One approach, of course, is to simply do a half-assed job of it. Another approach seems like it will be exemplified by HBO:
Trying to equate 1950s Jim Crow-level racism with cosmic horror? Yeah, you’ve utterly misunderstood cosmic horror.
This is brought to you by J.J. Abrams, one of the men who ruined Star Trek, and Jordan Peele, who has made a career out of hating white folks.
Yaaaaaaay.
This here is damned interesting… an anti-scammer who gains access to far more of the scammers information than the scammers would have really liked. The fourth video includes some entertaining discussion of the utility of AI in combating scammers.
I’m terrible at posting updates on the latest rewards, but I do get every rewards package out on time. That said, APR Patrons and Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers have just been sent the rewards for April, 202. This package includes:
1) “Flying Carpet Feasibility Study Submarine Carrier,” a full scan of the 1958 Boeing report on a series of submarines design to carrying Mach3+ VTOL strike fighters
2) “F10F Descriptive Data,” a full scan of a 1953 Lockheed document describing this competitors design
3) Diagram 35-17610, B-52 airdrop carrier aircraft for the Model 844-2050 X-20 Dyna Soar
4) A CAD diagram of a two-stage Rockwell Trans Atmospheric Vehicle using a ground effect machine first stage
If this sort of thing is of interest and you’d like to get in on it and make sure you don’t miss any of the forthcoming releases, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
All prior “back issues” are available for purchase by subscribers.
The Dyna Soar would, had it been completed, have been the first manned reusable lifting spacecraft. But, sadly, after waaaaay too much money was spent on it, in late 1963 that genius for the ages SecDef Robert McNamara cancelled it and on the same day announced the Manned Orbiting Laboratory… which, after spending waaaay too much money, was also cancelled.
Anyway…
The Dyna Soar was not a “vehicle” like the X-30 National Aerospace Plane which would have its own built-in fully functional propulsion system; nor even like the Space Shuttle Orbiter, which carries the SSME’s and the OMS system. The Dyna Soar was much more akin to the Soviet Buran or the current X-37 in that it was effectively purely a payload, reliant upon the Titan IIIC for launch into orbit, the Titan Transstage for on-orbit propulsion, and a Thiokol solid rocket motor for a de-orbit burn. All it had for its own propulsion was a series of hydrogen peroxide monoprop thrusters for reaction control. It did have a hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell, but it was, more or less, a largely inert chunk of metal. So you might not think that abort would be a big issue, apart from getting out of Dodge if the booster goes high order.
Still, from the beginning of the program and for several years it was planned that the Dyna soar would have not just an ejector seat, but an abort capsule. The entire forward portion of the vehicle would be able to jettison, serving as a re-entry capable “lifeboat” for the lone pilot. By the end of the program the concept had evaporated, being replaced with an ejector seat, and for a good reason: someone finally ran the numbers and realized that an abort capsule added *ridiculous* amounts of weight and complexity to a vehicle already overburdened with weight and complexity. After the Challenger disaster NASA and Rockwell looked at modifying the Space Shuttle with the same sort of jettisonable forward fuselage, and came to the same conclusion that, in essence, “that weighs too much, and astronauts are prepared to take risks.”
The page below from a 1959 report presents artwork depicting the then-current Dyna Soar configuration deploying the escape capsule. It bears a striking resemblance to the McDonnell ASSET test vehicle. This is not accidental, as the ASSET was roughly modeled after the forward fuselage of the Dyna Soar.
Ted Cruz is finally doing something about the pinkos in Hollywood toadying to the Reds in China:
The entertainingly-named SCRIPT Act (“The Stopping Censorship, Restoring Integrity, Protecting Talkies Act”) says that if your movie studio bends the knee to Chinese censors, you don’t get assistance from the DoD for future movies. You also get denied such assistance if you co-produce with a Chinese company that bends the knee. The end result of this would be a choice between making movies for the Chinese market, or making movies that have DoD assistance. I suspect that a whole lot of Hollywooders would just as soon ditch the DoD and any pretense towards *not* being running dogs for the ChiComs so they can lap up that sweet, sweet Chinese market-money.
While this bill is a good start, I think it would be better if it withdrew *all* US FedGuv aid from movie studios that engage in propaganda for our geopolitical rivals. Tax breaks, bailouts, and lack of daily spot raids by the INS, IRS, DEA, ATF and FBI should all be removed from such movie studios.
The full text of the bill should be HERE, but as I type this the Senate website is “unavailable due to maintenance.” Hmmm.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM…………………….
What I’m looking for is a (preferably large format) Convair diagram of the B-46 with some fair level of detail and importantly accuracy. Not after three-views created unofficially for magazines and such. Looking to buy, borrow or rent either a high-rez scan or an actual physical original.
In the mean time, please enjoy this cutaway diagram of the B-46, an aircraft that surely would have gone down as perhaps the US Air Force’s most beautiful operational aircraft had not the Boeing B-47 wiped the floor with it.
About time:
Remember the woman who claimed that Trump’s suggestions about Hydrochloroquine inspired her and her husband to drink chloroquine, poisoning the man to death? Well, do you remember that she was a Trump-hating Democrat donor who berated and, allegedly, physically assaulted her husband, who in turn was described as level-headed and intelligent enough to know that hydrochloroquine medicine is a very different thing from koi fish tank cleaner that has chloroquine phosphate as an ingredient, especially when you take FOUR TIMES the lethal dose?
Yeah, the local police seem to find her story… a little fishy.
For an unknown period but at least an hour and a half, this and the Aerospace Projects Review blog were down. A friend let me know, so i checked and lo and behold, a 500 internal Server Error. Wheeee. So, on the phone to tech support. Huzzah! Winnie The Flu means that their tech support center has closed, no humans available, Fortunately a “chat” option was available. Long story short it came back; problem was due to the blog’s security features playing havoc with them somehow or other. Feh.
But it seems to be back.
But possibly good news for humanity:
The Oxford scientists now say that with an emergency approval from regulators, the first few million doses of their vaccine could be available by September — at least several months ahead of any of the other announced efforts — if it proves to be effective.
That’s about a year earlier than might normally be expected for a new vaccine.
If this pans out, expect wailing and gnashing of teeth from Certain Terrible People. ᚠᚢᚳkᛖᛗ.
So what to call the current pandemic? I previously suggested Kung Flu. But boy howdy are there a lot of options. Here’s a partial list I’ve scraped from around the interwebs…
Chinese Flu
Wuhan Virus
Kung Flu
Wu Flu
Flu Manchu
Winnie the Flu
Great Leap Fluward
Cultural Revoflution
Chop Fluey
Lung Pao Sicken
Moo Goo Gai Pandemic
Wubonic Plague
Peking Plague
Pinko Pox
Commie Cough
Holocough
Xi’s Disease
Mao Measles
Manchu Malady
Mandarin Malady
Flu Tang Clan
Great Sneeze Forward
Wuhandemic
Cough Suey
Wu Ping Cough
Shanghai Shivers
Anshan Ailment
Beijing Bug
Lo Mein Pain
Guangdong Gout
Beijing Bug
Lo Mein Pain
Sweet & Sour Sicken
Flu King Buffet
Romance of the Three Symptoms
Szechuan Sore Throat
Terminal Tao
Rice Rabies
Sweet & Sour Sicken
Hubei Hiccups
Oriental Onset
Pinyin Purge
Bat soup croup
Bat crap clap
China Town terror
Chinese Communist Party Virus
CCP Virus
CHICOM-19
COVID-1984
What y’all got?