An artists impression of one of the fairly vast number of SST designs put forward by Boeing under the designation “733,” which predated the “2707″ designation. This one features angular delta wings and delta canards… and apparently no passenger windows. Dates from the early 1960′s.
A higher rez of this is available HERE.
It will shortly (half an hour as I write this… about 11:30 PM Mountain time) be either “awesome” or “aw, crap.”
Watch it here:
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/mars/curiosity_news3.html
11:33 update: It landed! JPL is going *bonkers.* It’s infectious… I had nothing to do with this mission, yet it was still a nail-biter going in and a massive thrill on landing.
Huh.
[youtube WoZ2BgPVtA0]
From the comments: “The littlest cyborg.” These are non-powered exoskeletal structures that allow one particular little girl with arthrogryposis (a congenital disorder that causes serious or complete weakness in joints) to move her arms of her own accord, something she’s otherwise incapable of.
I keep hearing that Europeans are so much more sophisticated and tolerant than Americans. Well… here’s a thrilling video about how sophisticated certain elements of Brussels, Belgium are to their womenfolk:
http://www.mrctv.org/sites/default/files/embedcache/115531.html
If that’s sophistication, they can keep it.
From the National Security Archive,
Document 72 (PDF file): Telephone conversation transcript, General Hull and Colonel Seaman [sic] – 1325 –13 Aug 45, Top Secret
Which includes:
H[ull]: What General Marshall wants to know is the status of the development of these bombs so we can best determine how to use them. There’s one of them due up the 23rd as I recall it.
S[eaman]: There’s one ready to be shipped – waiting on order right now.
H: If the order is given now, when can it be ready?
S: Thursday would be its readiness; the 19th it would be dropped.
H: In other words, three or four day advance notice before it can be shipped, and six days after that when it can be dropped.
S: That’s figuring it so it will be safe. Then there will be another one the first part of September. Then there are three definite. There is a possibility of a fourth one in September, either the middle or the latter part.
H: Now, how many in October?
S: Probably three in October.
H: That’s three definite, possibly four by the end of September; possibly three more by the end of October; making a total possibility of seven. That is the information I want.
S: So you can figure on three a month with a possibility of a fourth one. If you get the fourth one, you won’t get it next month. That is up to November.
H: The last one, which is a possibility for the end of October, could you count on that for use before the end of October?
S: You have a possibility of seven, with a good chance of using them prior to the 31st of October.
H: They come out approximately at the rate of three a month.
…
S: The biggest gap will be between the one now and the one for the first part of September. After that, I would say approximately one every ten days.
The discussion suggests the use of nukes to support an invasion, with bombs stockpiled in advance and then dropped in mass over a span of a few days.
Fortunately for the Japanese, their Emperor finally grew a pair and surrendered.
I’m waiting for the usual suspects in the media to blame the Tea Party or Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh or Batman. Until then, we’ve got this:
“described the attacker as a bald, white man, dressed in a white T-shirt and black pants and with a 9/11 tattoo on one arm”
Oy. My bet is on some derptastic jackhole who thought he was going to shoot up some Muslims.
In any event, get ready for some more efforts to quash the Constitution.
As a followup to THIS (based on the photos HERE) a link was posted to this paper:
Navy Shipboard Lasers for Surface, Air, and Missile Defense: Background and Issues for Congress
It contains some illustrations that, while not being exactly what’s on the back of the ship, look pretty close:
This is the LaWS (Laser Weapon System), a solid-state laser which uses six commercial welding lasers to produce a 33 kilowatt laser beam. The laser is about 25% efficient meaning a projected operational version with a 100 kW beam would require 400 kW of total electrical power (and a whole lot of cooling). Compare the above image to this:
And this rear view of the LaWS from the PR video below:
Additionally, the LaWS prototype and the Thing On The Boat both have the same NAVSEA logo on ’em:
[youtube vqLkpcHavZE]
A view of the LaWS prototype from the PR video with a human in frame, compared to the Thing On The Boat photo (with a human moved a bit) shows that the devices are roughly the same size.
Further: The boxlike thing on the mount, further aft:
This bears some resemblance to the beam director of the Navy/Northrop Grumman Maritime Laser Demonstrator:
The MLD has already been tested at sea. So what we *may* have here is a comparison test between two laser systems; this would explain the two laser directors and the two Caterpillar power generators. Both lasers could presumably be fired up at once on their own power systems and tested simultaneously, providing direct comparisons of performance under various conditions. Alternatively, they may be used for different targets. As the video below shows, the MLD has apparently been used to take out small surface vessels. So… the LaWS aims up, the MLD aims down.
[youtube awsQs4ct0c4]
[youtube auSo1MyWf8g]
October 28, 2011, Clairy Browne and the Bangin’ Rackettes sing “Love Letter” in a record store to an audience that just might have measured in excess of eight:
[youtube Tb7tWYYkF74]
April 2, 2012 Clairy Browne and the Bangin’ Rackettes post the official video for “Love Letter”, where it has so far been seen by 40 thousand and change.
[youtube irNtyaNHq5A]
July 2, 2012: Clairy Browne and the Bangin’ Rackettes song “Love Letter” is featured on a Heineken TV commercial which will be seen by the entire freakin’ planet:
[youtube MZtDqpdvy7s]
From HERE a photo of USS Dewey, DDG-105, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer with a great big interesting thing mounted to it. Also appears to have some substantial generators. Go to the link for higher-rez images.
So what do we have here? Inside the dome there appears to be a sizable telescope. But a telescope itself would not seem to need the sort of electrical power that the Caterpillar generators would provide. There is also what appears to be a sensor system mounted further aft.