Kind Of
As you ought to be aware, Your Humble Scribe is in the process of watching "For All Mankind", an alternate history that diverges from our reality as of about 1966, when Sergei Korolev in their reality does not die, and the Sinister Union steals a march on the complacent South Canadians. This spurs President Nixon to chivvy NASA into catching up with, and preferably overtaking, the Sinisters. Art!
Yes, that is indeed an M16 rifle
In Episodes 4 & 5 of Season One, the race is on to see if there are, in reality, any of the deposits of ice in lunar craters that have been hypothesised. The theory goes that these craters are at such a location that most of them are completely in shadow, and shadows that have not been breached for billions of years, so if there is any accumulated ice down there, it will still be there.
No silly puns about that musician, or his songs. He runs a highly profitable and well-regarded construction business now, just to be clear.
ANYWAY if there is ice, it can be melted and filtered to provide water. This is critically important because: 1) The astronauts on lunar missions can drink it, meaning they have to carry far less of it out of Earth's gravity well and can thus either cut back on weight or substitute something else; 2) Water, being H₂O, can be electrolytically split into hydrogen and oxygen; 3) Hydrogen can be used as a fuel 4) Suitably balanced with inert nitrogen, the astronauts can breathe the oxygen, again meaning less to carry. Art!
'Jamestown', for your information lest you not be South Canadian, was one of the colonies on the East Coast of <wince> America. As the legend informs, this is the first South Canadian Moonbase, established near Shackleton Crater where the ice deposits were located.
'Where is the arty predictiveness, O bleached of hair?' I hear you quibble. Pausing only to point out that time alone has bleached my thatch, I shall explicate. Art!
 |
| The shadow is from the Mission Controller NOT ME! |
 |
| Ignore the reflection! Ignore the reflection! |
Apologies for the lack of sharp detail here, it's a tricky shot to get because it's less than a second long. Gene, the Mission Controller, informs the attending astronauts that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory boffins noticed cylindrical components among debris at the crash site. The implication is that the Sinisters intend to set up a Moonbase of their own and were ferrying in modular construction components for same. Art!
This is the Sinister's 'Proton' lander, which could only accommodate a single cosmonaut. Gee, that would have given them a considerable workload, wouldn't it? The design was only really capable of putting a cosmonaut onto the Moon and setting up the Soviet flag, so trying to use one to construct a Moonbase was a tad ambitious.
Now, you will of course - obviously! - have heard all about the Ruffian Lunar-25 unmanned moon mission, that was supposed to land near the lunar south pole with a brief to try and locate ice in the craters. This it has failed to do, thanks to hitting the lunar surface and coming apart at the seams. Conrad is willing to bet the head of Roskosmos is arrested for treason next week and the week after that will be sitting in a cell. Art!
As was supposed to be
Because this is so embarrassing, the Ruffian news agencies have given it little air-time; 26 seconds on one broadcast, which, given the total budget, amounts to $7.5 million per second. Or $200 million down the drain, if you want to be prosaic. Ouch.
Bitey Bitey Fighty Fighty
Only if you trespass or threaten their owner, that is to say. Old farts like Your Humble Scribe are aware that the dog breed of 'Alsatian' used to be a thing (after they dropped the 'Wolf-dog' bit of the name).
Alsatian
Nowadays they are known as German Shepherds, because they originated in Germany and were sheepdogs.
Why the name change? Art!
After the First Unpleasantness, anything with 'German' in the title was looked at as if it were offensively malodourous. Since France had regained her annexed territory of Alsace, it was held that this was a splendid substitute. Hence the Alsatian. This alternative title was only revoked by This Sceptred Isle's Kennel Club in 1977. Art!
German Shepherd
It Augurs Well
Conrad was recently struck by the similarity of the word 'Auger' and 'Augury', the first being a variety of hand-cranked drill-bit, and the second being predictions of the future by poking around in the entrails of goats. Art!
The drill-bit is derived from Old English, 'A Nauger', meaning the spoke of a wheel, whilst the goaty-bits are from <hack spit> Latin, 'Augere', meaning 'To increase', which doesn't make much sense to me, either.
"City In The Sky"
The intrepid time-travellers have arrived in Arcology One's medium future, to a curious rather than suspicious reception.
Their escorts were two Wardens, who asked excited questions about who
they were, really, and were they, really, the same mystery visitors who’d
arrived here all that time ago, and had they been to the future –
‘Ah! “
‘It’s multi-disciplinary,’ said one Warden, a bit huffily. ‘They don’t live here without working. Emilia Branson is a vet, and her brother is a
botanist. Christos Abramovitch works
with the optics people – the opticians and the astronomers.’
‘Then you must be a Barclay,’
guessed the Doctor, accurately. The
Warden, a pale-featured young man with a faint moustache, stopped talking in
surprise.
‘How did you know?’ he asked. Ace
sniggered in amusement and tapped the side of her nose.
‘Never mind that – Mizz, and Merr.
This is Doctor Haritanian’s residence,’ said the other Warden, indicating
a single accomodation block. They
departed, and both began to argue in earshot whether the Charter would need to
be amended again.
An attempt had been made to decorate the unit’s exterior with purple, a long time ago, and the paint had faded to a dull pink. The usual curtain of fabric, dyed with that same faded purple, swung over the doorway. A sunflower in a pot sat in a window.
It beats being marched at gunpoint to a leader.
How Did This Escape My Attention?
If you have wit enough to manage to keep breathing, then you know that "Babylon 5" is one of the finest sci-fi shows ever to grace the small screen. It had an impressive story arc that spanned years in real and series-elapsed time, and was the cold, hard, realistic alternative to Starry Trex's dull and bland future where Hom. Sap. rises an rtt tro'-
Sorry! I dozed off!
ANYWAY Conrad discovered recently that there is an animated B5 film on the horizon, about Commander Sheridan coming unstuck in time and zipping through different realities - Art!
I know no more than you do, if you've seen the trailer. Be assured, we will come back to this. O yes indeed.
Finally -
I have brewed up another Beef And Potato Stew, except this time I didn't overdo it with the Icelandic Liquorice Salt and have to add in lemon and lime juice to balance it out. Doubtless there'll be a photo in the future for those who cannot wait to see evidence of an old man being able to cook.
No comments:
Post a Comment