America *and* cats. F yeah!
Some might argue that that’s an inappropriate use of an American flag. My rebuttal: bite me.
Sep 122021
Sep 112021
One of the odder vehicles to be tested by the Army… the next best thing to a Landmaster. I was always surprised that Hasbro never made one of these for their GI Joe line of toys. I always thought hat an interesting diorama would have a Boeing SICBM Hard Mobile Launcher setting up shop in the western desert flanked by a couple Twister scout vehicles and a Landmaster for cargo and crew transfer.
Sep 112021
Twenty years ago today I boarded a van for the irritatingly long ride to work just south of San Jose, CA. The drive mentioned that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We all figured it was a private plane, with minimal real damage. Before we got to the plant, we heard the first tower fall. Got into the main meeting room just in time to see the second fall. The rest of the day was utter chaos, with rumors running rampant. A truck bomb had gone off in front of the court house in San Francisco. A truck bomb was parked on the Oakland Bridge. A freighter had detonated in the bay. A jetliner was headed directly towards our little ICBM factory. All of these were wrong, of course, but there was no denying, on the trip home that afternoon, that the sky was remarkably clear of contrails.
After World War II, the United States and its allies hunted down every accessible bastion of Nazi ideology and re-educated it from existence; today Nazis exist almost solely within the minds of crazy people. After the Cold War, the United States and its allies did *not* cleanse the world of Communism, and thus we now have commies in the classroom and fellow travelers in the White House. After 9/11, the United States did *nothing* to erase the ideology that led to 9/11. And as a result, it is growing by leaps and bounds with almost no opposition whatsoever.
On that day twenty years ago, there was opposition. It came late; three planes full of people were sacrificed on the altar of believing that hijackings were to be simply waited through. One plane, though, had passengers who learned what was going on and stood up to evil people following an evil ideology. They died on their own terms, which is the best any man can hope for.
This young lady watched “United 93” and reacts to the movie like much of the country did twenty years ago.
Never forget, never forgive. If it helps, listen to the final words of Kevin Cosgrove:
Sep 112021
A cop dares to state the basic facts. On today of all days.
Note that the AR pistol is repeatedly erroneously referred to as an “assault rifle.” Note as well that the guy wielding it is a convicted felon out on bond, thus ineligible to wield a firearm of any kind, a failure of the gun control movement the news reader seems to have forgotten to mention.
This incident would have been instructive twenty years ago. “How do we respond to an attack upon our civilization?”
“MAG DUMP.”
Sep 112021
Methinks there are some students who don’t belong. A bunch of fighting morons would seem a poor fit to be people studying to become the next generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians.
Sep 102021
The forthcoming video game “God of War: Ragnarok” features this Scandinavian character:
Uh… huh.
It should be noted that Angrboða was the mate of Loki and the “mother of monsters.” She birthed Fenrir the wolf, the Midgard serpent Jörmungand and Hel, the half-dead ruler of the land of the dead. So… one wonders if this is just straight-up unthinking woke cultural appropriation, or if someone in the background might be doing some counter-programming by making this character the evil mother of evil monsters that sow destruction and devastation.
Sep 102021
At last, volume 2 of Baranger’s illustrated “At The Mountains Of Madness” is up for pre-order on Amazon. If you are even *remotely* interested in Lovecraft, get it (and Volume 1, and “Call of Cthulhu”). The artwork for the earlier books is extraordinary and IMO really captures the story and the feel.
So if you have any money left over after buying a supply of “SR-71” (because you never know, the first print run of that may end up being the most sought after book in human history), get you some copies of Baranger’s works.
Sep 102021
An exploded view of the Lockheed L-2000 SST project from the 1960’s. This was the second-place finisher in the contest to develop a US supersonic transport, losing to the Boeing 2707. The 2707 won in part because it had variable-sweep wings, giving it better low speed performance… but after the contest was won, Boeing’s design shed the overly-heavy variable geometry for fixed wings not unlike those of the Lockheed design. In the end that couldn’t save the 2707 from the chopping block. Many have wondered over the last half-century what might have happened had Lockheed won the contract instead. Perhaps the sky would be filled with SSTs. Perhaps the L-2000 would have been a failure of historic proportions, with prototypes crashing or exploding in flight. Or perhaps it would have turned out just like the 2707… once detailed development began costs would have ballooned, performance suffered and Congress simply walked away.
The full article this came from has been scanned at 300 DPI (the image above was scanned at an additional, higher rez) and provided to all above-$10 subscribers and Patrons. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
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Sep 092021
Some time during the next month or so I plan on taking a trip to the Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum near Ashland, Nebraska. I have visited that museum many times over the years, but always while traveling back and forth, thus never able to spend more than an hour or so. I wanted to get there during the work on the SR-71 book so I could properly over-photograph their SR-71, but schedule, cost and a little thing called a “global pandemic” kept me home.
I still want to excessively photograph their SR-71 in order to perfect the large format print diagrams. And additionally, a potential future book (in discussion with Mortons, but nothing certain yet) would be aided by excessively over-photographing another aircraft in the SAC museum collection. I plan on taking a *lot* of photos (likely in the thousands) covering several aircraft in painful detail.
I had hoped that the release of “SR-71” would bring in increased business (the APR Patreon/Monthly Historical Documents Program, USBP’s, etc), but as has been all too common, business has actually *dropped* since the book came out. One of these days I swear I’ll figure out how every time I try my hand at advertising business actually collapses. I suspect that the truth of it will help open doorways into research in practical time travel, faster than light travel and popularity with women.
So, once again, I’m grubbing for funds to support this trip. If interested in helping out, just below there’s a drop-down menu of PayPal options, from “moral support” to “large sums.” The “Best Of” option will get those who chose it, as the title suggests, a selection of the best photos, probably over a hundred. The “All the Photos” option gives the funder just what it says, all the photos taken at the museum, including any panoramic shots I stitch together. The photos will be provided by way of a Dropbox folder or a ZIP file with all the photos.
I *may* extend the trip another day down the road to Denver to hit up the Wings Over The Rockies Museum for the same purpose, but only if there’s enough “investment.” If that happens, those who go for the full set of photos will also get the full set of photos from the WOTR Museum as well.
UPDATE: I’ve updated the draw-down PayPal menu. It didn’t have the prices on there initially.
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Sep 092021
Well, here’s terrible news:
I have terrible news.@nyrath, the creator of the Atomic Rockets website, is in hospital with a life threatening condition.
His contributions to realism in science fiction over the decades have inspired thousands of people and led to so many of the best works you enjoy today. pic.twitter.com/GNs9B7OZXi
— ToughSF (@ToughSf) September 9, 2021
I have no further info.
In case this is mystifying, Winchell Chung is the creator of the Atomic Rockets website that anyone even vaguely interested in hard sci-fi should be fully familiar with.
UPDATE: Bad news continues:
I am overwhelmed by all the well wishes from everyone. Thank you all.
But prostate cancer that has metastasized has a very poor prognosis
— Winchell Chung⚛🚀 (@nyrath) September 9, 2021