Archive for August, 2009

Search for a Bf-109 reported crashed in a lake is just beginning.

Ares I-X Test Vehicle:

Standing tall at its fully assembled height of 327 feet, the Ares I-X is one of the largest rockets ever processed in the Vehicle Assembly Building's High Bay 3, Super Stack 5 at the Kennedy Space Center. Ares I-X rivals the height of the Apollo Program's 364-foot-tall Saturn V. Five super stacks make up the rocket's upper stage that is integrated with the four-segment solid rocket booster first stage. Ares I-X is the test vehicle for the Ares I, which is part of the Constellation Program to return humans to the moon and beyond. The Ares I-X flight test currently is targeted for Oct. 31. Image Credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis

To the Moon – with extreme engineering

The Lunar Orbiter astonishes even today. It had to take pictures, scan and develop the film on board, and broadcast it successfully back to earth. Naturally, the orbiter had to provide its own power, orient itself without intervention from ground control, and maintain precise temperature conditions and air pressure for the film processing, and protect itself from solar radiation and cosmic rays – all within severe size and weight constraints.

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Air Force urged to consider Navy F-18s
Navy F-18s could possibly fill the Air National Guard’s fighter gap.

“Obama As Hitler” Poster Was A Democrat/Union Plant At John Dingell Townhall
Oops.

Nuclear Cruiser Could Be Cheaper Than Non-Nukes
Right.

Press Largely Ignored Incendiary Rhetoric at Bush Protest
No way.

Michigan’s Population Exodus
Murdoc’s not looking to flee. Yet.

Stoeger Tactical Double Barrel
A tactical side-by-side shotgun?

F/A-18 may perform ‘hands-off’ carrier landings by 2011
To test X-47B systems.

The New Book Banning
Children’s books burn, courtesy of the federal government.

Obamas set to relax at prominent Republican’s $20-million private estate
OMFG!!! You mean with all the things going on in the country he’s taking a vacation?!? [/sarc]

Was Hillary jetlagged? That’s a hell of an excuse for the lady who purveyed the 3 a.m. ad!
“Snapped”?

Fancy dropping into Pitetsbkrrh?
Pittsburgh tower fails spelling test

Inouye Ignores Veto Threat Against F-35 Engine Funding
Wait, the F136 not-dead-again? I thought it was most recently dead-again after previously being not-dead-again.

189th Carnival of Homeschooling
The Lolcats edition.

France confirms Russian-manned ship found

A Russian-manned cargo ship that vanished in the Atlantic last month has been found near Cape Verde, the French Defense Ministry said Friday.

Ministry spokesman Capt. Jerome Baroe said Cape Verde coast guards confirmed the Arctic Sea was discovered Friday afternoon about 520 miles off the former Portuguese colony off the West African coast.

Air Force May Buzz Before Bombing in Afghanistan

A new military approach in Afghanistan may mean buzzing rather than bombing the enemy, according to the general taking over the air war there.

It’s known as irregular warfare, designed to protect local people and then enlist their help defeating Taliban insurgents, Air Force Lt. Gen. Gilmary Hostage said Thursday.

I realize that you can’t just bomb everything indiscriminately, but Murdoc hopes this is some sort of disinformation campaign or something.

A show of force may scare some fighters off at first, but once they realize that the bark won’t be followed by a bite, the bark will stop working.

We’re ramping up our troop levels big time and at the same time putting in more restrictive rules of engagement and advertising that “buzzing instead of bombing” is part of the new strategy? Sounds like a good plan to get more US troops killed and drag things out for an extra decade.

Something’s wrong on Saturn 3.

UPDATE: Well, that pretty much sucked. Murdoc’s apologies for the interrupted service.

Everyone gets a full refund.

UPDATE 2: Well, it appears that, thanks to abysmal performance on my host’s file manager, Murdoc has managed to lose all the photos from the last several months. Lose as in gone forever. It’s going to be quite a project to get them re-uploaded and all the posts fixed unless there’s some way to retrieve them.

UPDATE 3: Well, it’s a bit of a long story, but I was trying to test something by cloning my site to a test directory. After the test I deleted the clone. Except that instead of COPYING the core files, I somehow MOVED them, meaning the “clone” was, in fact, my real site’s core files. However that happened, once I figured out what happened it was simply a matter of restoring the files I had deleted and moving them back to where they belonged.

Except that the new version of the File Manager doesn’t have a trash bin. The old one did, but the new one doesn’t. I’ve been mystified about why the “new and improved” v3 has no restore functionality when v1 and v2 did, but after contacting support I’ve figured out how this is an improvement.

For a fee, they’ll restore my files.

Ba$tard$.

The biggest news about the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program has been, of course, that the plan ran out of cash in one week and needed its funding tripled to $3 billion. Now, some may wonder if it’s really appropriate for tax payers to help pay for car purchases (Murdoc sure wonders, for instance), but I guess I can see that there was at least some justification for the program in the short term.

Long term, however, I wonder if we’re going to see some problems because of this. For example:

Cash for Clunkers throws some into reverse

Cash for Clunkers is rolling on after President Barack Obama signed a $2 billion extension for the program last week, and new car dealers say buyers are continuing to flock in for the deals. But at the other end of the market, companies and organizations whose business models are built on used vehicles say they’re hurting badly as Americans who might have come to their doors suddenly find themselves better placed to afford a shiny new car.

It’s not just dealers, who say their customers are disappearing. It’s also auto parts businesses, which fear that the cost of used parts could skyrocket as clunkers are destroyed rather than sold for parts. And it’s charities, many of which depend on donated cars to raise cash at auctions.

Though many of the cars traded in during the program aren’t really “clunkers,” they’re all being destroyed. Though used car salesmen may be hurting a bit right now, I suspect that used car buyers are going to feel the effects of this program for years to come, particularly those who can only afford cheaper and older cars.

Some of the parts on the clunkers can be sold, but nothing from the engine or the drive train. Generally, these are the most important and most expensive parts.

Also, I wonder if we’ll be seeing an uptick in defaulted auto loans as people who took advantage of the program find that they’ve bitten off more new-car-payment than they can chew. Even if everyone manages to pay their loan, it seems likely to me that many new cars bought under the program were bought by those who would have spent less otherwise.

So we’re using taxpayer money to bail out car owners who have previously chosen to drive cars now deemed “clunkers,” and those of us who drive cars with better mileage are funding the program.

While some folks got a good deal on a car they would have bought anyway, I suspect that a lot of people, particularly those near the lower end of the income scale, are going to suffer for this in the end. We’ll see.

Russian navy searches Atlantic for missing ship

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered that “all necessary measures” be taken to find the missing ship, and the Russian navy turned all of its vessels in the Atlantic — including three landing ships, a frigate and two nuclear-powered submarines — to search.

Finnish police said they also were assisting in the investigation.

What are the Finns doing? Scouring the streets of Helsinki for a 300-foot cargo carrier?

Anyway, at least those subs off the United States’ east coast have something to do.

A couple of years ago I posted a quick clip of the C-130 tests on USS Forrestal (CVA-59), but here’s the whole thing. It contains a fair amount of info and is worth a look:

Thanks to the reader who sent the link!

Also: U-2 spy plane carrier trials.