Roy Batty his own self died yesterday, age 75. Rather than make yet another tired reference to his final speech in “Blade Runner,” I’ll let Razorfist do it better:
Jul 252019
Jul 242019
When I type, I make a *lot* of spelling errors. And a lot of those errors are the same ones, over and over. Any word ending in “-ing” stands a better than even chance of ending up with “-ign.” Dunno why, just one of them things, I suppose. Spellcheckers get ’em *most* of the time, but as I’m sure any blog reader will recognize, a lot of them get through. In the end… shrug. I’m not exactly getting paid for this (note: see the end of the post for your extra Special Opportunity to change that), so it doesn’t overly bother me.
But other people… their minor transposition errors kinda make the news.
Irish moon landing stamp spells ‘moon’ wrong
The Irish word for moon is “gealach”. But the stamp spelled “gaelach”, which means being Gaelic, Irish or relating to the Scottish Highlands. … Instead of reading “The 50th Anniversary of the First Moon Landing”, it now reads “50th Anniversary of the First Landing on the Irish”.
Whoopsie.
FYI: The photo of Armstrong used on the stamp is, oddly, not from Apollo 11, but from Gemini 8.
Subscribe to The Unwanted Blog! Help fund my yammerings and inane blatherings!
Jul 242019
We all know that the day of the robot is coming. Why not become an early adopter and get your infants ready for their mechanical overlords?
Jul 242019
Solar sails have not had the best of luck, with several having been lost when their booster rockets went kerblooey. A few have been successful, such as the Japanese IKAROS from 2010. Provisionally add to the list the Lightsail-2, recently launched by SpaceX, now confirmed to have successfully deployed its sail.
Lightsail-1 was launched in 2015. It successfully deployed its sail but had been delivered (by design) to an orbit where atmospheric drag was a bigger force than solar photon pressure, and thus the craft did not escape from Earth. lightsail-2 was deployed to a higher orbit and is expected to use its sail to raise apogee, while also lowering perigee. This will, if successful, demonstrate the utility of solar sails for orbit adjustment in Earth orbit. It will, however, also result in the inevitable re-entry of the spacecraft. Given the small size of the Lightsail package and the lowered cost of launch SpaceX provide, if the system works out a solar sail on a small budget might soon zip on out of Earth orbit and go to the Moon, Mars or beyond.
This one goes out to all the members and backers who made this solar sailing mission possible. Go #LightSail2! pic.twitter.com/Wzc7V67HDi
— Planetary Society (@exploreplanets) July 24, 2019
Jul 242019
“Jojo Rabbit” looks a little… ummmm…
Once again we see a historical white character being played by a “person of color.” In this case… go on. Y’all can keep him.
Jul 242019
McDonnell Douglas spent much of the 1970’s trying to get NASA, the Marines and the Navy to fund the development of a lift-fan-based VTOL aircraft concept, the Model 260. This general concept showed up in a number of different forms, from strike bomber to carrier onboard delivery transport to Marine troop transport. Shown below is a”Research Technology Aircraft,” a proof of concept prototype to be assembled from existing aircraft components, much as Rockwell did with the XFV-12.
I’ve made the full resolution version of the diagram (equivalent to 37 inches wide at 300dpi) available to above-$10-subscribers of the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program/Patreon.
If this sort of thing is of interest, consider subscribing. Even a buck a month will help out; but the more you subscribe for, the more you get… and the more you help me get from eBay and save for the ages.
Jul 232019
A while back I sold a few copies of a prototype of a “Booklet of General Plans” for the Space Station V from “2001.” The feedback I got suggested that the idea has merits, and with some refinement it might be something interesting.
Along with Space Station V, I have made mention of wanting to do the same sort of thing with Clavius Base and The Orville. Clavius Base is a concept at a fabulously early stage. The Orville’s 3D model is long completed, but recent news is that Eaglemoss will release a line of Orville ships starting in 2020. Since the Eaglemoss Star Trek ships come with a small magazine that provides canonical in-universe data, I will wait to see what comes out at that time.
I have a number of other Booklets in various stages of completion. Some are still in the modeling stags; some require a whole lot of tinkering with the diagrams, some are in the writeup stage. Each will have text to go along with them that will be an in-universe description of the vehicle; the “Bird One,” for example, depicts a US government attempt to reverse engineer the design as best they can based on fragmentary data. The Ajax will be another US Government attempt to describe Mongo tech after the events of “Flash Gordon.” And of course some of these, such as the Dyna Soar and the 10-meter Orion, will be non-fictional descriptions.
For those nerdy and old enough to remember the glory days of the “Booklets of General Plans” that were released for various Star trek ships, you’ll remember the pages and pages of deck plans. With a lot of these, “deck plans” won’t really be possible… for Dyna Soar, there really wasn’t a deck, and for the Helicarrier there were *way* too many decks. So each Booklet will be its own thing, with diagrams, inboard profiles, etc. that are appropriate. I’m thinking of pricing these something like $2 per page, more or less. The basic set will be 11X17 sheets, folded in half and put in a letter-sized envelope; but I’m also contemplating a limited run of each possibly on better paper, and either rolled or bound within a 12X18 binder.
If this sort of thing is of interest, take a look and let me know in the comments which one or more appeal. This is a sloooow, long-term project, more hobby than anything. So if you want one… let me know. And let your friends who might want one know. A few others arne’t included below, such as the “Men Into Space” ship and the Boeing IMIS Mars craft, which will be a *huge* set.
Jul 232019
Yeah, that’ll work out greeeeaaaaat. Those boys grow up and find no girls… why, what could *possibly* go wrong?
I’ll be interested and amused to see the intellectual flailing by those who support “abortions at any time for any reason” but who are opposed to “abortions selecting for things we don’t want people selecting for.” I’m hopeful to see the day when in utero genetic/epigenetic tests for things like “intersex” and homosexuality become reliably available. Should be interesting to see what abortion based eugenics goes on after *that.* Yay, chaos!
Jul 232019
A few days ago, a wakeup call came in not long after sunrise at low altitude, high speed and many horsepower. Yup, it was time to wake up. Photos below…
Jul 222019