Boeing revealed artwork of a hypersonic transport at an AIAA conference in Atlanta. Capable of Mach 5, Boeing suggests that they could build this aircraft soon… in as little as 20 or 30 years.
Not a whole lot of detail on this one as yet. And given that the claim is “thirty years in the future,” chances are that this design is little more than artwork. The fuselage is pretty generic (although those are some big windows for a Mach 5 aircraft), but the wings and stabilizers (and apparent engine nacelles) are taken from previous Boeing designs stretching back to the 70’s.
When Babylon 5 was first aired in the early 90’s, it was a prime example not of the very best in visual effects, but of the best-effects-on-a-budget. The visual effects – done entirely with computer graphics, in its infancy for television – were serviceable and allowed for some remarkable things to be shown, but it was never spectacular quality. And in the years since as the technology has progressed, the mid-90’s-vintage CGI just doesn’t really seem to hold up. Of course, that’s not what the show was about: the characters, the ideas, the plotlines: THOSE kicked substantial ass.
The five seasons of Babylon 5 are now available on Amazon Prime. I’ve had the DVDs for years, so this is nothing all that new for me, but I’ve heard complaints about the quality of the visual effects on the Amazon version. This rather extensive article goes into detail about the history of B5’s troubles with VFX quality, and what some people hope to do about it.
The real trick would be to levitate the “train” within the coil reducing contact to just an electrically conductive brush, vastly reducing friction and speeding the thing along. I’m not sure how to do that on a budget.
This video openly swipes the idea, but at least goes to the bother of explaining the physics involved:
This would seem to be a good possibility for a kids science experiment (they still do that, right?). A particularly industrious kid might consider replacing the battery with something of the same size, but much greater power: some sort of generator perhaps, driven by a tiny combustion engine or some such. Or put a PV cell on it and aim a dangerously powerful laser beam at it. Consider changing the shape of the coil… instead of winding it around a cylinder, try square stock. Then put a simple flat low-friction track on the bottom inside the square coil, and put wheels on the “car.” A truly industrious kid would embed the coil within a rigid ceramic shell backed up by a carbon fiber wrap, and replace the low power batteries with insanely powerful capacitors. The burst of energy and acceleration would be very quick, but done right the “car” might project down the barrel with considerable authority. Go further and build a box magazine to hold the little electromagnetic projectiles, a hand-held aiming and trigger mechanism, a Picatinny rail to mount laser sights… then bring to school and show the class. That’ll be fun for everyone.
It’s something I’m sure we’ve all seen: someone produces articles or videos or documentaries or whatever on either science or politics that you look at and conclude “well, done, these people know what they’re talking about.” And then they make another piece, covering the *other* topic, and your response is “What the hell happened? You used to be cool.”
Carl Sagan was like that. He’d talk about science, and I was right there with him. Then he’d launch into politics, especially the “let’s disarm in the face of Soviet imperialism” and I had to back off, shaking my head sadly.
On the other side, there are organizations like Prager U that produce some interesting and reasoned videos on the subject of politics. but when they delve into science, *especially* science that dares to cover issues that the Middle Eastern religions claim to have a monopoly on the answers to… well, they get downright embarrassing. Witness:
The short form here: the trained chimp narrating the Prager U video claims that scientists are all a pack of hypocrites because they have replaced a faith in God with a faith in the Multiverse. But as the fella debunking that nonsense points out, scientists do not overwhelmingly believe in the multiverse hypothesis, so much as consider it an intriguing conjecture. It is not used to explain cosmogenesis or biogenesis. The two Famous Big Name Scientists that the narrator name-drops to show that scientists are Faithful Multiverse Believers are easily shown by the debunker to *not* be believers.
If you have to outright lie about the other side in order to make your case, your case isn’t very strong… and you apparently don’t have much faith in it.
It’s something I see way too much of, and it bugs the hell out of me. Michael Medved, for instance, has an interesting politics-based talk show. But I gotta change the channel when he brings on one of those professional BS artists from the “Discovery Institute” to talk about the latest claims about how they have successfully misinterpreted some snippet of data to back up their claim that evolution is a hoax. I *used* to like Glenn Beck politically, but dropped him like a hot rock when he started to turn into Reverend Glenn. Especially grating were the commercials that ran on his show in the local (Salt Lake City) market some years ago touting some conferences or other that claimed – based on religious claims – that 2500 or so years ago there was a massive iron-age culture in North America derived from a lost tribe of Israel. It was basically Ancient Aliens but with “I bet the Jews did this” instead of “I’m not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.”
Sadly, this weird-ass mix of good politics and crackpot science is all too common, not only in reality but also in perception. And it need not be so:
And of course, there’s The Other Side. The side that gets all the politics wrong, and claims to be the side of Good Science. And yet they are generally opposed to not only nuclear power, but are often enough coming out against actual space exploration/colonization/exploitation. So screw them too.
Convair B-58A serial number 55-665 was unique due to the extended nose radome. This was in support of the YF-12 program: the AN/ASG-18 radar from the YF-12 was grafted onto the nose of the B58, and a special pod was constructed that would carry a single AIM-47 missile on a deployable “trapeze” launch rail like the YF-12.
SN 55-665 is one of the few surviving examples of the B-58. Sadly… “surviving” is a relative term. It’s sitting in the Mojave desert at Edwards Air Force Base, out in the approximate middle of nowhere; it has been stripped of pretty much everything including not only engines but also nacelles. It was placed there not as a gunnery target, but a photo target for satellite reconnaissance systems. (satellite imagery can be seen HERE) The desert is a benign environment for long term storage of metallic aircraft, but it it still non-optimum. It can clearly be found and climbed upon, which seems not only disrespectful but also unwise.
Seems to me that this aircraft should be taken to a museum and restored. However, restoring it to the appearance of a flyable aircraft would seem a virtual economic impossibility given its depleted state. Still… it does seem that it could be cleaned up, some missing bits restored, and put on display as a “cutaway” showing the inner workings of the aircraft.
These fine people have set up a cat sanctuary, which is good… but one that specializes in older cats that have been abandoned or let go because the owners – themselves older – either can no longer care for the cats, or have themselves died. That’s great… but as recent experience has once again taught me, older cats don’t last forever, much as you might wish it otherwise. When you adopt an elderly cat, you are setting yourself up for certain heartbreak in the relatively near term. Not sure I could do this.
Because a vast number of you demanded it (I think it was three of ya), I’ve fired up a “teespring.com” account for the purpose of making, well, T-shirts. Some will be aerospace related, some my own inimitable wisdom. Before I post ideas for all the world to see, I’m interested in seeing if there are some folks interested in serving as sounding boards for ideas (because, let’s face is, some ideas might be embarrassingly stupid, legally actionable or so good that someone else might steal it… or someone else might have already done it and I don’t wish to unwitting steal someone else’ ideas). If that’s you, send me an email:
