A vintage NASA film about the Lunar Module and Apollo 5. Some interesting footage of the Lunar Landing Research Facility.
May 122016
May 112016
A 1961 NASA film about the Saturn I. An improved version of a previously posted YouTube video.
May 112016
Pretty sure you’d see *my* shiny metal ass going the opposite direction. Still, this here is some incredible footage:
This here is an example of the changes wrought in human civilization via technological development. Before automobiles, there’s be no way to be a “tornado chaser.” Before hand-held movie cameras, there’d be little reason to be a tornado chaser. Put the two together, and a wholly new type of person becomes possible.
May 102016
Well, this should give the ancient aliens whackos something to go buggo about:
Teen Discovers Lost Maya City Using Ancient Star Maps
In short, a Canadian 15-year-old realized that the locations of known Mayan cities lined up well with the brightest stars in Mayan constellations. In proper scientific tradition, he used constellations to predict the location of an as-yet undiscovered Mayan city… and after examining satellite images, it appears that there really is a city or complex right there.
So it looks like the Mayans laid out their civilization based on star maps. If that meant building a labor-intensive structure hell and gone away from rivers and roads, expending vital resources and manpower in an effort to build pyramids in mountains, then so be it. While that’s an impressive commitment to cause, it is in the end pretty damned silly. I’ll note that the Mayan civilization vanished, swallowed by the jungle. Perhaps their strategy of basing their civic planning on superstition rather than logical use of resources might not have been so wise.
UPDATE:
Ooops. It’s looking like this is turning out to be hogwash. The “Mayan complex” looks to archeologists like an old corn field. The article linked above links to several experts who are less than thrilled that they are having to comment on what one of them refers to as “a terrible example of junk science.”
May 092016
Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
The biggest surprise is that this is being reported on at all.
May 082016
Side-view diagram of a Boeing concept for a hydrogen-fueled supersonic bomber from 1956. This monster is shown to scale with a North American XB-70. More info and diagrams of this are in US Bomber Projects issue 9.
May 082016
A Moon Man for Vice President
Where the paid Gawker shill makes fun of the idea of Newt Gingrich as Donald Trumps Vice President because Gingrich wanted to build a lunar colony.
Sorry, but Trump picking Newt would be one of the few things he could do that would make me actually want to vote for him (as opposed to merely voting against Hillary).
May 082016
A Bell Aerosystems advertisement describing the hydrogen peroxide attitude control thrusters on the Mercury capsule. Hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, was passed through silver-coated fine metal mesh screens; this catalyzed the H2O2 to decompose into O2 and H2O in the form of high-temperature steam. While the O2 could be combusted with a fuel such as kerosene or hydrogen to generate a true bipropellant rocket engine, the O2/H2O exhaust from the monopropellant reaction was adequate for small attitude control thrusters. Bell was building a similar system for use on the Dyna Soar spaceplane.
May 082016
May 072016
An ad from a 1957 issue of Aviation Week extolling the wonders of the Ryan X-13 “Vertijet.” The thing worked, but not well enough to be turned into any sort of operational aircraft.
It must’ve been nice to live in an era when entirely new types of aircraft would be sprung on the public with some regularity.