PDF Review: “Fluorine Systems Handbook”

 history, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Jul 092018
 

here was a time when rocket engineers and launch vehicle/spacecraft designers felts reasonably comfortable proposing the use of propellants that today would be considered *insane.* One of these was fluorine, an oxidizer so powerful that it will oxidize *oxygen.* Liquified it is denser than LOX and provides a higher specific impulse than LOX when burned with the same fuels. On paper, liquid fluorine is spectacular. In reality, fluorine is toxic and just about all of the combustion compounds are toxic (burn it with hydrogen and you get hydrofluoric acid, which will eat your bones). Fluorine has the added bonus that it will merrily combust with a whole lot of structural materials, so you have to be careful in your design and preparation for tanks, pumps, lines, etc.

Consequently, it was important to know your stuff. To that end, Douglas Missile & Space Systems Division produced a Fluorine Systems Handbook.

This Handbook contains criteria for the design of airborne fluorine feed
systems and associated components. Two types of information are presented:
1) philosophical information defining general methods, and 2) detailed specifications
and procedures. Although the major emphasis has been upon
criteria for components exposed to elemental fluorine, the information is
general applicable to systems utilizing other cryogenic oxidizers which contain
fluorine as a constituent.

So if you are planning on fueling your rocketship with liquid fluorine… here ya go. You’re welcome.

Fluorine Systems Handbook

 Posted by at 1:55 am

Who are you to judge?

 AARRRGH, Crazy, critters, Forward!, Hmm..., humor, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  7 Responses »
Jul 072018
 

You know, I’m a tolerant guy. As a small-l libertarian, by basic view is “you do you,” so long as that doesn’t harm others and you don’t extract resources from unwilling others in the process. But at a certain point tolerance becomes kinda laughable. And…. this here video depicts something *well* beyond the laugh-line.

“Who are you to judge” is a line often used by people who don’t want to be judged. Well, in this case, who am *I* to judge? I’m non-crazy American, that’s who the frak I am. This means I can judge whoever I want, whenever I want, and I can judge them as harshly as I feel necessary. Now, can I stop these people from doing what seems to make them happy? Nope. Do I *want* to stop them? Nope. Do I feel like laughing at them, and telling them that if they actually think they are horses, they’re nuttier’n a fruitcake? You damn betcha.

You want to cosplay as a pony? OK, sure, whatever floats your boat, Ed. Some people like to cosplay as football or basketball players, and we’re not supposed to laugh at *them.* But if you want me to believe you when you start yammering about “pony space?”

Is this sort of thing a sign of a culture in decline? Maybe. Will it survive the transition to shariah law? I suspect not.

Does the acceptance of this sort of thing – celebration of people believing themselves to be something they manifestly are not, and making fools of themselves in the process – while at the same time we are being told to shun and despise people who wish to be what they actually are (say, masculine men, feminine women, boys who act like actual boys, etc.) imply a sickness in our culture? I suspect so.

 Posted by at 1:17 pm

Roundtable TV interview with Isaac Asimov and Gerard O’Neill

 history, Hmm..., projects, science, spacecraft, youtube  14 Responses »
Jul 062018
 

For anyone with the usual (for readers of this blog, I imagine) level of knowledge of the O’Neill colony concept, this video does not provide much in the way of new technical info. It is, however, of some historical interest, showing the beginnings of public interest in the concept, from 1975.

 

Sigh. in 1975, O’Neill thought it reasonable to assume that the Model 1 colony, with a population of 10,000, could be built with an Apollo program level of effort by the late 1980’s, and had originally assumed that a Model 4 could be up and running by the late 2020’s… population in the hundreds of thousands to millions.

 

Sigh.

 Posted by at 5:27 pm

Scanner: Huzzah

 blather  6 Responses »
Jul 052018
 

For months I’ve been dealing with a wonky wide format scanner (mentioned and illustrated to distressing effect
HERE).  It’s been annoying as heck, but I’ve been *mostly* able to get around it by scanning at unnecessarily high rez and then reducing size. Takes forever doing it that way, and recently even that has stopped working adequately. The scanner is designed to be user-unservicable, with the screws you need to undo being expertly hidden behind structures that are no longer movable once the scanner as a whole was snapped together. BRILLIANT. So I’ve been looking online for affordable replacement scanners… of which there aren’t any. There are a couple in the $300 range… and then they suddenly ZOOM up to well over $1200 for some reason.

So, not having any reason not to, I undid what screws I could, jammed the damn thing as far open as I could get it, and as carefully as I could squirted some silicone lubricant onto the accessible gears because why the hell not. Guess what: it worked. Seems the plastic gears might’ve been chattering on each other or some such; with a tiny bit of lube, everything now seems to work just fine.

I’m sure overnight I’ll find out that those plastic gears were made out of a Very Special Polymer that was designed to melt and refuse when hit with silicone, turning the thing into a brick.

I’m sure someone at HP received a bonus for designing a scanner that can’t be opened without badly breaking it.

 

 Posted by at 8:31 pm

The funniest thing you’ll read all day

 art, Crazy, Forward!, humor, politics  2 Responses »
Jul 052018
 

If you want to laugh, read this:

Hit Musical Featuring Cotton-Picking White People Singing Slave Songs Closes Amid Protests

But for real comedy value, you have *got* to read the comments:

This is why European Americans and whites love NASA so much, they’ve about run out of people and places on this Rock to thieve and exploit. If and when the ability to colonize aliens and their planets arises, they want to be at the forefront. Their thirst for stealing what belongs to others is insatiable; it’s their never-ending life purpose.

BWAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Ah, good times.

And, of course, complaint upon complaint of “gentrification.” My own definition of which is:

Gentrification: the process of turning garbage into something people actually want.

