In this video, a political protester promises to burn a place down with Molotov cocktails, and other assorted bits of violent asshattery.
Go ahead and guess: Tea Partier, or Occupier?
[youtube ilq_66LnRaw]
The skeletal regions of the Space Station V model will be done in photoetched brass. Just about done laying out those bits…
Today, the US national debt passed fifteen trillion dollars.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
Three basic liquid boosters for the Shuttle… a flyback booster based on the Saturn V first stage, a simple but heavy pressure-fed recoverable ballistic “lobber,” and ballistically recovered pressure-fed “strap on” boosters.
So, it looks like the guy who took potshots at the White House is every bit the looney nutburger that Jared Lee Loughner is.
Suspected White House Shooter Met With Idaho Falls Computer Consultant
Apparently, Obama is the antichrist and is kidnapping children to implant them with microchips in advance of the Mayan apocalypse due at the end of 2012.
Sure. Why not.
It takes a good long while to spool up, but this video is actually pretty nifty.
[youtube 8ox1Cb9uoy8]
The Occu-Drama continues to amuse:
Surprise, Homeland Security Coordinates #OWS Crackdowns
So the government that the fleabaggers want to grant more power to… is using the power it already has to bulldoze their little Obamavilles out of parks all over the nation. Heh.
But wait! Seems the fleabaggers might be willing to fight back!
The Guy Arrested For Firing A Shot At The White House May Have Spent Time At ‘Occupy’ Protests
Time to get the popcorn.
MOOSE (“Man Out Of Space Easiest”) is kinda legendary among the twenty or so of us who have actually heard of it. It was a 1960’s concept for a minimum “escape capsule” for astronauts on board space stations. Rather than something as hideously gigantic and complex as a Mercury capsule, MOOSE would be little bigger than a backpack. In short, it was a large plastic bag and a canister of fast-curing polyethylene foam, plus a small retrorocket. As your space station falls apart around you, you’d get into your rather minimal space suit, grab a MOOSE, and bail out the door. Once out you’d set the thing off, which would cause the foam to be squirted into the plastic bag. The bag would shape the foam into a *sorta* ballistically stable capsule. You’d orient yourself backside-forward, then hit the retro rocket. It would dump you out of orbit; the foam would protect you from re-entry heating, and you’d parachute to a gentle landing, with probably a minimum of breaking your legs on landing.
MOOSE has been described online in numerous places. But Cracked just published what has to be the best description here:
6 Terrifying Emergency Escape Pods (That Aren’t Worth It)
Of the six “escape pods,” MOOSE comes in at Number 1.
Your spaceship is now complete: You, in a wet sack of foam.
And my favorite line of the whole thing was the NSFW answer to the question that was posed: Somebody asked the question: “What’s the easiest way to get a man out of space?”
Relevant to nuthin’, here’s a link to a Wikipedia entry on the biggest box office bombs ever. They are listed with their losses adjusted to 2011 equivalents… and boy howdy, there’s some real doozies in there.
List of biggest box office bombs
The top eleven:
| Film | Year | Total cost (production + marketing) (USD) | Worldwide theater gross (USD) | Net losses (USD) | Net losses inflation adjusted (2011 USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cutthroat Island | 1995 | 115,000,000 | 18,517,322 | 96,482,678 | 139,028,052 |
| The Alamo | 2004 | 145,000,000[1] | 25,820,000[1] | 119,180,000 | 138,583,355 |
| The Adventures of Pluto Nash | 2002 | 120,000,000 | 7,103,973[2] | 112,896,027[2] | 137,830,376 |
| Sahara | 2005 | 241,000,000[3] | 119,269,486 | 121,730,514 | 136,926,012 |
| Mars Needs Moms | 2011 | 175,000,000[4] | 38,992,758 | 136,007,242 | 136,007,242 |
| The 13th Warrior | 1999 | 160,000,000 | 61,698,899 | 98,301,101 | 129,558,133 |
| Town & Country | 2001 | 105,000,000[5] | 10,372,291 | 94,627,709 | 117,423,330 |
| Speed Racer | 2008 | 200,000,000[6] | 93,945,766 | 106,054,254 | 108,259,603 |
| Heaven’s Gate | 1980 | 44,000,000* | 3,484,331 | 40,515,669 | 107,987,063 |
| Stealth | 2005 | 170,800,000 | 76,932,872 | 93,867,128 | 105,584,468 |
| Green Lantern | 2011 | 325,000,000[7] | 219,851,172 | 105,148,828 | 105,148,828 |
OUCH. Some of these surprised the hell out of me… I didn’t know that “The 13th Warrior” and “Stealth” were bombs, certainly not in the hundred-million-dollar range.
XCOR Aerospace and the Southwest Research Institute will award a research flight on board the XCOR Lynx suborbital spaceplane to one paid registrant at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference. This conference will be held February 27-29, 2012, in Palo Alto, California.
The contest rules are HERE.
I bet these guys are going to be in the running:
Of course, they’d better keep an eye out for someone trying to game the system…
