I received a phone call last week concerning my job performance, which had been suffering due to overwork and a work related disease, and it was not good news. I am now faced with a big change in my life. After planning on continuing to work for another 10 years till I was close toContinue reading “The Phone Call From QAnon”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Flat Earth and Death
I was raised an Atheist and married a devout Christian. How does that work you might ask. It works because I reconciled my disbelief with my belief. A child’s basic personality is formed by the age of eight or so. It is extremely difficult to change that, but behaviors and beliefs can be “modified” toContinue reading “Flat Earth and Death”
Mortmain
I was going through my email and found a Wordsmith.org that really hit home. As I often do I saw a connection with another interesting item: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52583322 So I thought I would write an entry on it. USAGE: “If the corona curves continue to crest, Covid-19 might expose as much about the dead hand ofContinue reading “Mortmain”
Jaffe on Space Solar; 2 years later
https://www.businessinsider.com/missions-experiments-for-space-force-mysterious-x-37b-space-plane-2020-5 “There have been very important changes recently that have made it a lot more compelling and urgent that we investigate this carefully.” “It’s been recognized even as early as the sixties that this is definitely technically feasible, there’s no violation of the laws of physics-” “-at least ten years and all told between R&DContinue reading “Jaffe on Space Solar; 2 years later”
The Forty Year Shuttle
On 17 August 1943, under a full Moon, 560 British bombers attacked the German V-2 rocket facility at Peenemunde. Ten months earlier Nazi SS officers Walter Dornberger (later Vice President of Bell Aircraft Corporation) and Wernher von Braun (later Director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center) had toasted the flight of “the first spaceship”Continue reading “The Forty Year Shuttle”
Cosmic Ray Rats Revisited
Five years ago one of my first blog posts concerned the deleterious effects of cosmic rays and how this dictated the conditions of Human Space Flight (HSF). This illustration from the 2006 Scientific American article by Eugene Parker should be on the wall of the office of every spacecraft designer. It is an extremely accurateContinue reading “Cosmic Ray Rats Revisited”
Energy and Death
So Joe is pushing “flow batteries” and his main example uses Vanadium which is…toxic. There are some large deserts available and a couple thousand square miles of Solar Thermal Mirror Fields would generate enough electricity to help address climate change. Not toxic. No exotic technology. Molten salt is a pretty good option for storage. C’monContinue reading “Energy and Death”
Open Letter to Bezos
From https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4404/ch10-5.htm [200] Fig. 51. Cross-section of an injector used in experiments with an 89-kN rocket engine using liquid oxygen and regeneratively cooled by the liquid hydrogen. A lightweight design, the injector was a converging showerhead type. Measured performance was 93 percent of theoretical. From Tomazic, Bartoo, and Rollbuhler, NASA TMX-253, Apr. 1960. The yearContinue reading “Open Letter to Bezos”
Key Technologies
Well, I have survived the virus so far, but it is not going well at work and I was so burned out when I got off yesterday I called out today. Of course, I might be infected now and it won’t kill me for a couple weeks. Great. I am laying down trying to getContinue reading “Key Technologies”
Careful Counterpart
I binge-watched a series on Amazon Prime a couple months ago called “Counterpart.” Something about it captured my interest and I am not sure quite what. It was a very “deep” plot with people interacting with better or worse versions of themselves from an alternate universe. Probably why it was canceled. Too much to thinkContinue reading “Careful Counterpart”