A coronal mass ejection will lead to a G2-level storm to hit Earth Sunday, May 2. Should create nifty auroras and *might* mess with satellites and power systems. Not a Carrington Event, but might be good practice.
Probably won’t get any good aurora photos out of this… the sky around here *sucks* compared to what I had in Utah. Oh well.
Spoiler: nobody gets shot or gnawed upon.
Here is an incomplete look at the diagrams created for my first book, “Boeing B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress; Origins & Evolution.” It can be pre-ordered either directly from the publisher (with publication expected in late September) or through Amazon (looks like they’ll have it two months later). It is also expected to be on certain store shelves… more on that when it’s confirmed.
A few of these diagrams will be compressed to several-per-page; a few of them here are already shown in multiple optional layouts. But there are also a dozen-ish diagrams *not* shown because they are incomplete as yet. This gives an indication of the size and scope of the project…
I don’t know how strictly scientifically accurate these are, but they sure look interesting. Amazing what can be done with relatively mundane modern computers. Compare to the black hole from the Disney movie…
This… is not inaccurate.
If your cruise missile test launch is going to fail… FAIL IN STYLE.
This launch of a Kalibr-NK cruise missile from the frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov suffered a wee bit of a thrust vectoring issue. The Kalibr is hardly some shiny new experimental missile; Russia lobbed a few of these into Syria a little while back:
Sometimes things just don’t go to plan.
And this round goes to SpaceX!
The 1Q report from @BryceSpaceTech on mass to orbit:
SpaceX: 116 metric tons (mostly Starlink)
China: 26 metric tons
All the rest: Lesshttps://t.co/2HXcqt9wYe pic.twitter.com/2Kh2YBuH8l— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) April 28, 2021
While it’s good that SpaceX continues to kick substantial ass in the field of launching stuff to orbit, expect the Chinese to do whatever they can to surpass. Note that Boeing/Lockheed/ULA doesn’t appear on here. SpaceX is essentially America’s *sole* launch provider. Great for them, but it makes them a single-point failure mode, vulnerable to screwups, physical sabotage, cyber attacks and regulations.
So, “Godzilla vs King Kong” came out to gangbusters business. It was inevitable that The Asylum would produce a low budget mockbuster, and… well, here we are:
Oy.
What makes the existence of this thing worthwhile is the reaction of Alteori, an entertainingly excitable kaiju-loving Jamaican nerd-girl:
The third and sometimes forgotten astronaut on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon has passed away. He died of cancer, which will doubtless be used by anti-spaceflight panicmongers to rail against the dangers of deep space… but he was *90.*
How many Apollo astronauts will get to witness the United States return to the moon?
An interesting video depicting a star passing close enough to a black hole to be tidally disrupted. It’s bad news for the star, good news for anyone nearby who wants one hell of a show:
