Archive for April, 2005

Shuttle launch reportedly being delayed

‘Til July, it sounds like.

Troops detain 30 in raid on Iraqi village

Well, just as the insurgents replace leaders nabbed during the pre-election offensives and reorganize to increase their attacks on US and Iraqi forces, our forces react to changing conditions and move to retain the upper hand. But this passage is what I liked the most:

After shutting down roads in and out of the town of several thousand residents, more than 725 soldiers — 550 Iraqis and 175 Americans — poured into the dusty streets Wednesday morning in up-armored Humvees, Stryker combat vehicles and the small pickup trucks used by Iraqi forces. Apache helicopters circled the village and a pair of F-16s sliced the sky.

I like that mix, 3:1 Iraqis to Americans. Let’s keep that up for a while, then start edging it up even further.

And get a load of this:

The 2nd Battalion of the 8th Field Artillery spearheaded the mission, acting on intelligence reports that car-bomb makers were operating out of the remote village to conduct attacks against coalition forces north in Mosul.

Insurgents carried out 10 car bomb attacks against coalition forces in the past 14 days, said Lt. Col. Bradley Becker, 2-8 commander. He led the mission along with commanders of the Iraqi Army’s regional forces. [emphasis mine]

Cannon boys. Gotta love ‘em.

If they engaged in combat, though, what sort of decorations do they get? The Close Combat Badge. Good. But it should be the Combat Infantryman Badge. The story doesn’t report any combat, though, so it’s probably moot this time around.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Boasts 4X Performance

This thing could clean wastewater and produce hydrogen at the same time. Using one-tenth the electricity that traditional electrolysis does.

Using a new electrically-assisted microbial fuel cell (MFC) that does not require oxygen, Penn State environmental engineers and a scientist at Ion Power Inc. have developed the first process that enables bacteria to coax four times as much hydrogen directly out of biomass than can be generated typically by fermentation alone.

Dr. Bruce Logan, the Kappe professor of environmental engineering and an inventor of the MFC, says, “This MFC process is not limited to using only carbohydrate-based biomass for hydrogen production like conventional fermentation processes. We can theoretically use our MFC to obtain high yields of hydrogen from any biodegradable, dissolved, organic matter — human, agricultural or industrial wastewater, for example — and simultaneously clean the wastewater.

Get rid of some garbage. Get hydrogen. Get clean water.

What’s not to like?

Murdoc is on the road today on business. Probably won’t post more until this evening, if then. So be sure to check out all the great sites on my sidebars.

In the meantime, here’s a another pic I came across of a US soldier with a PPSh submachinegun:

(Click for bigger image)

This sort of thing was first mentioned on MO here.

Sea Launch Lofts Spaceway Bird For DIRECTV

Sea Launch put a 13,376 pound DirecTV bird in orbit yesterday, breaking the previous record by 238 pounds. It was set just over a month ago by an Atlas V.

This launch vehicle was a Zenit-3SL (yeah, I’d never heard of it either) and gets extra points since it was launched from a floating platform out in the ocean.

A DirecTV launch from 1999

Murdoc is a DirecTV subscriber. Bring on more channels!

ATK Delivers First XM25 Prototypes to U.S. Army for Testing and Evaluation

This seems to be the first new news on this weapon for quite some time. I did a write-up (based on a Strategy Page post, actually) back in February of 2004. Check it out for the basics on this smart grenade launcher that was developed from part of the XM29 OICW.

The XM8, developed from the other part of the XM29, is sort of like this baby’s big brother. But the little guy has a good chance of showing up his sibling in the end. While the XM8 hopes to become the new main assault rifle, it’s really just a new generation of an existing idea. The XM25 could usher in a whole new era of infantry weapons.

The XM25 fires a High Explosive (HE), air bursting 25mm round capable of defeating an enemy behind a wall, inside a building or in a foxhole. The advanced design allows the operator to program the round so that it flies to the target and detonates at a precise point in the air. It does not require impact to detonate.

While the trusted M203 has served well for a long time, this new grenade launcher is cutting edge:

The revolutionary fire control system for the XM25 employs an advanced laser rangefinder that transmits information to the chambered 25mm round. As the round flies downrange to the target, it precisely measures the distance traveled and detonates at exactly the right moment to deliver maximum effectiveness. The XM25 increases the warfighter’s probability of hit-to-kill performance by up to 500 percent over existing weapons. It also extends the effective range of the soldier’s individual weapon to more than 500 meters.

