Now all we need is a market or a festival and a great big truck…
But wait! There’s more holiday cheer!
3 people stabbed in The Hague, police say
Nov 292019
Nov 282019
So what happens when you use laws to make owning a gun legally difficult? You incentivize the trade in illegal guns. And you incentivize the manufacture of home-made guns.
California HS shooter used untraceable ‘ghost gun,’ sheriff says
And it wasn’t even an Evil AR-15, but a mundane .45 caliber pistol, built off the books Because firearm manufacture, especially now in the era of affordable CNC mills, is within the grasp not just of registered firearms corporations, but of modestly dedicated amateurs.
Nov 282019
Sometime around 1973/74, NASA put out a report on future aeronautics and space opportunities. While lean on technical detail, and devoid of diagrams (bah), it did have some vaguely interesting 1970’s-style art. The painting below illustrates some of the “other” things that the forthcoming Space Shuttle could do, like launch solar power satellites, lob nuclear waste into deep space and be used for point-to-point Terrestrial passenger transport. Yeah, about that…
Nov 282019
It only took about 40 years, but ET finally gets a sequel.
Yes, it’s a commercial. But remember Reese’s Pieces? The whole movie served as a monumental commercial for that minor confection.
Nov 272019
This, I imagine, is Trumps Fault.
Actress Jennifer Agostini, friends attacked leaving Midtown bar: court papers
Will this story get a tenth as much reporting as Jussie Smollet got for his little hoax? Let’s find out!
Nov 272019
Nov 272019
A 1978 NASA artists impression (taken from ebay) depicting a “rescue ball” being used. This short-lived product was basically a space suit in spherical form, one that a Shuttle astronaut in shirt sleeves could enter relatively quickly in the event of an on-orbit disaster. Another Shuttle could send astronauts to collect the encapsulated and helpless astronauts and transfer them to a non-doomed shuttle. It was *kind* of a good idea, but once it was realized that the Shuttle takes *weeks* to prep for launch, the idea of using a Shuttle to rescue another Shuttle fell by the wayside. Instead of the crew of a stricken Shuttle relying on another Shuttle for rescue, official policy became la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you and orbital rescue equipment became superfluous.
Nov 262019
Here’s an article from “Future Life” magazine, May 1979, describing a Rockwell concept for a passenger module for the Shuttle. This could carry 74 passengers, a loadout that seems perhaps excessive until you realize that it was meant to transport the crews who would build the miles-long solar power satellites. If this concept is of interest, be sure to check out US Bomber Projects #06, the Solar Power Satellite Launch Special. There, another concept for a Shuttle “bus” was described and illustrated.
Nov 262019
And another case of BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….
Antifa loves to drown people out. Nice to see a proportionate response.
Nov 252019
In 1985, Rockwell considered the possibility of making a business of returning commercial cargoes from orbit. This is a tricky proposition: almost *nothing* in space is worth more returned back to the ground. Humans, of course, and highly hypothetical products made in zero-g… drugs, crystals, electronics. but none of those actually panned out: zero-g and/or high vacuum might produce some small benefit for various chemical processes, but terrestrial manufacture is so much easier and cheaper that nothing has so far come from on-orbit production
The description mentions a “ballistic cargo carrier,” but the piece is illustrated with a lifting body. This appears to be the same vehicle mentioned previously as a “hypervelocity research vehicle.” I don’t know if this means Rockwell gave thought to using the HRV as a cargo return system (if so, it would be an inefficient way to go) or if the HRV diagram was simply conveniently at hand. A ballistic capsule would probably be by far the best way to go for returning payloads that are relatively insensitive to g-forces. Cheaper, smaller, lighter and, importantly, cheaper than a lifting body.
Next up: Space Station Lifeboats.
