I don’t know how accurate this is… but if it’s even *remotely* accurate, then the bodies of those who went down on the doomed Titan sub were *obliterated.*
Aug 112023
Aug 102023
Recently acquired at some cost, and finally fully scanned at some effort, is this 1965 “Master Plan” for Kennedy Space Center. It’s basically a book of maps of the region showing all aspect of the infrastructure. It’s in good shape and was scanned at 600 DPI rather than the usual 300, due to the fine quality of the maps. It will be in the next catalog for Patrons and Subscribers to vote on. It’s a little out of the usual for APR… it’s not about unbuilt aircraft or spacecraft; in fact, no aircraft or spacecraft designs are included. But it’s still an interesting historical artifact.
I also have a KSC Master Plan from the Shuttle era. Substantially larger format, with more conventional full-color maps. I haven’t scanned that due to the chore it would be to get done, but if this proves popular, I’ll get on it. I *also* have a large-format Master Plan for Ames Research Center.
If you are interested, check out the Historical Documents Program.
Aug 102023
There is an ongoing spat between two YouTubers. The details don’t really matter; the YouTubers don’t really matter. Like a lot of these things, their spat is boooring. However, sometimes these sad little moments result in other people trying to explain the situation, and making something interesting and useful out of it. Below is a video from yet another YouTuber; in the process of explaining why one of the combatants is wrong, he devotes the majority of his video to explaining how 1930’s/40’s German National Socialism is indeed far leftist ideology, and actual *socialist* ideology. This is not a new concept, but some people persist in believing that Funny Mustache Man was actually a right winger, and it’s always important to correct them.
Aug 102023
I posted a reply and was *instantly* locked out for twelve hours. Why? Because I pointed out that in Star Trek, society is post-scarcity (not socialist, as was claimed by the guy I was replying to) and that mental illness is largely a thing of the past (as evidenced by “Dagger of the Mind” and “Whom Gods Destroy”) and the whole gender madness we’re currently experiencing is long past (see “Enterprise” episode “Cogenitor” where it is made repeatedly and abundantly clear that humans have a grand total of two genders, and that a third is weird and alien and really kinda disturbing to a lot of folks). The vague Twitter message said something about violating the rules on advocating violence or some such nonsense.
So either the sensitive little soul I replied to was lightning fast on his “my feelings are hurt, make the bad man and his opposing viewpoint go away” button, or Twitter has a bot that does it automatically. In either case, the “Twitter is a free speech zone” claim looks a little dubious to me at the moment.
Update: Now Twitter says it could take more than a week for my account to be restored to functionality.
Aug 082023
People who have lived in a place for centuries often hold eccentric, old, downright obsolete facilities in higher regard than people who hav4e just moved in and have no links to the place. Example: a centuries-old pub was sold to a developer. It was signed up for historic protection, but before the paperwork could go through a pile of rubble was mysteriously dumped into the road leading to it. And then it mysteriously caught fire, with the pile of rubble blocking the fire department. The brick structure remained standing, opening up the possibility of being restored; it was then very quickly razed to the ground mechanically. Gosh, I guess it’s gone, nothing left for it but to built cheap housing on the very valuable plot of land…
Police ‘reviewing all evidence’ on cause of Crooked House pub fire
Mayor calls for Crooked House pub gutted by fire to be rebuilt ‘brick by brick’
Huh. It’s a mystery.
Aug 072023
14:25 into this video is an *astounding* scratchuilt Saturn V. Cutaways of not just all three stages, but also of the Command and Service Modules. unfortunately the camera moves too fast to make out anything that might say *who* built this masterpiece.
Aug 062023
There is a fox that seems to hang out in my back yard from time to time. It’s incredibly skittish; any noise and *bam* it sprints over the fence. So getting decent photos of it has been a challenge, but today i got these. In previous, kinda cruddier photos it looked mangy, but now I think that it just had dark patches.
Aug 032023
A 1979 promo for TMP. Some interesting stuff here… work on the Enterprise model, Klingon battle cruiser models getting exploded (a scene later re-imagined) and Persis Khambatta losing her hair, and not being entirely thrilled by it.
Aug 032023
A Sam Jackson-starring movie about money laundering via crappy paintings. Hmmm…
This is, of course, not a new idea. It’s actually a pretty obvious one; the value of art is about the most subjective form of monetary valuation you could dream up. Even more than a dollar bill, a painting is objectively nearly worthless, with it’s “value” being almost purely determined by what people *believe* it’s worth. A painting that was slapped together in ten minutes could sell for a million dollars if you can persuade someone that it’s worth it. Or it could sell for a million dollars if, say, you want the Chinese government to give you a million dollars without being clearly seen as taking bribes.
Hmmm. Can I interest anyone in a million-dollar cyanotype?
Aug 022023
If LK-99 pans out as a true room temperature superconductor, it really does seem like it’ll be world changing. That’ll be great: no more need to cryo-cool electromagnets, making maglevs practical and making CAT scanners and the like a hell of a lot cheaper. And making the nightmare scenario of running out of helium much less nightmarish. They’ll make electric motors run cooler and more efficiently and, so I’m led to understand, rings of superconductors can be fed vast amounts of electricity which will losslessy just zip around the ring until called upon. More complex than a battery, but with the potential for *vast* energy densities. At last electric cars might be truly practical: an energy storage system allowing for a thousand miles range and the ability to be recharged in minutes rather than hours, using storage systems based on *lead* rather than rare earths. What’s not to like?
Some preliminary studies by independent labs suggest that at least some aspect of LK-99 are panning out, though nobody is ready to declare victory just yet. And even if the stuff works as advertised, to become truly useful it’ll need to be manufactured at high quality on an industrial scale.We don;t know squadoo about doing that just now. It might turn out to be easy enough for laymen to whip up batches of the stuff. it might turn out to be very difficult.
Here is what I think would be the absolutely best scenario: it’s possible to make the stuff to *adequate* quality on industrial scales, but it’s difficult and expensive. Unless… manufacturing takes place in microgravity. Then the stuff comes in with glorious quality and reliability. This would not only make the world better for all the reasons that the superconductor would, it would kick off space industrialization. Woo.
I would, however, be satisfied with the stuff working and being ground-manufacturable. Decades ago the Shuttle was supposed to kick off space industrialization via microgravity manufacturing of crystals and pharmaceuticals, but people figured out how to make that stuff on the ground.