Apr 282021
 

And this round goes to SpaceX!

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.

 

 

 Posted by at 7:11 pm
Apr 282021
 

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.*

Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins has died at age 90

How many Apollo astronauts will get to witness the United States return to the moon?

 Posted by at 1:36 pm
Apr 272021
 

My publisher has gone public with Book One, entitled

Boeing B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress; Origins & Evolution

Woo!

It is being published by Mortons out of Britain, is scheduled for release at the end of September, and is going to be around 250 to 280 pages (I’m still furiously working away at it). As those who have seen my work may assume, it will be loaded to the gills with diagrams, in this case covering the competitors to the B-47 and B-52, the original concepts, how the designs evolved and many of the proposed and built derivatives. You can pre-order at the link above. I’m getting confirmation on availability in the States… Amazon and Barnes & Noble and other sources. Will report back on that, but it does look like both outlets will carry it.

I will post more details – including glimpses of diagrams and some of the color art created for the book by Rob Parthoens – in the coming days. Feel free to ask questions.

 

Note: Book Two has not yet gone public. But Book Two should be published *first* since it is finished and edited; I’ve seen and approved the layout. All it’s missing right now is cover art, which is in process.

 

And…behold! An Amazon link, listing it as available in late November/early December. Just in time for Chrisnukkwanzayulmass! Note though that the “150 page” length listed there is incorrect… came from the original placeholder text.

 Posted by at 8:51 am
Apr 262021
 

Good:

Supreme Court to take up major Second Amendment concealed handgun case

In short, New York state effectively makes it illegal to carry firearms outside of the home, openly or concealed. This clearly violates the “right to keep AND BEAR arms” part of the Constitution. This *might* be a step towards national reciprocity. If a Utah drivers license is good in New York, then a concealed carry license should be as well. Especially when you consider that CC license holders from probably every state that has concealed carry licenses are less law-breaking than the general population of New York.

Time to get on the right side of history:

 Posted by at 11:14 pm
Apr 252021
 

Something Huge and Invisible Is Making Nearby Stars Vanish, Scientists Propose

If I’m reading this right, and if it’s written right, it appears that the Hyades star cluster, some 153 light years away, has a few “tails” of stars and gas. But one of the tails seems to have had a number of stars yoinked out of it by something that is not visible. It seems that some scientists think it might be a mass of dark matter massing about 10 million times the sun.

It seems odd to me that there might be a ten million solar mass *anything* only a few hundred light years away…

 Posted by at 11:27 pm
Apr 252021
 

I wrote this around about the time I moved from Utah. It’s not a story exactly… no real plot or characters or any of that. It’s written as a report describing an artifact and what could be done with it. It is an attempt to meld a Certain Well Known Sci-Fi Franchise with a level of cosmic horror… but since this is a first draft, I’m dubious that it came off right. Probably needs a *lot* of editing, perhaps far more than would be worth doing. As originally planned it would have had a fair number of illustrations, but I only got partway through that when work stopped on it due to Actual Book Project 1. Still, I thought it might be of interest.  There’s no charge for downloading and reading it, but if you like it – especially if you’d like to see it finished – consider hitting the Tip Jar.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mq8kqgxzvy3klho/Artifact%20L-374-Alpha.pdf?dl=0

Let me know in the comments what you think, positive or negative. Feel free to point others here who you think might be interested.

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Fiction TipJar


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 Posted by at 7:59 pm
Apr 252021
 

At least according to the UN.

At least 4 EU & Western democracies voted to elect Iran to UN women’s rights commission

The democracies who may have voted in the April 20, 2021 secret ballot for Iran’s misogynistic regime include Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Latvia, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

 Posted by at 3:28 pm