- And Came Down A Spaceship

Apologies To Those Who Were Expecting Something About Mountains
Today, we address those issues concerned with ballistics, rocketry, nuclear ordnance and whomsoever gets to clear up the cat's upchuck over in the corner*.
     For Lo! we are back to the heaviest-hitting spaceships ever imagined, the Project Orion shuttles, which were lofted to orbit, and then across the Solar System on the back of small nuclear explosions.  Art?

Big Bang Bomb Bouncer

     I hope you're paying attention there.  Your Humble Scribe has been, of late, pondering about  the issues of getting an Orion into orbit.  One has to accommodate things like blinded civilian spectators, destroyed civilian airliners, dead civilian emergency laboratories, minor items like that.
     However, how on Earth do you land an Orion shuttle?
     Taken that it is aerodynamically passable, it can manage to get back into atmosphere, and from there - where?  Although it might have verniers and attitudinal thrusters, this baby cannot manage to coast into an horizontal descent with -

Yes but -

     Don't forget, this baby was nursed into orbit out of Nuclear Fire.  It cannot settle back down on the aftermath of a five-kiloton nuclear explosion - or can it?
     Answers on the Comments page, please!
     Or - do you leave it in permanent Earth orbit, and loft crew plus payload up there via a conventional shuttle?  This still creates problems, as your Orion shuttle is going to be cruising the heavens whilst carrying a payload of nuclear warheads, and, if it's never coming back down to ground again, it's going to be carrying an awful lot of these.  Imagine the nervous squeaking that the Ruffians and the Populous Dictatorship will put up if the skies above are awash with South Canadian NOOKLAR BATTLESHIPS capable of raining down fusion warheads by the hundred.
     Project Orion, the gift that keeps on giving.  And giving.

How to strangle cats the Tsar Putin way!

Whilst On The Subject Of Rarefied Matters -
Like we are - 
     Actually this following is a picture I loaded up the night before, since I cannot load them up at work.  The network doesn't recognise my phone or some such nonsense.  The usual problem I have is trying to remember what I was going to say about these photographs.  Not such a problem this time.

     This is a scene from "They Shall Not Grow Old", Peter Jackson's seminal masterpiece updating and recreating the First Unpleasantness.  Conrad not sure exactly why he chose this particular scene, nevertheless - What we see here is a unit of the Royal Artillery, manning a 6" howitzer, being fired at full elevation, which means the target is relatively close. Note the Brodie pattern helmets being worn, which implies this picture is from mid=1916 onwards.  Note, also, the tiles falling off the roof in the background, victims of the gun's muzzle blast.  One can only imagine what it's doing to the hearing of those present!  Notice also what's not present: no elaborate fortifications, no cratered landscape and both tree and building are completely intact.  This suggests that this unit has just advanced from fixed positions, perhaps therefore being filmed during the Hundred Days.  The cameraman certainly isn't expecting Teuton shells falling in the immediate vicinity!
     and furthermore -

Conrad Analyses
You know Your Humble Scribe, unable to let a thing lie: he has to get in there and analyse, analyse, analyse**.  This is why you get words in BOOJUM! that have been hied in from crosswords, as they catch my eye and I cannot leave them well alone and have to parse them in Greek or Latin.  Or, occasionally, Hindi.
     Anyway, I thought I'd turn my ferocious forensic force upon the back pages of the Manchester Evening News, an area that normally occupies 0% of my interest and attention, as it is devoted to sport, and usually to the ballfoot game <pokes self with bamboo skewer to stay awake>

     One presumes there is an hideous pun in there.  For those of you not aware, "Special Brew" is a Danish concoction that is so strong you fall down after a couple of pints, and is not to be taken lightly.   Bacon, butter and beer - what the Danes do best.
     Anyway, what I wanted to point out was the tabloid tat format that the MEN adopts here, much in the same way that The Metro pads out it's 'Guilty Pleasures' pages.  The actual text accompanying that enormous photo taking up most of the page is only about 200 words long.  They take up more space with the gigantic font title, then add an insert.  The bottom of the page is an advert, the top more bloviating for ballfoot game drivel inside.  You can get away with remarkably little factual information with padding like this.

Bah!

     And you wonder why I cordially detest the ballfoot game? <pokes self with bamboo skewer to make sure he's not fallen asleep and this is a horrid nightmare>.

More Futurology
And that list at the BBC website of 10 times science fiction predicted the future.  Today's tah-rah is - Art?

IT-obsessed children?

      This item is about what Ol' Art called an 'electronic paper' which definitely anticipated today's Kindles and tablets.  Of rather more concern is Ol' Art's predictions about the voice-activated supercomputer HAL; as the Beeb presciently points out, we have lots and lots of voice-activated kit around us (something called "Alex A", I understand, which will doubtless be obsolete the second Alex B arrives).  Yes indeed, and what did HAL 9000 end up doing?  Why, going round the bend and trying to kill everyone.
     That does not bode well.  Not at all.

Get your retaliation in first!

      In the future, remember to carry a hammer at all times.

Finally -
I was going to post another Matania painting, then decided against it, since I always blather on at length about them, and we only need a short item to reach the Compositional Ton.  How about - Lego!  Art?

Some people have entirely too much time on their hands ...

      This dude reckoned three years ago that he'd used at least 200,000 bricks assembling this monster, and that he'd nowhere near finished it.  One advantage of being a single house-owning male is that there's no little sister to run at things and destroy them.
     

*  You.  Not me.  Never me.
**  Yes, there is a joke in there.  I'm not going for it.