A 1945 War Department film on the manufacturing of the B-29 Superfortress.
[youtube Xui_amVmdqY]
The narrators dialogue is rather goofy, but the footage is pretty interesting.
Sep 072011
Sep 072011
Snagged off the internet are a few pages from a Russian (I think…) magazine. Sadly, I cannot make heads or tails of it… not too surprising given that I have no knowledge of the Russian language beyond telling someone “Poshyol ty” is probably a good way to get hit.
Anyway, can anyone reasonably well-versed in Russian take a glance at the text and tell me what it’s describing? I don’t need a full translation, just the gist of it… who designed it for why, and what exactly it is. The title indicates it’s a “photon rocket,” which normally means a matter/antimatter rocket. But if it’s something else, especially if it’s something nuclear-pulsey, I’d like to know.
UPDATE: Thanks to several commenters, it’s a description of Eugen Sanger’s “photon rocket,” an antimatter annihilation propulsion system concept from the early 1960’s.
Sep 062011
I always thought this was a neat idea. It comes back from time to time, but never seems to get anywhere.
[youtube lmDUreOT5lE]
Sep 062011
Previously available only on CD-ROM, now available for download. NOTE: these are downloadable as separate PDF files, and should be downloaded one at a time… they are pretty substantial, and if you try to download ’em all at once, the system could get bogged down and timed out. Total filesize is over 300 megabytes.
A collection of five North American Aviation reports covering the Apollo command and service modules (primarily the former), Blocks I and II, in exhaustive detail:
APOLLO OPERATIONS HANDBOOK COMMAND AND SERVICE MODULE. SPACECRAFT 012 (1010 pages)
APOLLO OPERATIONS HANDBOOK COMMAND AND SERVICE MODULE. SPACECRAFT 014 (718 pages)
COMMAND SERVICE MODULE SYSTEM HANDBOOK AS-501 (395 pages)
APOLLO OPERATIONS HANDBOOK BLOCK II SPACECRAFT VOL. 1 SPACECRAFT DESCRIPTION, Oct 1969 (962 PAGES)
APOLLO OPERATIONS HANDBOOK BLOCK II SPACECRAFT VOL. 1 SPACECRAFT DESCRIPTION, Jan 1970 (1067 PAGES)
Price to download: $13
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Sep 062011
http://www.wickedlasers.com/lasers/S3_Krypton_Series-113-63.html
Green laser, one watt. A mere $1000.
[youtube 5Tx02Up-ovw]
This thing would probably be *more* dangerous than a firearm, for the simple fact that people would likely be more willing to mess around with it like idiots. And the slightest reflection – off plastic, glass, metal, probably fricken’ *paper* – would likely be enough to dazzle someone, if not outright blind them.
Still, a one watt hand-held laser seems like it might be of some practical value. The claim is that it’s bright enough to dazzle the sensors of satellites in low Earth orbit; if this is in fact the case, you can expect that these lasers will sell like hotcakes to every government on the planet, and downward-looking satellites will start going “funny” in large numbers quite soon. Huzzah! There’s you market for new cheaper launch vehicles! Gang a dozen of these together on a finely-trainable turret with a really good telescopic sight, and mount to the payload compartment of your friendly neighborhood Xcor Lynx rocketplane, and you have an instant anti-spysat system. I wonder what these would do to solar panels…
A regular green laser is bright enough that as a sight on a gun, it is itself a dandy weapon. Play it over the face of a home invader, say, and the home invader is going to lose all interest in doing anything but getting out of the house. But with *this* thing, play it over the face of the badguy, and he’ll likely be not only permanently blinded, but maybe even *scarred* by the experience. Of course, once criminals figure that out expect to see these lasers used to do just that sort of thing. Terrorists and jackasses will have all kinds of fun with these and airplanes/cars…
Youtube has a number of videos showing people starting fires and popping balloons with green lasers less powerful than this. You might be able to hunt small varmints with this laser.
Sep 062011
A 1972 film by one of the founders of Pixar, showing computer animated hand, faces and heart valve. By modern standards? Crap. By 1972 standards? Holy crap.
[vimeo 16292363]
Sep 052011
ATK artwork showing the Boeing/ATK “AirLaunch” concept from a few years back. Started around 1999, petered out a few years later. It called for a winged solid rocket booster similar in outlines to the OSC Pegasus, but larger and carried on the back of a 747. Upon release, the 747 would be obliged to dive out of the way, lest the rather dense booster bonk back into it. As shown below it is equipped with a Space Maneuver Vehicle for payload… a slightly earlier iteration of the X-37 spaceplane. The first two stages would have been Castor 120’s (Peacekeeper first stages, also the Athena booster), while the third would be a new design. Total payload was to have been about 7,500 pounds.
Sep 052011
The “new tone” continues to improve. Here, Jimmy Hoffa Jr. declares “war” on people who want to reduce the size and expense of government, and apparently calls for their execution: “Let’s take these son of a bitches out.”
[youtube H6gHfhwShhA]
The audience applauds the apparent notion of murdering people who want fiscal responsibility. Obama came out later and declared himself proud to be working with Hoffa.
Sep 052011
There is a lot of pessimism out there about the future. NASA has retreated from space, the economy has sucked for years, sucks today, and will suck for years to come, wars all over the place, politicians behaving extraordinarily badly, the climate going goofy. It’s thus not unreasonable for people to think that The End Has Come. I know I certainly feel that way more and more these days.
We have, however, been there before. When the big-government policies of Hoover and FDR turned the depression of 1929 into the Great Depression, and FDR’s constant meddling caused the Great Depression to drag on for years longer than it needed to, many Americans thought that, like today, our best days were behind. Economies are based to a great degree on intangibles, such as what people *feel*, and so people feeling bad about the economy helped keep the economy depressed. In order to help turn the economy around, people had to *feel* better about it, so that they would work at improving it. A great deal of propaganda was thus produced, both by government and by industry, to help prop up morale. One such bits of propaganda is “Frontiers of the Future,” produced in 1937 by the “National Industrial Council” and narrated by famed world-travelling reporter Lowell Thomas. It attempts to predict the future of American industry, with some successes, some lapses and one giant oversight… no World War II.
[youtube 3XSwLNPnmPc]
Sep 042011
My book “Nuclear Pulse Propulsion,” to be published by ARA Press, will be heavily illustrated. The bulk of the illustrations (contemporary art and diagrams, along with all-new technical illustrations) are done or in progress. However, it will also need a number of explanatory illustrations.
The book is half history, half physics textbook. The physics half will need illustrations showing general processes and concepts… the implosion of an atomic bomb, the operation of shock absorbers, that sort of thing. Illustrations roughly akin to this:
Either color or black & white would work for this book (not sure if it will all be printed in color, though). Simple, clear and to the point is prefered over complex fully rendered computer graphics. Drawn on a computer or pen and ink. What matters is quality, clarity and, in the end, probably a bit of quantity.
I am uncertain if there is much of a budget to hire an illustrator… or any budget at all. But if you are interested in illustrating this book and having your skills shown to the world, contact Jack Hagerty, publisher at ARA Press. His email can be found under the “about us” tab: http://www.arapress.com/