8000X3279 pixels

899A2010642: Booster Overall TPS Assembly: Color (with an additional clear grayscale version), 11007X3240 pixels

All drawings also come with half-sized versions for easier viewing and printing. Space Drawing set 18 is spread through 4 ZIPped folders, totalling 92.5 megabytes – hence the split into four separate, more easily uploadable/downloadable ZIP files. Space Drawing 18 can be purchased for $15.

sdwg18b.jpg

sdwg18ad.jpg

 Posted by at 10:46 am
Nov 162009
 

Fifth in the series of reconstructed drawings from Paul Suhler’s book “From RAINBOW to GUSTO.” This is the “Peterbilt” tow plane designed by Ed Baldwin. This is Figure 49. Due to medium image quality in the original, this particular drawing has a Source Grade of three:

peterpilt_small1.gif

“RAINBOW to GUSTO” is available from Amazon.com (for $39.95) and direct from the AIAA ($29.95 for AIAA members).

To download the high-rez version of the “Peterbilt” drawing, simply click THIS LINK. You will be prompted for a username and a password. For the “Peterbilt” drawing, use these:

Username: the first word in the body of the text on page 103

Password: the first word in the body of the text on page105

(Remember: Case Sensitive!)

Up next: Figure 51a, Ramjet “Kite 1”

 Posted by at 2:36 pm