Six prototypes have been delivered to the Army for testing. If all goes according to plan, the XM8 could enter production in 2008.

Bush push on energy: Draft old military bases

Finally, Bush is saying something that I’m buying:

Confronting growing concerns over high energy prices, President Bush on Wednesday will unveil controversial plans to spur construction of new nuclear power plants, provide incentives to buy diesel vehicles and most novel of all: use some old military bases for oil refineries.

Around 20% of the electricity generated in the US comes from nuclear power. I think that number should be around 50%, or maybe even more. I’m not opposed to alternatives like wind and solar, but they don’t seem capable of getting us energy on the scale we need for a reasonable price.

The idea of using closed military bases for this sort of thing might help alleviate some of the economic trauma that accompanies a base closure.

One thing about Bush’s plan that I don’t particularly care for is his idea that the federal government should decide where terminals for liquefied natural gas should be located. Not really sure what the reasoning is, and unless there’s an overwhelming logic to it, I think less government control over something is better than more.

In related news: Wind Power Debuts at Gitmo:

Standing 275-foot tall, with blades spanning 177 feet, the Navy’s four new 3-blade wind turbines are among the most noticeable features at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Each of the four turbines will generate 950 kilowatts (kw) of electricity. Together, the four turbines will generate 3,800 kw, and in years of typical weather the wind turbines will produce almost 8 million kilowatt-hours of electricity. They will reduce the consumption of 650,000 gallons of diesel fuel, reduce air pollution by 26 tons of sulfur dioxide and 15 tons of nitrous oxide, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 13 million pounds each year.

The new wind turbines will provide as much as 25% of the base’s power generation during the high-wind months of late summer, and are expected to save taxpayers $1.2 million in annual energy costs.

DoD Buys 2,048 Processor Linux Supercomputer for Weapons Design

Horsepower:

Named “Eagle” by the ASC MSRC [Aeronautical Systems Center Major Shared Resource Center] and part of the DoD HPCMP’s [High Performance Computing Modernization Program] Technology Insertion for fiscal year 2005 (TI-05), the Altix supercomputer is powered by 2,048 1.6 GHz Intel Itanium 2 processors, 2TB of memory, SGI’s NUMAlink interconnect, and 128TB of disk. During a test run at SGI’s manufacturing facility in Chippewa Falls, WI, the new system achieved Linpack benchmark performance of 11.636 teraflop/s (trillions of calculations per second) while operating at over 90% efficiency. The entire 2TB of memory is globally addressable by any processor in the system, which will run the Linux operating system and support the Intel C, C++, and Fortran compilers. SGI Altix computing architecture allows both clustering (scaling out) of individual nodes and scalability (scaling up) of each node from 4 to 512 processors sharing up to 4TB of physical memory.

It will be used for a variety of tasks, including weapons and materials design. Here’s the official press release from the USAF.

Urge President Bush to Secure Our Borders Immediately

Seems to me that this is one of the most important issues facing regular American citizens today. And no one seems to care.

Check this out and sign on if interested. I’m quite skeptical that it will accomplish anything, because if our nation’s leaders aren’t serious about protecting the borders now, a petition isn’t going to make them change their minds. But I signed up anyway. (via a reader)

THE AIR MARSHAL AND THE ACLU

Michelle Malkin notes that Federal Air Marshal Frank Terreri was reinstated one day after his lawsuit (noted here) was filed. The spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service says the reinstatement had nothing to do with the lawsuit.

Malkin responds:

Uh-huh.

However, she observes:

It’s interesting to see the ACLU and New York Times finally paying attention to the important national security matters raised by Terreri. But note that the Left has only come around on the marshals’ mess when it’s cast as a free speech issue.

When some of these whistleblowers in airport security start talking about the need for common-sense racial/ethnic/religious/nationality profiling, we’ll see how much the ACLU and New York Times really champion their free speech rights.

Meanwhile, the Federal Air Marshal Service will soon be slapping NOW HIRING signs up.

Captain’s Quarters has more on this subject.

Malkin also notes terrorists propensity for libraries. Deroy Murdock (no relation) has more. Maybe we need a Federal Library Marshal Service.

Of course, we don’t have enough Federal Air Marshals or Border Patrol agents. Why would we hire Library Marshals?