Good Thing? Bad Thing?
That depends on your perspective. Ol' Bob wrote of a fairly optimistic future, if not quite along the lines of Arthur C. Clarke then certainly nothing like the utter dystopian bleakness of Mister Ballard. You have YA novels like "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" and others such as "Glory Road". More worryingly he also wrote "The Moon Is A Hard Mistress" which features a rebellious nascent lunar nation declaring independence from Earth. There is much bloodshed. I shan't go into the plot as it's far too complicated, but there is a bombardment of Earth using magnetic catapults, which has probably given the wrong people an idea -
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| "Target acquired" |
"What is the old buffoon wittering on about now?" I hear you ask. "Has he been at the cooking sherry again?"
Pausing only to observe that sherry is vile and only fit to de-clog drains, I shall elucidate.
I refer, of course - obviously! - to the crew of amateur astronauts who were lofted into orbit earlier this week, aboard the Inspiration4. Let's have a picture of the happy little campers, shall we, Art?
Information about them, their mission and what they are up to is limited, because Netflix is going to be releasing a film of their endeavours. We know they have adjusted to micro-gravity (the current buzz-word because nobody wants to be uncool and say 'weightlessness') and are carrying out experiments. Art!
The Robert Heinlein bit comes from what you might call the nature of the beast, as the beast in question is the Dragon, as supplied by entrepreneur Elon Musk, he of Space X. One of the amateurs is a billionaire and was thus able to 'hire' the capsule, and to have it adapted (see above) with a glass dome for viewing utility. Nice if you have the cash to do it.
Conrad still worried about those catapults, though -
- because there are people working on them right now. Art!
Motley, break out the welding rods and a ton of structural steel - we need to come up with an anti-catapult catapult*!
How A Carpenter Invented Beer
Hmmmm once again I didn't think that this blog would have a theme, but it seems to be heading that way. Good thing? Bad thing? Only you can tell**!
Okay, so that ground-breaking South Canadian documentary maker John Carpenter got his break into that genre by making what amounted to a calling-card film: "Dark Star". This is the only fiction film of his terrifying oeuvre, and if Art can -
Tagline: "Bombed out in space with a spaced-out bomb"
There you go. Now, you know Conrad, ever one to trawl the shelves of beers, wines and spirits to seek out anything worthy of being milked for a pun or publicity, and Lo! we found one. Art?
They can't use copyrighted images, obviously, so what they've done with that illustration is to demonstrate that the astronaut who went surfing into the planet's atmosphere (see lower port of DVD cover) survived. He then found local flora that approximated to the hop plants of Earth and survived by eating them. Nothing could be clearer!
I hope John gets a royalty payment.
Thanks To Frank's -
Artwork. For Lo! we are back with the artwork Mister Tinsley did for Mechanix Illustrated (TUTS LOUDLY AT THE COD SPELLING) and the first illustration that Google throws up is also one of the more intriguing ones. Art!
First of all, let me explain "Atoms For Peace". This was a South Canadian initiative during the Cold War, which sought to promote the use of nuclear energy for civilian purposes. Thus you got the nuclear-powered freighter 'Savannah'. Frank has given us an airship with a nuclear reactor for power, and you can just see the whirling propeller blades at the stern. It looks as if the pontoons, in their lowered position, allow the airship to land on water in order to take on passengers and supplies; you can see recesses in the hull they retract into to create an aerodynamic profile with less drag when airborne. Nice detail there, Frank! Note also that the nose houses an enormous radar dish, and just visible behind this are windows that must delineate the bridge.
Conrad is guessing here as there doesn't seem to be any great depth of information available, so: this is the minimum-sized vehicle possible that can carry the mass of a nuclear reactor and still fly. It loads and unloads over water because that way the chance of any accident causing a radiation hazard is minimised. Art!
The Sinisters had a similar idea
Dog Buns! That's twice a bus has gone past with a poster for a new film and I've been too slow to catch what it was, bar "Venom -". Doubtless a film about snake-farming.
Chopper Chick Reviews A Flick
Hmmm nothing to do with spaceships or atomic engines, for which you may be grateful. Or not, I really don't care***. No, I refer one again to the personable Vernice Armour, ex-combat chopper pilot, who was assessing some helichopter scenes from "Spectre", which for your information is one of the James Bond franchise and nothing to do with ghosts. Art!
James and generic baddy getting joggy with it
Here Vernice takes exception to the helichopter bucking wildly about as the two men squabble heatedly - oh, alright: fight. There. Happy now? - in the back, because their
"Do not do a barrel-roll!"
They do a barrel-roll.
As Vernice points out, a helichopter cannot do this; if it strays too far from the horizontal (over 500)it will fall out of the sky BECAUSE IT IS NOT AN AIRPLANE. Two different aerodynamic profiles and performances. She awards it a severely critical 3 out of 10. Must try harder!
Finally -
I wish this weather would maintain a little consistency. When I came down to breakfast the sun was beaming from an uncluttered sky. By the time I'd made my cheese, mushroom and ham toastie, it was bucketing down. So much for sitting in the back yard doing a crossword. Then it cleared up again, and has been sunny all the time I've been typing this. Now that I've finished and have time to take Edna for a trot - the clouds have rolled back in and it's like sitting inside a coal-sack. Bah!
The article whilst full
And on that rather grey and depressing note, I think we are O so very done.
* Are you listening, NASA?
** Any responses of "Bad thing" will result in Remote Nuclear Detonation. Just so we're clear.
*** I'm horrid that way
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