Large Satellite

 art, history, Hmm..., projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jul 112022
 

A piece of artwork attributed to the DoD (1984 or before) depicting a large structure being built in space. Since it’s DoD, it is most likely a surveillance or mapping radar system of some kind, or an electronic listening system. Since it doesn’t seem to have either large PV arrays or a nuclear reactor – at least not yet at this stage in construction – I’d lean towards it being a listening system. Of course, a great deal more stuff may have been added to it after this… assuming it’s an actual design and not pure art.

 Posted by at 9:51 pm

Tweet of the day

 awesomeness, dumbassery, Forward!, humor, politics  No Responses »
Jul 112022
 

Granted that day was several days ago, but it’s still good:

 

In short: Brittney Griner is some form of sportsball player who protested against the United States when she thought it was the politically popular thing to do. Now she has been arrested in Russian for having illegal drug substances, something she has apparently admitted to, and wants the US to ride to her rescue. Right now, though, Russia is (or at least should be) on America’s ᛋᚻᛁᛏ list. So leaving her there not only rids the US of someone who doesn’t like the US anyway, it leaves her care and feeding to the Russians who will have to spend fifty extra cents a day keeping her locked up. It’s  win-win.

She really does have the look of someone having a bit of an epiphany:

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 3:18 pm

The Legend of Sky King

 AARRRGH, aircraft, Crazy, history, Hmm..., youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jul 102022
 

After four years, security camera footage has been released that shows how Richard Russell stole a turboprop airliner from SeaTac airport. He flew around for a while having a grand old time, scaring the pants off air traffic control, before intentionally crashing the plane on an island.

 

What he did was criminal and potentially could have resulted in many, many deaths. But it seems he didn’t want to kill anyone but himself, and the way he went out, with such apparent joy both in the way he flew and the things he said, has made him something of a hero to many. There was clearly something wrong with the man (some thinking that he was dain bramaged from repeated concussions during high school football)… but he went out on his own terms, I suppose. And these days… that’s about the most a lot of people can even dream of hoping for.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 7:39 am

Behold the future that they want for you

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jul 092022
 

The sustainable cities made from mud

Where the BBC extols the virtue of buildings made from mud in a desert climate. “It is the architecture of the future.”

Every year the residents of Djenné gather together to repair and reclay the mosque, supervised by a guild of senior masons. … Everyone takes part. Boys and girls mix the mud, women bring the water and masons direct the activity. 

Because buildings that require the *entire* community, down to children, to labor to repair on an ongoing, annual and permanent basis… sure, that’s “sustainable.”

Much is made of the mud architecture of Yemen. Great. Ummm… what was the last great contribution to science or engineering or philosophy or medicine to come out of Yemen?

I imagine Britain will be seeing a lot of mud buildings soon enough. As modern Britain falls to the third world, the millions of invading colonizers will, after tearing down what the natives built over a course of centuries, construct their new mud-filled civilization using the wrack and ruin they stand upon. I’m not sure how great mud will be as a construction material on an island that gets fairly constant rainfall, but, hey, such questions are inappropriate in this new world of Other Ways Of Knowing.

 Posted by at 5:01 pm

BAT

 aircraft, art, history, projects  No Responses »
Jul 092022
 

Before the RAH-66 Comanche, there was the LHX (Light Helicopter Experimental) program of the 1980’s. Initially the need was broadly defined, and companies such as Bell interpreted it to include the possibility of single-seat combat tiltrotors. The Bell Advanced Tiltrotor (BAT) was one such design. It was design for battlefield surveillance, ground attack/anti-tank… and for blowing Soviet Hinds out of the sky. Whether a tiltrotor could be made that could be safely handled by a single pilot while doing all that craziness is far from certain, especially with 80’s-tech, but the design was certainly appealing. Unlike attack helicopters and F-18’s, the BAT could escort the V-22 on its missions.

Clearly the overall configuration has a great deal of similarity to the XV-15 and the V-22.

 Posted by at 2:00 am
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