 

 Posted by at 6:25 pm

Kubrick Explains the ending of “2001”

 art, history, Hmm..., science fiction, youtube  2 Responses »
Jul 052018
 

I’ve always thought the ending of “2001” was fairy straightforward (possibly because “2001” was one of the first novels I ever read, and the ending was explained fairly clearly), but a lot of folk seem to find it mystifying. Stanley Kubrick himself was always reticent to discuss it, preferring to leave interpretation to others (or perhaps just assuming that if you were too dumb to understand his brilliance, he wasn’t going to waste his time explaining it). But a new video has come to light that *seems* to include a phone call with Kubrick where he explains the ending.

As explained HERE, this is a clip from a 1.5 hour documentary that was shot in 1980 by a Japanese film maker exploring the paranormal, with set visits to “The Shining.” At one point the documentarian has a recorded phone conversation with Kubrick, asks him about the end of “2001,” and Kubrick (or at least someone who sounds like Kubrick) straight up explains it:

I’ve tried to avoid doing this ever since the picture came out. When you just say the ideas they sound foolish, whereas if they’re dramatized one feels it, but I’ll try.

The idea was supposed to be that he is taken in by god-like entities, creatures of pure energy and intelligence with no shape or form. They put him in what I suppose you could describe as a human zoo to study him, and his whole life passes from that point on in that room. And he has no sense of time. It just seems to happen as it does in the film.

They choose this room, which is a very inaccurate replica of French architecture (deliberately so, inaccurate) because one was suggesting that they had some idea of something that he might think was pretty, but wasn’t quite sure. Just as we’re not quite sure what do in zoos with animals to try to give them what we think is their natural environment.

Anyway, when they get finished with him, as happens in so many myths of all cultures in the world, he is transformed into some kind of super being and sent back to Earth, transformed and made into some sort of superman. We have to only guess what happens when he goes back. It is the pattern of a great deal of mythology, and that is what we were trying to suggest.

 

 Posted by at 1:24 pm

Have they actually *read* the books???

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Meh., ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Jul 042018
 

Well, here’s my most pointless post of the day.

So I’m sitting here doing some CAD drafting with the TV on as background noise. It seems that SYFY and the USA networks are going to be showing the Harry Potter movies, and they’ve been running commercials for this “event” nonstop. Honestly…meh. There’s this thing called “DVD,” so I’m not seeing why it’s such a big deal. Anyway, the commercials feature not only snippets from the movies, but also snippets of cosplayers talking about why they love the Harry Potter series. Sure, fine, great.

But several of them say some things that merit spit-takes:

“Harry Potter gives a great message… Doesn’t matter what you are, who you are, you matter.”

“The Harry Potter books promote equality.”

Ummm… WTF.

Look, the Potter books and movies are fine entertainment. But if you believe that they promote “equality” or the belief that “everybody matters,” I have but one word for you: “muggles.”

Even if there is some “hey, maybe keeping slaves is bad, m’kay?” the books end up with the magic users still thinking they are better than non-magic users. I don’t recall if this is even seriously questioned. The main character, Harry, is fundamentally uninteresting… devoid of much real personality, not really “good,” per se, he’s only really there because he is a standard literary Chosen One. He gets stuff done not because he’s smarter or harder working; no, it’s because according to Fate, he’s simply more important than other folk.

The books and movies make it clear that screwing with the brains of “muggles” is a perfectly cromulent thing to do. Go ahead and stir around their synapses, freeze them in motion, erase their memories, steal their stuff, drive them mad, *kill* *them,* if that’s what it takes to make life more convenient for the magic users. Because Muggles Don’t Matter.

So, come on, Potter fans. I can suspend disbelief for magic and elves and ghosts and such. But believing that the Potterverse books promote equality? I can’t suspect disbelief *that* much.

 Posted by at 11:07 pm

A business idea

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  16 Responses »
Jul 042018
 

Usually I’m left sitting here thinking, “now, why didn’t *I* think of that?” after reading about some in retrospect-obvious idea that makes a bagrillion dollars. Now, at last, I think I’ve got a new one: MAGA hat-hunter-hunting. Consider:

Hmmm. First copy of the video has been yoinked for some reason. Trying again:

And another copy:

And just in case:

 

Short form: some kids sitting in  restaurant, one wearing a MAGA hat. A Brave Leftist comes up to them, steals the hat, throws his drink on the hat-wearer (this would be assault, I’m pretty sure), walks out the door with the hat.

Here’s my business plan:

  1. Get a MAGA hat.
  2. Get some co-workers.
  3. Get some hidden GoPros.
  4. Go to restaurants.
  5. Wait for a Brave Leftist to commit a crime.
  6. Record Brave Leftist.
  7. Use facial recognition systems to ID Brave Leftist.

If Brave Leftist has some sort of meaningful job, the kind that doesn’t take too kindly to employees making a PR nightmare… well, you can see the profit potential. Otherwise… arrest and lawsuit.

PROFIT.

The franchise potential is unlimited.

Note: the guy in the video was apparently ID’ed pretty quickly, and THIS HAPPENED:

It came to our attention earlier this evening that a part-time employee was captured on cell phone video assaulting another person at a local eatery. The assault took place, presumably, because this employee did not agree with the other individuals political stance.

We have since terminated this employee, as his actions go against everything that this establishment stands for.

I imagine the guy might have been amenable to negotiating to make sure his employer – and all potential future employers – never saw the video.

ALSO:

One other thing this video provides is a much better explanation of how Ben Solo turned to the Dark Side and became Kylo Ren… he came too close to the true face of the modern Left, and it damaged him. You can see the exact moment Kylo was born…

 Posted by at 10:03 pm
 Older Entries  Newer Entries