If I Were To Say "DART"

By Now You'd Probably Roll Your Eyes

 - and respond "What is he misdirecting us to again?"

     No, really, do keep up, this is an hilarious Intro, promise, cross my fusion-powered pumping unit and hope to die.  Art!

NNNNNNEEEEEEYYYYOOOWWWWWW

     Meet the F106 Delta DART, a South Canadian fighter jet, designed as an interceptor to deal with incoming Sinister bomber formations.  These puppies were fast, as they had to be in order to intercept.  They excelled at this job because it was what they were specifically designed for.  They also carried the extremely frightening Genie ATR-2A air-to-air rocket, which was armed with an atomic warhead.  Art!

The Genie let loose from it's bottle

     Just in case, duty "Six" pilots wore an eyepatch over one eye, thus is blinded by the flash from a detonated Genie, they still had one good eye.

     Of course - obviously! - none of this is the DART we're talking about.  No, we are not going to continue with an article about fat men throwing fat arrows at a board, that would be too easy.  Instead we have another iteration.  Art!

     Say hello to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system, an agglomeration of buses, light rail, heavy rail and traffic lanes in the fair metroplex of Dallas and Fort Worth.  There is a touch of scandal about this system, which - we won't go into today.  Because this is not the DART of which Conrad speaks.  Art!  More DART!

     

     This, it seems, is a programming language tha  s  

                                                                              jjjjjjjjjjjjjj

                                                                                                 78978978
     Ooops!  Fell asleep.  Dull as unsalted Lurpack.  Art!

     Now we encounter the Double Asteroid Redirection Test - the DART that I intended to talk about.  This is one of a series of tests conducted by NASA and ESA to firm up data about preventing an asteroid (or other Near Earth Object) hitting Earth.  The plan focussed on the dual-asteroid Dimorphos and Didymos, with DART being directed to hit Dimorphos in order to see what happened.  Art!

     The spacecraft is not very sophisticated, as it's sole function is to hit as hard as possible.  The impact was filmed and even observed from those with pole positions on Earth, and let me just prod Art into action -

     The spacecraft was sending back a live feed of the asteroid's surface up until impact, whereupon it abruptly cut out, as one would expect.  Art!

"Dear all, having a wonderf -"

     There has been a minor yet unmistakable change in the orbit of Dimorphos thanks to the impact of DART although the exact details are somewhat hazy.  This is where HERA comes in.  HERA is a follow-up spacecraft that will travel to the Dimorphos-Didymos pairing and assess precisely what happened.  

     The point of all this is that, given sufficient lead time, NASA or ESA or JAXA could construct an interceptor that would move a potential impactor slightly, enough to miss planet Earth.  Yes, rather less dramatic than "Deep Impact" or "Armageddon" but at least you won't have to put up with orange filters or a slo-mo march towards the camera.

     Since talk of interceptors is where we came in -

A Word Of Warning

For the past couple of days we've been looking at not-quite-mad-scientist Mark Rober and his boyish enthusiasm in constructing gadgets that will cheat arcade games.  He also gave guidance on how to best play these games if you don't have a degree in mechanical engineering and years of experience at NASA.

     Then there are the games that involve no skill at all and which are rigged by the arcade.  Art!

     This is 'Cyclone' where you have to try and hit a jackpot light, which is merely one in big circle of lights that flash in sequence.  Mark had tested this previously with a backpack button pushing robot designed to hit the jackpot light with clinical precision.  Which still failed.

     This is because - Art!

     'Jackpot Winnability' - in other words the arcade set how many failed attempts occur before the game allows a winner.  Trust Mark to be thorough and obtain a manual for this machine.  OBVIOUS SCAM!

     We'll come back to this because you need to know where you're being scammed.

That Dog Buns! Crossword Again

I know I sound seething with rancour, which is utter cant as it's been generating blog content for at least a week.  Let's have another of Ol' Dot Sayers far too literary 'clues'.  "Grew long ago by river's edge; Where grows today the common sedge."

     And the solution?  "SEG"

     Have you ever heard of a plant called "SEG"?  Because I haven't.  It's not in my Collins Concise, and when Googled, all that comes up is a factory.  Art!

     I dunno.  Maybe you had to be there in 1928 to make sense of it.

"The Sea Of Sand"

We now take leave of absence from Albert and the Professor and jump merely in space to much further west.

Major Brendrecke swilled down another cup of coffee, laced with cognac.  His eyes were tired, his back was tired, his calves were tired and his mind felt very tired, too.  He had worn down a pencil making notations, marking the small-scale maps, drawing in lines for the prospective advance of the Afrika Korps, consulting and drawing up march tables, orders of battle, petrol and diesel consumption rates, ammunition scales, spare part inventories, way points, supply dumps and so on.  

     "Enough," he said to his equally tired assistant, the lanky Swabian captain, Hertz.  Their NCOs had long gone to bed.

     "Agreed, sir," said Hertz.  He spoke fluent Italian, which was why he was here in Tripoli instead of manning that border post at the Brenner Pass.  "The General can make big sweeps over a map with his hand, but it's up to us to to make them work."

     Brendrecke sighed.  True enough!  They had to work out how to get the Fifth Light Division and the Fifteenth Panzer Division to El Aghelia, alongside their 'gallant Italian allies'.  Together with ammunition, spare parts, fuel, water, radio interception units, Luftwaffe liaison, artillery, more water, breakdown and recovery units, a field bakery - the list was endless.

     The life of a staff officer: unglamourous yet vital.

"The War Illustrated"

I thought we'd have a photograph that illustrates how aircraft on an aircraft carrier operate, and a bit of routine submarine logistics.  Art!

     A top you can see Swordfish reconnaissance aircraft being brought up from the below-decks hangar which is where they were stored before being needed.  Exposure to the elements on deck meant they were kept below whenever possible.  You can see how aircraft on a carrier were modified to have their wings folded, enabling efficient storage.  Below that is a submarine being 'bombed up' as the phrase went.  For smaller targets or targets ashore, the submarine would surface and use it's 4" gun to engage, since a shell is a whole lot less expensive than a torpedo.

     Notice the absences: the caption doesn't mention the name of either vessel, nor what the date was, nor where the photographs were taken.  OpSec in action.

Finally -

Nearly time for lunch and Conrad is wondering what to have, because yes, I have that stew to consume, and there's at least enough left for four people, but a little variety would be nice.  One supposes that's what happens when you make enough for eight people.  Plus I can't leave it too long or it goes mouldy.  Eat some freeze some I think.

     Pip pip!