It has been since the launch of Energia-Buran in 1988 that a new semi-reusable launch vehicle has lifted off. Until today:
The Falcon 9 seems to have made it down to *near* the ocean surface. At this time it’s unclear what happened then… with waves a dozen feet high, chances are poor that the stage successfully “landed.” But consider: would an equivalent NASA vehicle have even been launched on a day like today?
[youtube 65zDaDSvIww]
An image of a galaxy cluster taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope [Huh? Since when is Hubble an ESA telescope???] gives a remarkable cross-section of the Universe, showing objects at different distances and stages in cosmic history. They range from cosmic near neighbours to objects seen in the early years of the Universe. The 14-hour exposure shows objects around a billion times fainter than can be seen with the naked eye.
This new Hubble image showcases a remarkable variety of objects at different distances from us, extending back over halfway to the edge of the observable Universe. The galaxies in this image mostly lie about five billion light-years from Earth but the field also contains other objects, both significantly closer and far more distant.
Studies of this region of the sky have shown that many of the objects that appear to lie close together may actually be billions of light-years apart. This is because several groups of galaxies lie along our line of sight, creating something of an optical illusion. Hubble’s cross-section of the Universe is completed by distorted images of galaxies in the very distant background.
These objects are sometimes distorted due to a process called gravitational lensing, an extremely valuable technique in astronomy for studying very distant objects. This lensing is caused by the bending of the space-time continuum by massive galaxies lying close to our line of sight to distant objects.
Be sure to check out the full-rez version downloadable HERE.
When the Recent Unpleasantness began in Crimea, many people tried to justify Russias actions by claiming that there was an active neo-Nazi presence in Ukraine that was threatening “ethnic Russians.” Behold:
In eastern Ukrainian, Jews leaving a synagogue were told to “register” with pro-Russian militants. They were supposed to provide a list of property they own and pay a registration fee “or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated.”
The “logic” that supported a Russian annexation of Crimea to “save” the “ethnic Russians” would now support the annexation of eastern Ukraine and likely the surrounding bits of Russia by Israel. I wonder if Putin would agree.
Kepler-186f orbits the star Kepler-186. The star is an M1 red dwarf at a distance of 493 +/- 59 light years in the constellation Cygnus; Kepler-186f orbits the star at a distance of about 52.4 million kilometers. The star is about half as massive as the sun, which makes it a pretty sizable red dwarf. The result here is that not only is Kepler-186f in the habitable zone, it may well be far enough out that it is not tidally locked with the star. The planet is about 110% the diameter of Earth, and orbits the star in 130 days. It might be just right for life.
Here’s a look at issues 9 and 10 of US Bomber Projects (just noticed that issue 8 isn’t listed on the main USBP page… hopefully that explains the dismal sales. Until I fix up the web page, you can order #8 HERE).
A potential followup to THIS POST seems to show a better view of what may be a new stealthy aircraft:
A tiny amount of processing gives this:
To me, this might be a B-2, The underside of the “nose” certainly looks like the complex contouring of the B-2. But the trailing edge *looks* unlike the B-2. Another sites’ attempt at processing gives an interesting trailing edge:
If this is accurate, the aircraft looks like nothing so much as the Boeing Model 988-122, one of a series of stealthy and semi-stealthy highly maneuverable multi-role aircraft designed around 1996:
Some graphics of the Boeing CST-100 commercial space capsule I snaked out of a presentation a while back:
A diagram showing the thermal radiators planned for one version of the SP-100 space nuclear power reactor.
A while back I sold limited editions of some 11X17 drawing-package booklets (of the BoMi, BWB, X-20 Dyna Soar and nuclear pulse propelled starship concepts). Based on comments that have come in from a few of the buyers (see: http://up-ship.com/blog/blog/?p=23871), they seem to have been well received. While these particular books are now done, it got me thinking about a few possible future works:
1) “A Guide To American Nuclear Explosive Devices.” Finally, an idea for what to do with the diagrams of the nuclear bombs I’ve created (see HERE). The book would feature full-page scale diagrams of every American nuclear bomb (including RV’s) that I can reliably create. The following page would contain all the particulars know for the bomb… weight, yield, dates in service, that sort of thing. Plus, a standard illustration/graph/chart showing the damage effects for ground bursts and air bursts, probably at a common altitude.
2) “A Guide to the Strategic Defense Initiative.” This would would be more like sci-fi. By assuming the trope of an alternate history, I can present diagrams of things that I cannot, in reality, present *reliably* *accurate* diagrams of. Things such as the Brilliant Pebbles, the Saggitar orbital railgun, the Zenith Star test laser, the larger planned operational space-based laser, the larger still “Phaser” phased array laser, neutral particle beam weapons, etc. have the problem of only being known from concept art and diagrams of disappointing quality, so my own diagrams would be highly speculative. But in a fictional setting… shrug. Also included would be SDI launch systems such as the ZSLS, the McD “Barbarian,” Shuttle-C and the General Dynamics (“Millenium Express”), McDonnell Douglas (“Delta Clipper”) and Rockwell (“Platypus”) SSTO concepts from 1991. These last three I can at least present quite reliable diagrams of.
These would each be some ways down the line. I *really* need to finish up the Space Station V book first; the nukes books needs one to two research trips, and the SDI book needs a whole lot of drafting, including 3D modeling.
So there I was, watching an episode of the FX series “The Americans,” when what comes on-screen but a diagram of the Brilliant Pebbles space-based anti-missile interceptor:
For those unaware, “The Americans” is a spy drama set in 1981, with a pair of Soviet spies pretending to be an American married couple trying to dig up information on the Strategic Defense Initiative. In one episode, a report comes into their hands in the form of microfilm; one page is shown as if viewed through a little microscope, showing the BP interceptor and “life jacket.” Above is a photo I took of the image, direct from a TV screen. I don’t recall having seen this particular diagram before; if anyone knows the source, I’d be interested.
“The Americans” has a number of anachronisms. First, SDI was not proposed by Reagan until 1983. Second, Brilliant Pebbles wasn’t designed until 1986. Third, the “Illegals” program the show is based on apparently didn’t begin until the 1990’s, *after* the fall of the Soviet Union. Still, it’s interesting to see such things on-screen. I have provided a few such historical tidbits to a few productions, though so far nothing I’ve provided has been shown even half as clear as this (still to come: two large format SST diagrams that may appear in a pilot episode). Much earlier in the season there was a briefly-glimpsed “stolen document” on space-based nuclear pumped X-Ray lasers which caused me to perk up and wonder where they got it… until I noticed that the illustration on the cover of the report was of Skylab. It was something cooked up by the art department, it seems. Good enough for TV work, I suppose, seeing as how it was on screen for maybe one second, and, let’s face it, most people wouldn’t recognize a diagram of Skylab if they had an hour to examine it.