"Well...I didn't see that one coming"

Troops in Iraq a few hours ago lined up to pay respects to Paul Bremer and an undersecretary of somethingerother. Then in a totaly unexpected turn worthy of a Josh Wheadon screenplay.... out popped the POTUS!!!!

Ha! Haha! Ahahahaha! That was just cool! President Bush mingled with the troops for a bit, ate with them and then hopped on his unmarked plane and flew into the sunset.


Very, very nice :) Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!!




The time is; Turkey - 1.5 hours ......see ya!

Dynasoar Pics!!!

....and yet more space bloggage

Because people actually E-mailed me regards these posts (and because I'm a space cadet)

Encyclopedia Astronautica has massively updated their page on the X-20 Dynasoar as well as adding several pages about early US Spaceplane projects. This is a truley cool site that was dead for a while but is getting updated much more rapidly now. Even without that, the site is an increddible storehouse of space history and trivia info.

I'm a geek. :)

A good overview of the NASA orbital spaceplane can be seen here

Wow! kinda neat looking but not very much advanced from Apollo or the above mentioned Dyna-Soar. Well mabey it is a crash program and there is something to be said for simplicity, but if that's what they're shooting for then why not build them quicker? I mean we got to the moon in less time than these reinventions of the wheel will take!

To get perspective on how conservative these designs are look at todays space.com(poke me) now admittedly these things need work and I don't want antimatter stored in vast quaneties on the planet (far side o'd' moon sounds good) but it is encouraging that the presidents comission is looking far enough ahead to consider them.

In the meantime, the DC-x and Y were well on their way to doing the deed 10 years ago when funding got cut here are pictures

Waiting......

War, Sloth and Sacrifice

Glenn Reynolds links to a really nice piece by Austin Bay, regarding an interview with Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic.

Just read it:

They Found Him.....

The body of Navy Engineman 2nd class Douglas Bolles was found today by a fisherman. He was killed on November 7th while returning to the USS Typhoon with a Coast Guard boarding party.
The Coasties were from my unit.

The boat capsized, fortunately everyone else was picked up by Typhoon.

Terrible news for his wife and child on Thanksgiving. :(

BRRRRRRRR

The heater blew up a cold front moved in.....

Not much to add.... (chatters)

Fortunately, it's not REALLY cold (high thirties at night) so there is much to be thankful for.

Really Big Gun

Some weeks ago I got to hold (but not fire) a really neat weapon.

The .50 Beowulf is a .50 caliber carbine. GHAAAA!!!

The weapon is an AR-15 with a new barrel and reciever. All other parts are the same so it can use existing cheap spares. Interestingly even the same magazines can be used (albiet at reduced capacity as the rounds are single rather than double stacked). It was intended to be a north american hunting rifle and defense gun and it is proving to be popular. It is also being tested by the US Coast Guard which is how I came to see it.

That it is being tested by the USCG is now common knowledge in several gun mags so I can post on it now (I'm in the USCGR.....you get no breaking news here :)

800 Cannibals!!!!

The BBC reports that there are as many as 800 cannibals in deepest darkest....Germany.

This shocking revelation is brought about by the case of two men who met on a website devoted to cannibalism. One, the eater is expressing regret at what happened next....the other (the eatee) cannot be reached for comment.

I realize that this makes me all dull and boring, but "Young well built men, aged 18-30 to slaughter" is not an ad I'd be inclined to answer....

Not even if I'd just seen Monster A Go Go

Oh....those reviews I promised....


Given the below mentioned trips main purpose was to watch foreign cartoons and that the heading at the top of this page includes the word "Anime" (and since I tried this once before) I think I'd better post some reviews.

This JASFA meeting was remarkably suck free but two series really stood out for me.

Planetes or perhaps Planet ES (the title of this Japanese Cartoon is in Cyrillic.(!?)) Involves the travails of a group of astronauts with the unenviable task of collecting orbital debris that might endanger the substantial orbital infrastructure of 2075.

The hopelessly underfunded sweeper division of a large multinational are headquartered in a former storage area on the lowest (highest gravity) level of a dual wheel spacestation.

This crew of the 30 year old tug "Toybox" must deal with the scorn of all the 'cool' astronauts as well as obsolete and worn out equipment. The show strikes a near ideal balance between drama comic relief and humanity.

The animation is excellent and the technology and art direction are awesomely realistic. As orbital debris are a real problem, even today,the basic premise of the story is far from contrived.

The only gripe I have is with the female lead who is remarkably annoying. She has a special angst field that is in many ways rather selfish. Nevertheless, the protagonists are all very likeable.

The manga, which lacks the female lead is available from Tokyo Pop it is also very realistic and has very much the same 'feel' as the anime.....though in the Manga, the crew of the Toybox are a small independent business adding a bit of entrepreneurial desperation to the mix. The addition of the teenage girl and the subsumption of the crew into a large corporation must say something about marketing trends and perceptions of what's PC in Japan....note that the female characters (like Fee, the captain of the ship) that are in both versions are quite admirable characters...the young protagonist seems to be there just to be a steryotypically feminine (?) element. Nevertheless, both versions rock.

