Jun 222018
 

Air Force certifies Falcon Heavy, orders satellite launch for 2020

A $130 million contract to launch the Air Force Space Command-52 satellite.That’s more than the Falcon 9 Heavy is normally supposed to cost, but the extra is due to government assurance requirements. Even with the price increase, it’s still one-third to one-half the price of a Delta IV heavy.

The falcon 9 Heavy already has flights lined up for the near future…the STP-2flight with a bunch of mini-payloads for November 2018, Arabsat in December. Inmarsat and Viasat hd prior launches scheduled with SpaceX but moved to Ariane V due to delays, but kept their agreements with SpaceX and may lunch with them in the future.

 Posted by at 3:55 am
Jun 222018
 

So I looked up the season 3 BluRay of The Expanse on Amazon to see when it’s coming out (July 17), and saw some interesting titles that may be of interest to those who are interested in this sort of thing, available or soon to come out on BluRay. As always, if you are interested in buying these, please click on the links here… if you buy through these links, I’ll get a pittance!

Anyway, first up there’s The Day After, the all-kinds-of-fun TV movie from the 80’s that showed the US getting the bejeebers nuked out of it by the Soviets. Due out August 8.


Also available is the somewhat similar “Threads,” a British TV movie from about the same time that shows Britain getting the bejeebers nuked out of it by the Soviets… and carries that forward another generation or so showing just how thrilling a Mad Max version of Britain would be. Came out in February.

 

Then there’s Lifeforce. This one has been out on BluRay for a while, but this one is a “limited edition” which seems like it’s longer, or maybe has more extras. It’s… it’s about space vampires. It’s not what you’d probably really call “good,” but as an aerospace engineer there are two designs shown in the movie that have always appealed to me: there’s the UK/US modified Space Shuttle “Churchill,” which features vast solar panels and a NERVA engine distressingly close to the crew. The other design that’s really quite remarkably well done is the chassis of Mathilda May. Yeah, you know what I mean. Out August 14.

Then there’s “The Martian Chronicles.” A TV miniseries from the 80’s which at the time I loved. Then I saw it again a couple years ago and, wow, does it not hold up. Still, might be of interest. Due out June 26.

 

There’s “Deep Rising,” another one that has been available on BluRay before. I’m not sure if they’ve extended or otherwise tinkered with the movie itself, but it looks like there are a lot of extras. This is a goofy sea monster movie that is *way* more entertaining than it has any right to be. Due out August 21.


And two Lovecraftian flicks:

John Carpenters criminally underrated “In The Mouth of Madness,” which doesn’t feature the “Lovecraftian monster” so much as the “welp, it’s Lovecraft, so I’m’a gonna go nuts now” that most Lovecraftian movies tend to get wrong. Due out July 24.

The Spanish-made, English-language, relatively low-budget movie “Dagon,” which despite its title is actually more of a “Shadow Over Innsmouth.” Been a decade+ since I’ve seen it, but I seem to recall that it was fairly good. Also out July 24.

 Posted by at 12:32 am
Jun 212018
 

Sometimes, people get what they want:

Story 1: People wanted less “police violence:”

Park ravaged by drugs, hookers and muggings after infamous police killing

Eric Garner died in police custody after a tussle across the street from Tomkinville Park. Locals got all protesty, so now…

“Guys are not going to risk their jobs anymore,” said one high-ranking law enforcement source familiar with the precinct. “We’ll just let you have that area.”

Locals now are referring to the area as a “war zone.”

Congrats!

Story 2: People wanted Sweden to get more culturally diverse. Huzzah!

Message: No more Bråvalla

Which is the Google Translate version of:

Beskedet: Inget mer Bråvalla

In short: Swedens largest music festival has been cancelled because it has become a hotbed of “cultural enrichment” in the form of “migrants” raping the locals.

Congrats! The migrants are enriching the local culture right out of existence!

 Posted by at 11:41 pm
Jun 212018
 

“Roseanne” was a shocking success, that came to a shockingly sudden end because of a meh-level tweet. ABC has just announced that they are going ahead with a spinoff series, “The Connors,” which features the entire cast *but* Rosanne.

