Convair HST, 1966

 aircraft, blather, drawings, Gah., history, projects  1 Response »
Nov 132012
 

In the mid 1960s, supersonic transports were just around the corner. And the trends in aviation development showed the aircraft designers and air travel planners that hypersonic transports were less than two decades away. Consequently, all the major aircraft designers in the US devoted effort to designing passenger transports that could carry paying customers at Mach 5 or greater. But a combination of politics (the OPEC oil embargo as well as a wider economic downturn, as well as largely trumped-up ecological concerns) and technological issues managed to assure that SSTs were never developed beyond the Concord stunt. And if a jetliner couldn’t get to Mach 1, it surely couldn’t get to Mach 5.

But in 1966, these issues were not yet seen, so Convair was busy designing a whole range of hypersonic transports. They might have missed out on the first generation of SSTs, but they were not going to miss out on the HSTs.

 Posted by at 1:11 am

Meet the neighbors

 blather, cats, photography  5 Responses »
Nov 122012
 

The feline population crash seems to be reversing. Today the population of the back deck reached seven: Fluffys Brother, One-Eye, her previously suspected but unseen four kittens, and an arch-nemesis cat currently dubbed “Mystery Cat” (because even though he’s been around for several months, it was not until a week or two back that he was visible as anything but a blur).

Kitten 1:

Kitten 2:

Kitten 3:

Kitten 4:

Kitten 1 standing up to Fluffys Brother:

And the bane of the Family, “Mystery Cat:”

There are some beautiful critters here.

 Posted by at 7:18 pm

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffin’ glue

 AARRRGH, blather, Gah., ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Nov 122012
 

Old Norse folklore held that “luck” was a real thing. Some people have it, some people don’t. I’ve long believed that if luck is real, I’m in the “don’t got it” category. Consider: after years of declining interest in my stuff on this site, very early this AM an unforeseen boon: xkcd ran a modified version of the Saturn V inboard profile I offer, and credited this website. This led to a noticable spike in interest, and even a few orders started coming in. Yay! Income! And then… the servers went down. In the middle of the day, prime slackin’ off time at the office, up-ship.com/blog, aerospaceprojectsreview.com, the blogs, everything, simply friggen’ vanished for about three hours. Who knows how many potential visitors tried to dial this site up only to have their browsers go “I dunno,” and then move on with their lives, never to come back again.

Typical.

 Posted by at 4:18 pm

A Saturn V revival?

 blather, drawings, history, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Nov 122012
 

The “Up Goer 5” at xkcd has brought some unexpected but welcome attention to up-ship.com/blog, and I’ve received a few messages asking about prints of the Saturn V. As many know/have noticed, I at one point sold full-color high-rez digital prints, about 6 feet long. These have not been available for a long time (A: they didn’t sell well at all, and B: the print shop where I got them done went kinda kerflooey).

The messages asking about Saturn V prints have been sorta evenly split between digital prints and  cyanotype prints. As to the latter, I am *currently* limited to 12X18, due to the available print shops being limited to 12X18 transparencies. This, however, could change. But once I have those I’d have to procure large rolls of the appropriate paper (sheets are limited to 18X24), and, most importantly, build a fairly large frame with a substantial plexiglass “lid.” None of this is impossible, or even particularly difficult, just… kinda pricey. Depending on demand, a 6-foot-long cyanotype Saturn V would run from $40 to $100, I imagine. A digital print would be substantially less, $30 or so.

If you would be interested in one or the other (or, indeed, *more* than one of one or the other), please send me an email with “Saturn V print” in the subject line to:

scottlowther AT up-ship DOT com

I have my original blueprint framed and hanging on the wall, and I gotta tell ya, it’s awesome sauce.

 Posted by at 11:24 am

Operation Sailor Hat

 awesomeness, blather, history, nukes, science, weapons, youtube  2 Responses »
Nov 122012
 

Operation Sailor Hat was a series of three non-nuclear explosions designed to test the responses of US Navy ships and equipment to nuclear-level explosions. Since these tests were carried out in 1965, above-ground nuclear tests were banned, so half-kilotons bursts were simulated with 500 tons of TNT. Goes to show that you don’t need nuclear explosives to have fun.

A number of “Sailor Hat” videos are on YouTube, but most have been mangled with craptacular editing or irritating watermarks. Here are a few.

A brief clip from an official briefing film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeFAhbzlF2Q

 

A longer clip with an annoying watermark and music spliced in from “Trinity and Beyond::”

[youtube tXeXvp4YaI0]

Here Stacey Keach narrates several minutes worth of clips, but with a *really* annoying watermark:

The same video, but without the massive watermark… but with a  smaller one, and Keach over-dubbed in Russian (I think):

 

And because why not… a “music video” of atomic bomb tests (including the non-nuclear Sailor Hat vids) set to White Zombie:

Using chemical explosives as stand-ins for nukes of course has definite limitations. For starters and most obviously… not neutron or gamma ray radiation. Second, chemical explosives don’t get anywhere near a hot as nuclear explosions… thousands of degrees vs. millions. Third, the fireball from a nuke is caused by the air around the nuke absorbing the prompt X-rays and such and being heated to a bagrillion degrees; the fireball of a non-nuke is generally the mass of the bomb itself converted into an incandescent cloud.

And if you’ve an interest in nukes buy haven’t seen “Trinity and Beyond…” sheesh, why not? It is indisputably awesome. A-bomb footage cleaned up and restored by a Hollywood special effects expert. Result = awesome.

——-

 Posted by at 1:15 am

Fat Tax Failure

 blather, news, politics  2 Responses »
Nov 112012
 

What the world can learn from Denmark’s failed fat tax

Denmark added a tax to fatty foods. Result: prices went up because
A) Foods were taxed at a higher rate

and

B) Food producing companies had to do a lot more paperwork, which added to the cost of doing business, which raised the cost of food (which was now taxed at a higher rate)

End results:

1) Danes crossed borders to buy food cheaper elsewhere

2) Danes lost their jobs

3) The tax just got repealed as a bad idea.

So what can American government officials learn from this? Well, most importantly… TAXES CAN GO AWAY.

 Posted by at 4:03 pm
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