On Interstate 80 between Laramie and Cheyenne sits a 12.5-foot-tall bronze bust of Abe Lincoln, atop a thirty-foot-tall granite-chunk pedestal. It’s hard to miss. What’s also hard to miss is just how *depressed* the man looks.
Heading east:
On the way west I stopped for a closer look:
Yeesh.
Humor break:
[youtube lUtRi011FLY]
And the all-time classic:
[youtube 5blbv4WFriM]
I’ve been asked several times if I’ve ever come across a design for or even reference to a manned version of the Project Pluto Supersonic Low Altitude Missile. Short answer: no. However, I’ve come across several nuclear ramjet powered manned aircraft. Not many, as the idea is pretty loopy; a manned aircraft is *almost* by definition meant to be resuable, but there is as yet no such thing as a nuclear ramjet that doesn’t eat itself in relatively short order.
Still, that hasn’t stopped a few aircraft designers from putting forward manned nuclear ramjet vehicles. Such as the one shown below, proposed by Alexander Kartvellie of the Republic Aircraft Corp in the early 1960’s. This monster included solid rocket boosters for a zero-zero launch, two nuclear ramjets, turbojets for a non-nuclear landing and a payload of several rather large weapons. The crew are in the massivley shielded conpartment in the nose.
There will be substantially more on this aircraft if I do write the Project Pluto book I’m hoping to do. Still waiting to hear back from the USAF on some documents. These documents might make the difference between this book project being either:
A} “Project Pluto: The Ultimate Book::
or
B} “Nuclear Powered Flying Death Machines… Pluto, ANP/NEPA/NX-2 and a Little Bit About Project Orion.”
Option “B” is if the documents are a bust. I don;t have quite enough to do a whole book just on Pluto and do it right, but I’ve more than enough on the more general nuclear-military-flying-machine concept.
Still need to do some tweaks (don’t care much for the inlet yet, some suface details to add, pins & sockets for assembly to be added), but the parts of the missile itself are done.
Note that this will come complete with a TORY-II reactor with controls. It will be visible from both the front through the inlet and the rear through the nozzle. The reactor will be a separate part from the fuselage halves, so it could in principle be displayed separately.
Now, the stand…
Raedthinn likes to hang out in this cupboard.
Shrug.
Bruce Willis to front Russian bank ad campaign
Trust bank, a top-30 lender by assets, hung pictures of the “Die Hard” star on the streets of Moscow on Monday with the phrase “Trust is just like me, but a bank.”
2010 has been a year that has truly sucked for me. North Korea is doing it’s part to make sure that it might suck for pretty much everybody else, too.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40329037/ns/world_news-asiapacific/
Shoirt form: NK used artillery to blast the crap out of a civilian-populated South Korean island, destroying a number of buildings.
Came on kinda sudden-like.
Snerk. Check out the latest Newsweek cover:
To compare with:
It’s already irritated some people.
The pose Newsweek has put Obama in is a direct copy of an iconic image of Shiva. Where Obama is shown juggling, Shiva is in fact dancing. Specifically a dance known as “Tandava,” representing Shivas role in the cycle of the universe. Perhaps best known for his role in bringing about the destruction of the world.
“I am become debt, the destroyer of economies.”