SpaceX: not PC

 art, awesomeness, blather, history, Hmm..., news, nukes, rockets, spacecraft, weapons  No Responses »
Sep 232018
 

Huh. I’m not sure which is more unusual-seeming: that the second-in-command at SpaceX said that they would indeed launch American space weapons… or that it seems odd that an American aerospace firm would even be questioned about such a thing.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell: ‘We would launch a weapon to defend the U.S.’

During an appearance on Monday at the Air Force Association’s annual symposium, Shotwell was thrown a question she said she had never heard before: “Would SpaceX launch military weapons?”

“I’ve never been asked that question,” Shotwell said somewhat surprised. Her response: “If it’s for the defense of this country, yes, I think we would.”

This should be such an uncontroversial point of view that you wouldn’t even expect it to be raised. But we do indeed live in a time different from when Republic advertised their fighters, Boeing advertised their bombers and Martin advertised their nuclear weapons-delivering rockets.

Reminds me of one of the more disturbing moments from my university education. I was in a class on orbital dynamics (of of my favorite subjects back in the day) when we got to ballistic suborbital trajectories: ICBMs, in other words. Who wouldn’t want to study that? Well… turned out half a dozen or so of my classmates decided that they didn’t, and refused to study that section. This baffled both the teacher and myself; but where I saw their position as foolishness worthy of nothing but mockery, the teacher buckled and allowed them to do something else (details escape me). Even if the idea of lobbing nukes to the far side of the world fills you with existential dread, studying the subject is just math. And getting better at the math of lobbing nukes makes you better at… oh, I dunno, getting better at the math of lobbing reusable first stages to land them on floating landing pads.

Vaguely related: promo art from 1961, published in Aviation Week, with a number of corporations proudly proclaiming their involvement in aerospace weaponry.

 Posted by at 5:18 pm

Proxima Centauri b might be an ok place to visit

 awesomeness, Hmm..., news, science  No Responses »
Sep 232018
 

Woo:

Closest planet ever discovered outside solar system could be habitable with a dayside ocean

This is based on a *lot* of hypothesizing and outright guesswork. Other than some orbital elements and rough mass estimates, nothing is known of ProxCent B, whether it has water or an atmosphere. But analysis shows that there are a few possible scenarios that could result in a livable planet. It might or might not be tidally locked; given how close it’s orbiting the primary, you’d imagine that it would be, but it might, like Mercury, be in a 3:2 resonance. Even if it is locked, if it has enough water it could have a frozen world-ocean like Europa or Ganymede, with the day-side ocean being thawed, and liquid water flowing under the night-side permanent ice cap. *Might.*

To get confirmation, we’ll need to do one or both of two things:

1: Build a Really Big orbiting space telescope and directly image the planet

2: Go there.

Both would be terribly expensive. And neither is something that would be a waste of money. The technology that would be advanced by either of these efforts would likely more than pay for the exercise.

 Posted by at 3:06 pm

Didn’t I see this in “Logan?”

 Hmm..., news, science, science fiction, youtube  No Responses »
Sep 232018
 

Volvo has themselves an autonomous robo-truck similar to those in the surprisingly good “Logan.”

 

This particular vehicle is meant to drag trailers around relatively short and repetitive courses… around ports and the like, perhaps around town. Seems like a practical item for such purposes. For long haul I’d expect robotrucks to be a little further away, especially electric ones; the ability to put in a thousand miles a day by driving 24 hours would be countered by the need to stop every 200 miles to spend hours recharging (caveat: battery swapout centers built into truck stops).

Eventually long haul robotrucks will be practical. i do wonder if there will still be drivers in them, though, for much the same reason there are still pilots in modern jetliners. And that might make for quite an attractive job: see the country, get paid, work on other stuff while you are driven across the boring bits like Nebraska or Texas or Los Angeles. Driver-owned robotrucks with good-sized “sleepers” could be durned interesting.

 Posted by at 12:15 am

Well, *this* doesn’t fit the narrative…

 Crazy, Forward!, Hmm..., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 222018
 

So there was a shooting at a Rite Aid distribution center in Maryland. Three innocent people were killed, three more injured, then the shooter died via self-inflicted gunshot. Normally this would be reasonably big news. But this time… something has gone wrong with the story. It’s not an Evil White Male with an AR-47 Assault Machine Gun With A Thing That Goes up, but a black trans-woman with mental illness and a pistol. The shooter had the unlikely first name of “Snochia,” which I can’t help but wonder if maybe that led to a lifetime of anger.

 

 Posted by at 3:57 am

Accusation = Conviction

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 222018
 

It’s all good fun when politically hypocritical goons are hoisted on their own petard, their careers hammered after their words on Twitter or elsewhere come back to bite them. But this is getting silly… and downright disturbing. A Supreme Court nominee is being attacked over a claim that is being made without any evidence (and with a whole lot of counter-testimony) that three decades ago as a teenager he got drunked up and got physically inappropriate. Maybe he did. Maybe she’s lying. Maybe she’s misremembering someone *else.* Maybe she was drunked up as well and has confounded two drunk kids behaving like two drunk kids as something more malevolent. The point is, there would seem to be no way whatsoever for her to back up her claim… and of course no way whatsoever for him to prove his innocence. But in America, it’s not the accuseds job to prove his innocence, but the accusers job to prove guilt.

Sadly, those who hope to control the reins of power in the US government come November seem to be willfully ignorant of how justice works.

Democrats: We Already Know Kavanaugh Is Guilty [Montage]

Which contains the most mind-snappingly awful bit of reasoning ever:

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said Thursday: “I believe her because she is telling the truth and you know it by her story.”

Guh. I don’t accept that reasoning out of religions… “I know the Holy Book is the Truth, because Deity says so and Deity never lies, and I believe *that* because the Holy Book says so,” so why the frak should I accept it from politicians?

 

The hypocrisy here is overwhelming. The people ulcerating over the *need* for the FBI to investigate the claims of a physical assault of one teenager on another 35 years ago are the same who still hole the likes of Ted Kennedy in high regard.

There is, though, a chance for redemption on the part of these folks: someone has volunteered to testify.

 Posted by at 3:40 am

“Too much gun?” Nope…

 awesomeness, Hmm..., weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Sep 212018
 

The YouTube algorithms occasionally throw out some odd videos. Like this one, which *seems* to show something cute and wholesome like schoolgirls firing a Barrett .50 BMG rifle. But since they are *Japanese* (I think?) “schoolgirls” I guess I gotta assume there’s something weird and creepifyin’ going on there. Note: some of the camera angles, coupled with the fashions, hint as much. Not, I think, truly NSFW, but maybe a little eyebrow-raising. Thus the “Continue Reading.”

But beyond the lurking threat of tentacles somewhere just off camera, what we see here are five rather dinky dames firing a very large rifle and to all appearances enjoying it. One wonders if, since these girls can clearly handle this weapon with aplomb, if the rampaging anti-gun nuts might benefit from some actual experience at the range.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 7:19 pm

The janitor did it

 Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., Hmm..., news, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 202018
 

Well, *finally* there’s an explanation. Sadly, no UFO’s, incoming impactors or planet-trashing solar flares. Instead, someone with the morals and interests of a Hollywood political activist.

Short form: the janitor found n open laptop and used it to access photos of an unsavory and highly illegal nature, and then began to act squirrely, finally making weird veiled threats against the chief observer.

Left unexplained is why the FBI made such a big show of things.

 Posted by at 2:26 am
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