***** 5 carbonaceous chondrites


Last Exile is another really cool sci-fi series, though as it is Steam-Punk it is more accurately described as fantasy. This series which is highly reminiscent of Myazakis Laputa (one of my favorit films)is set in a world straight out of Verne, Wells or even E.E.Doc Smith.

A future as Verne might have forseen it has two young courier pilots trying to make ends meet by taking the odd delivery job and hoping to win the pod race...err...van ship race.

Their own sense of duty and good heartedness lands the two plucky capitalists an especially dangerous job that may well rock the foundatins of their world.

Rather similar in a many ways to such things as Captain Harlock this series is really enjoyable with engaging and likeable charachters. WARNING!!! Don't hit story on the above link...it contains spoilers other than that it is a really good promo site.

The dub in this series is well above Pioneers norm, yet another thing in its favor.

##### 5 tesla coils

Busy Busy Busy

It now looks like I'll be back on reserve status December 31, 2003.

In the meantime the USCG has enrolled me in a port operations and security course for the next two weeks. Since I'm pretty much undeployable now I've asked and been given permission to start working part time after the CG class at UPS.

I WILL be a full time studnt at Old Dominion University next year. (Dancetedancetedance!!!!:)

Additionally I'm trying to whip myself back into shape after my knee surgery and 3 months of no excersizes...Which resulted in my gaining over 20 lbs....(yuck)

Today, I hiked a 5 mile nature trail near my house....it is still pretty damaged from the hurricane parts are bloody hard to cross. As I approached the end of the trail, I noted red tape across the trail exit. Attached to it was a sign that read (Noland Trail Unsafe: Closed)... this might've been a good thing to post at the entrance......

Whaaa!!!!?????

I just spent an hour posting linking and reviewing Last Exile and Planetes and then my whole bloody post evaporated.

The cybercafe is closing soon....hmmmm.

New posts soon!

Tardy Trip Report

Well my trip to DC went fairly well despite not actually getting into DC.

I started to leave the house we were gathered in for the district when two friends I don't see enough of arrived and we talked 'till it was...well, late.

Saw some friends I haven't seen in a while (and discovered one of the best Chinese restaraunts I've ever been to). Ate more Indian food than I should have and saw a few really good shows.

A potato-weekend if ever there was one, but given my physical condition possibly not a bad idea.

Ouch!

Yesterday i went running with my unit during PT for the first time in 7 months. I fell out after we we hit the brambly trails in the woods but started running again after got back on pavement.....not only does my knee hurt but I just generally feel like day two of basic training...Oh well, I'll be in shape soon enough especially since the run did not do any real damage.

Besides.....


I'm Off to DC!!

Tomorrow afternoon, I head up to DC to a more or less all weekend party at a friends house.

The official purpose of the party is to watch obscure movies and anime though I will sneak out a bit to...
A) hit some museums and....
B) pick up a copy of Project Moonbase

Washington DC is fairly close to my house, though I haven't been there since I signed the condolances book at the aussie embassy post Bali. It is about a three or 7 hour drive...depending on what they are doing at Springfield (I exaggerate only slightly, the Springfield interchange is insane).

Anyhoo, this will be only my second actual down time in 4 months or so. (yayyy!!)

And in the (possibly) bigger yayy!!!! category.........

President Bush gives his speech Monday to comemorate the Wrights Brothers flight and rumors are growing that he will unveil a major shift in US space policy.

Update: Nope! The Wrights first flew on DECEMBER 17th if the speech is given, thats when it'l be... (ooops)

VETERANS DAY


Just go here

It is a list of medal of honor winners and the circumstances leading to their awards.

Keep in mind that the ones with an asterix by them were awarded posthumously.

There is nothing to add really...

Matrix Regurgitations

Well I went to see the movie. Urrrrp...

Aside from a very nice camera angle on Monica Bellucci, there is precious little this film has going for it. Oh, and great special effects.

The first Matrix film was a good little PK Dick style movie. A few things that had been done before in Hong Kong as well as some cyberpunk books (and of course by Phillip K Dick). It was well done and had a neat twist and a much better philosphical component than most, if a bit pompous (but that was its charm)

The new film pumps up the pompus and adds a bigger budget that is, nevertheless, still not enough to cover that most basic of millitary vehicle accessories, an enclosed cockpit.

As usual Lileks has beaten me to it and does a better job of pointing out the films flaws and its good points. (It has them , it is no Wing Commander).

Being a geek, I was wondering if Neo was simply a program intended to stabilize Zion who just fell in love and saved everybody. That still works but the film was too busy being all zen and pompous to answer mere geek questions.

I also had hoped for some explanation of the difference between the upbeat ending of the first movie "we're going to fight and win" to the second films "survival would be a really nice option" alas still no explanation for the differences in tone or what the supposed setback was.