Given that Roseanne was the heart of the show, and that Roseanne Barr’s atypical (for Hollywood) politics gave the show an atypical political slant that appealed to a generally despised (by Hollywood) audience that made the “Roseanne” revival a hit, it’s fair to wonder just who “The Connors” is aimed at. The information provided on the show and its premise is pretty lean. But I can make a guess: in the last episode of the “Roseanne” show, the character of Roseanne was scheduled to go in for a knee replacement surgery. It seems a safe bet that the surgery will go wrong and that she died in the process. Perhaps the family made bank from a legal settlement, so that the characters no longer need to try to appeal to the great number of deplorable Americans who understand what it is to economically struggle.

 Posted by at 10:59 pm
Jun 212018
 

Chris Pratt seems like an entertaining guy. It’s always unwise to try to gauge the quality of an actor as a *person* based on the roles they choose. Many actors who played appealing characters turned out to be utter scumbags… sexual dirtbags, spouse abusers, Hillary supporters, thieves, alcoholics, bad parents, you name it. Still, Christ Pratt *seems* like he might be a good guy.

But then this video came out. After what he says here, you gotta wonder if his Hollywood career can possibly survive. It’s not like he announced “I support Trump and think he’s doing great,” but it’s not far off.

 

And because it’s funny:

 

 

 Posted by at 9:45 pm
Jun 212018
 

So, Lockheed-Martin held a rollout ceremony for the F-35 fighter jet for Turkey. I guess billion-dollar deals merit some inane ceremonial shenanigans, but this one included a dance number by a guy dressed up like a steampunk Batman, backed up by a wall of text claiming that a Turk was the first person to actually fly, back in the 17th century.

The music & dance number starts at around 30 minutes into this shindig:

You know the majority of the people in attendance here were thinking to themselves “Come on, knock this liberal arts crap off and bring on the sexy jets.”

Whether the Turks will actually get their F-35s remains to be seen.

 Posted by at 5:48 pm
Jun 212018
 

Leaked Internal Memo Reveals the ACLU Is Wavering on Free Speech

Short form: the ACLU values its alliance with young fascistic “progressives” more than the ideal of the freedom of speech. Consequently, in order to not enrage the easily enraged, the ACLU is toying with the idea of no longer supporting unpopular speech, but instead only defending the speech of “progressives.”

What this basically boils down to is… terrorism works.

Black Lives Matter Students Shut Down the ACLU’s Campus Free Speech Event Because ‘Liberalism Is White Supremacy’

“The revolution will not uphold the Constitution.”

 Posted by at 5:08 pm
Jun 202018
 

First draft of diagrams for the next issue of US Launcher Projects. This will include concepts such as an eight-F-1 Nova, a 1962 Lockheed fully reusable spaceplane launcher, a Boeing HTOHL SSTO, a Convair VTOHL Delta Clipper competitor, a giant SPS launcher, a balloon-recovered Saturn I, an early Space Shuttle concept and an expendable SSTO.

 Posted by at 8:02 pm
Jun 192018
 

The first Aerojet-Rocketdyne AR-22 rocket engine has recently been assembled. This is a somewhat modified version of the old Space Shuttle Main Engine, meant specifically to power the first stage of the Boeing “Phantom Express” spaceplane. Thrust is 375,000 pounds and the engine is meant to be used 55 times, with servicing every 10 missions.

First Engine Assembled for DARPA and Boeing Reusable Experimental Spaceplane

The Phantom Express is meant to fly often and inexpensively… and appears to be basically an updated version of the mid-90’s Rockwell design for the X-33. It’s not clear to me that a hydrogen-burner using SSME-derived tech can compete economically with the likes of the Falcon 9, but the Phantom Express isn’t really intended to compete in the commercial market. Instead, the Phantom Express is intended as military launch system, lobbing relatively small satellites – communications and recon, with the possibility of GPS-replacements in the event that military action takes them out. Given that any future war with a major opponent will certainly involve attacks on American space infrastructure, it’s reasonable for DARPA to want to have as many rapid response launch systems as practical. The basic concept underlying the Phantom Express is simple and straightforward enough, and likely to be somewhat more rugged and reliable than the hoverslam landing system of the Falcon series… at the cost of probably weighing more.

 Posted by at 8:00 pm
Jun 192018
 

An interesting and at times a bit depressing article on the current state of funding and planning for next-gen space telescopes… and how we’re probably not going to get what we should really want.

NASA’s Next Flagship Mission May Be A Crushing Disappointment For Astrophysics

Plus, this:

NASA funding is at the lowest rate as a percentage of the Federal budget – 0.4% – since 1958. Back when we could barely put a ham sammich into orbit.

 Posted by at 1:53 pm