Rocketman Spam In A Can

No!  This Is Nothing To Do With Elton John

Although his "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is a classic, so much so that even Conrad has a copy of it.  "Rocketman" might not be on it.  Hang on, we can't let this question hang in the air.  

     Ah, no it isn't.  BUT!  It does feature his melancholy tribute to Marilyn Monroe, so that legitimises another iconic image of the lady.  Art!

Hmmmm neither candle-like nor suffering from wind

     Nor are we talking about that objectionable human imitation of a dumpling, The Only Fat Man In North Korea.  Loathsome little walsprot*.  No, blimp boy, you don't get a picture.  Unless ...   Art!

Korean dumplings

     Okay, the BBC has a story on it's News website about the current NASA project Artemis, which is testing the Orion capsule.

     Let us abruptly jump track and go back to 1966 and 1967, when NASA was getting ready for the Apollo moonshots.  Because the South Canadians are very technically competent and methodical, they weren't just going from the Earth to the Moon as in Jules Verne.  No, they were going to thoroughly examine Ma Moon's surface in detail, which they managed by using a series of Lunar Orbiters.  These ran from 1 to 5, and were tasked with taking extensive photographic records of the lunar surface in order to find smooth landing sites.  Art!

Practical, not pretty

     These robot spacecraft circled the moon hundreds if not thousands of times (I think there's a quote on Public Service Broadcasting's "The Race For Space" that claims ten thousand orbits), gathering other data such as <squints> selenodetic, radiological and micrometeorite impacts.
     After such sterling service their endings were sadly prosaic: they were deliberately de-orbited in order to impact the lunar surface, ensuring that they weren't a navigation hazard for the next Orbiter or the Apollo missions.

     So.  Unmanned spacecraft whizzing about the Moon aren't new.  Next up was Apollo, which saw three un-manned launches: Apollo 4, 5 & 6.  The last of these successfully orbited the Moon and mimicked the same procedures and manoeuvring that the later manned flights would perform.  NASA didn't intend to gamble on bodging it to just get by.  Art!

     Biggest firework ever!

     ANYWAY this brings us to the Artemis project, which is to get Hom. Sap. back on the Moon, because only that way can you we have a sanctuary for when the Zombie Apocalypse occurs.  The Orion capsule is going to orbit Ma Moon and return at the weekend, having tested systems to their safe limit to ensure the moonbound meatbags don't macerate mournfully.  Art!

Orion capsule interior

     No, that's not a person, it's a dummy loaded with sensors to see how a human would cope.  Providing this mission goes without suffering problems, we may well see Hom. Sap. jogging jauntily o'er the lunar regolith in that strange low-gravity lope that astronauts use by 2024.  "For All Mankind" eat your fictional heart out!  Art?

It'll happen.  Sooner or later, but it IS going to happen.

Cheaty McSweety

He'd probably punch Your Humble Scribe if he caught me calling him that.  I refer, of course - obviously!- to Smokehy Yurkin, the legendary NASCAR mechanic who perfectly exemplifies 'Malicious Compliance'.  Smokey was an expert at skating around rules when not bending them to their elastic limit.  Take a manifold, for example.  Art!

     Those four big holes are the engine manifolds, and because these cars are stock ones, you cannot get in there with a power-tool and smooth them out by hand.  No.  Despite the fuel flow being that much smoother if you do; because whilst that might only give you a percentage point of advantage over other drivers, it might very well give you the edge.  Art!

     Ladies and gentlemen, meet a 'Pneumatic Paint Can Shaker'.  Smokey would fit a manifold onto a device such as this, hole side up, then fill it with sand and let loose for an hour or two.  No human hands involved yet the manifolds come out bright, shiny and smooth.

     Salute you, sir!

Lord Peter's Crossword

Thank heavens Ol' Dot only ever did the one Cryptic Crossword, because you need to a cross between a Classical scholar, a theologist, a medieval historian and the Barf of Avon to stand a chance of solving her so-called 'Clues'.  How about this one:  "And so you dine with Borgia?  Let me lend 

          this as a precaution, my poor friend. (6)"

     I'm not going to give you the solution straight away, because I'm horrid**.  Art?

"Bring it on!" says Conrad of the copper stomach

"The Sea Of Sand"

We left off yesteryon with the British HQ back at Mersah Matruh wondering what has gone wrong at their Forward Supply Depot at Mersa Martuba.

Then last night a damaged Wellington bomber passing over the deep desert detected an explosion beyond the depot – around where some bloody daft fools from England were poking around in some Roman ruins.

          And now, no radio communication.

          He sighed and made a telephone call to the RASC section at Thirteen Corps HQ.  Could they send an aircraft to overfly the depot, see what the problem was?  He got an affirmative – their Army Air Liaison section would send down a Lysander to nosey around the depot, and maybe cast a look over the archaeological dig, too.  The Wellington crew were rumoured to have seen more than a simple single explosion but were not willing to talk about it for fear of censure.

          Hopefully the lack of radio contact would be explained away by a faulty radio or flat batteries or broken valves. 

 

Dawn in the wadi broke not long after the sounds of firing from Mersa Martuba died down.  The sun jumped above the horizon, glaring down on the Bedford  and it’s miserable occupants.

          Corporal Mickleborough cocked his head to one side, the better to listen.

          ‘I can hear a vehicle engine.’

          Shared alarm was the common response.  They had no weapons between them, having been disarmed when taken prisoner.

     Oooer Matron!  Well, thinking logically, it can't be the bio-vores, they don't use human machinery.

Another Insidious Time Waster

I could do without another entity taking up my spare time of late, because I don't get home until 19:45 <shakes fist at 10-hour work days>, and then have to get a bit of food down my neck, sort out lunch for the next day, pack my bag, get clothes ready, carry out a scrape-and-scrub, tackle the blog, fill in a timesheet - you get the idea.  Thanks to my browser suddenly becoming one from years ago THIS sits temptingly in my list of Favourites.  Art!

     The idea is that you can only remove pairs of tiles at the edge, and there are four of each variety of tile.  A game may only last ten minutes, yes, BUT I CAN'T STOP AT ONLY ONE GAME.

     Be strong, Conrad, be strong.

Finally -

I may risk alienating a few folks here yet the news is hard to ignore or underestimate.  Unless you've been hiding in a cave or up a pole in the desert of late, you can't fail to have heard that several military airports in the land of the Ruffians have been attacked by Someone, possibly using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.  The Ukrainians have been whistling nonchalantly and not making any comments, the truculent swine.  What has amazed onlookers is the sheer distance involved - well over 500 kilometres.

     The damage inflicted was actually fairly light.  However, it puts the Ruffians on the extremely sharp horns of an horrid dilemma, and it has severe strategic implications for them <rubs hands and cackles>.  Art!

'OpSec' - a foreign concept to the Ruffians

     "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown," wrote the Barb of Avon, and Peter The Average will be having unpleasant dreams tonight.  Heh.

* Conrad not entirely sure what a walsprot is, just that it's not complimentary.

**  Though we knew that already <sniggers horribly>