But these are geek questions and the film is not aimed at geeks, it seems to be aimed at pretentious goth types who fancy themselves at once Zen and eurotrendy.

Still, I can't say I really felt robbed or anything, just sort of "eh!"

Oh well...
One month till Return of the King :)

Our abandoned Birthright and the ........
ATOMIC POGO STICK

Plus Space Art!!!


Anna has her weekly "bad" movie review up. Problem is, that Destination Moon doesn't suck. Not that she suggests it does but it is the BAD movie shrine.....

OK, I'm nitpicking. She gives a very good overview of the film including its alternate plotline...yalls gonna hafta pay her site a visit to find out about it... She also points out the subplot of the communist saboteurs....which had been edited from the version I saw on TV.

All well and good but why am I blogging about it you may ask?

Because she links to the coolest thing ever.....well it's really kewel anyway.

Seems that several Aussies are putting together a film set in the alternate reality of what would have happened had the space program proposed in the 1954 Colliers articles about which more hereFor those that don't know, this series of stories in the then popular magazine laid out a rational and achievable vision of the space program cumilating with expeditions to Mars. The tech was off the shelf extrapolations of basically '40s technology. A few visuals were changed for aesthetic reasons. But the physics were sound, it could have been done and we would have a real space infrastructure now if it had been. Note second link is 5 pages...warning both are picture rich

The Colliers article was influential for another reason....they were illustrated by great artists...including Chelsey Bonnestell the GAWD of scifi art. No one did more to set the standard for classic Sci-Fi visuals than Bonestell.

That link there...click on it....now scroll down to the Saturn pictures... see the one with Saturn in a blue sky? Bonnestell was so attentive to detail that he realized when Nitrogen was discovered in Titans atmoshere in the 40s that it would produce a blue sky like earths so he put a blue sky on Titan. We now know that the surface of Titan is a pea soup fog, but the upper reaches of the atmosphere are believed to have a blue sky (albiet a dark one). Because Bonnestell got it right before anyone, scientists have named this layer of Titans atmosphere the Bonestellesphere....I'm not making this up!! Oh you're still on the link....scroll on down to the bottom of the page click the next page....and the next...paitence friend, there are 13 pages of this glorious stuff to wade through :) sorry about the Italian (unless you're Itallian in which case...hey:)

I am digressing .

The point is that we've had the tech to make the big leap for years. Here is a good overview of Vaun Brauns Rocket designs from the forties and fifties showing the artistic liscence taken with them for films as well as the tweaking done as understanding of the tecnology increased. It shows that as hands on experience was aquired the designs evolved....that's how engineering works.

Note that the state of the art has not changed much; our space shuttle is not a big improvement on the Von Braun ferry rocket, and deep space missions operate on the same principals as Von Braun envisioned with a few refinements like the Apollo programs Lunar Orbit Rendevouz or Zubrins Mars Direct also discussed here, but the spaceship of science fiction that maintains thrust long enough to attain truely high speeds and has enough reserve fuel to make casual course corrections is fantasy....isn't it?

Er no....
In the late 1950s and early 1960s there were several designs for harnessing atomic power for spaceflight. Most of these centered around using a reactor to power an ion engine or heat a working fluid to steam (like the rocket in Destination Moon....see we're still on topic) after all it's not like you could really harness an atomic explosion for power.....

Wrong!! PROJECT ORION was a plan to use exploding atom bombs to propel a ship into space. The vessel would have been protected by a tremendous heat/blast shield and the mother of all shock absorbers. In the late 50's it was assumed that Saturn (well, its moons anyway) could be reached in the early 70s :o

The system worked as far as the tests went and there is no reason to believe that the design couldn't work. It would have opened up not just Space, but the whole frigging Solar System!!!

Of course there were drawbacks. Fallout from the ground launches originally assumed while not great would have a cumulitave effect and in the well founded angst after the Army found out just what effect ground burst fallout had, the ground launch idea was quietly shelved. This cut back on its apeal as one could no longer launch the weight equivalent of a battleship or ocean liner into space.

However, if the atomic pogosticks candle could be lit in space it would still have a tremendous advantage to getting anywhere in the solar system.

An Orion powered vehicle was designed that could be launched by the larger versions of the trusty old (then new) Saturn series of rockets. A picture of the Saturn boosted Orion vehichle is here.

Naturally, Kennedy (or mabey Johnson) killed the idea at the behest of MacNamerra.

Note that assuming we could build the Saturn 5 or equivalent system the above interplanetary bangboat is still eminently doable.

There has actually been a good deal of progress since the '60s and even Orion is getting improved. though with little or no help from the govt. 'till recently.

Mini Mag Orion uses much smaller throttlerable charges that are the closest thing yet to real science fiction ships. They also don't have the problem of lots of space truckers having complete atom bombs:) (Yep a bunch of capitalists are working on a revolutionary atomic rocket engine....just like in Project Moonbase...Heinlein just rocked.)

There is hope with project Prometheus being pushed by the Bush administration, the rockets of futures past may yet come to pass.