Tonga: 10 megatons

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Jan 192022

NASA scientists estimate Tonga blast at 10 megatons

Impressive enough if you are close enough to suffer damage from it, but 10 megatons is frankly small taters in the world of volcanoes and asteroid impacts. Still… the before and after photos of the island show that it suffered just a little bit of a dent:

The Unwanted Blog

Locked outta Twitter October 20, 2024
So I backed off blogging so much because yapping on Twitter was so much easier. But then…
Orion Battleship: found at last September 15, 2024
Rumored and discussed for years, in 1962 General Atomic reportedly built a “Corvette sized” display model of the 4,000 ton Orion spacecraft as a spacegoing battleship. This model was shown to President Kennedy, and the reported reaction was… not great. The model was described by a few who had seen it, but all evidence of […]
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Space Sustainment & Maneuver: Advancing Strategic Superiority in Orbital Operations August 28, 2024
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Destruction of nuclear weapons with a neutrino beam August 27, 2024
A scientific paper published more than 20 years ago was recently rediscovered by the internet: Sugawara et al. 2003, “Destruction of Nuclear Bombs Using Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Beam” https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0305062 A lot of this goes over my little post-Covid head, but the summary seems to be that, theoretically, an advanced high energy collider, similar to but […]
Polaris Dawn August 26, 2024
A reminder that at o-dark thirty tomorrow morning, SpaceX will, hopefully, launch the first all-private manned orbital mission. It’ll be the highest humans have orbited Earth (discounting Apollo astronauts who broke Earth orbit to head to the Moon), and will include a spacewalk with new spacesuits. Currently scheduling 2:38 AM central time. https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=polarisdawn
1/18 scale Skybolt ALBM kit August 20, 2024
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Sunset August 13, 2024
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First Metal Minis July 19, 2024
The first metal minis – 1/144 X-20, 1/285 X-20, 1/285 XF-103, 1/285 XF-108 – have been cast, cleaned and assembled. I’ve got enough to take care of the existing crowdfunders; I plan on trying to make a go of the 1/285 X-15s as well. However, the main mold is already falling to bits, so there […]