No! Nothing To Do With Eggs
Everything to do with the Sun. You may recall - I certainly hope so - that of late I have been banging on about various missiles that came of age in time to be considered in the contents of "On Thermonuclear War" by old Herman Kahn, where he explicitly mentions Polaris and Minuteman. The MRBMs and ICBMs that constituted the South Canadian thermonuclear arsenal at the time were quite successfully turned into 'launch vehicles' for the Project Mercury and Project Gemini astronauts. Then came Apollo. Art!
To Taze or not to Taze?
O go on then. This is, indeed, 'Apollo', a superhero who derives his powers from the sun, and whom turned up in "Stormwatch" before becoming the "Authority"'s 'big gun'. He is essentially a Superman analogue, with the ability to fly, shoot heat beams from his eyes and is extremely durable, though not indestructible. I recall one story where the team has him charge-up by flying in orbit around the Sun for hours. I have to say I don't think he'd do very well here in Perfidious Albion thanks to our persistent cloud cover.
The Authority being - er - authority-ish
Now, Art, can you herd the dancing horses off into a corner and come up with an appropriate illustration for Project Apollo? and yes, that quiet humming sound is a nuclear-powered Tazer charging-up (solar power simply won't cut it here). Just in case.
The thing here was, that to get to the Moon AND BACK a brand-new launch vehicle was required, re-jigging a Minuteman or Polaris or another Titan was completely out of the question as their abilities to loft sufficient payload into orbit were insufficient. This meant a bespoke super-heavy lift vehicle, able to put a third-stage-plus payload into a Low Earth Orbit, where that payload was 117 tons. As you can tell from the maths, well beyond the capability of Atlas or Jupiter, neither of whom were of sufficient magnitude to have comic superheroes named after them, an
ANYWAY let us use this conveniently-located set of lazy-tong pincers to get Art's attention again -
This is the third stage of Apollo in Low Earth Orbit, in what you might call the 'travelling' configuration, as there's quite a bit of kit you cannot see here, thanks to it being carried inside the stage. Art!
The Lunar Excursion Module, and the Service Module are hidden, the only visible component being the Command Module. The CSM combination would exit the third stage as it 'petalled', turn through 180º, dock with the LEM and proceed en route to the Moon. Art!
This four-component craft (LEM x 2, SM + CM) weighed 18 tons, and as you can judge from the picture above - no photographs for obvious reasons - was so large it demanded a launch vehicle the size of the Saturn IV. Which, impressively large as it may have been, still didn't merit a superhero comic cha
ANYWAY there you have a comparison of Apollo to Mercury and Gemini, and O! what's this handy cattle prod doing here? Art!
That's the difference between a launch vehicle and a super-heavy launch vehicle, because 2,800 tons will put you on the Moon.
Enough of rocketry and ballistics and Greek mythology!
Pier Runners Part 3
No, we're not done with the entitled sluggards who seem to think a cruise ship will just hang around for them, or even circle round and come back once it's cast off and is heading out of the harbour. Art!
Give the lead person props, they are proper hoofing it.
One anecdote I read mentioned that the captain was willing to wait a short while after the scheduled departure time, but no more than mere minutes. This is because the sea does not play around, nor do tides, which rise and fall, and delaying too long would mean being unable to pass beneath a bridge. Yes, Pier Running Sprinter, you never thought about that, did you? Art!
Another anecdote mentioned that the cruise ship did wait for a party of late party-goers, making it late, which was compounded by the tides. The ship had to steam at a very high rate of knots to make the next harbour in time for it's specified slot - at a cost of £23,000 in extra fuel burned. I wonder if that got passed on?
The Hurdle Of Wordle
Umir mentioned 'Anti-Wordle' on our team call earlier this week, which could not fail to pique the curiosity of Your Humble Scribe (who has been doing quite well with Wordle so far). In this variant you need to fail to get the solution. Art!
Antiwordle #615
4 guesses
⬛⬛⬛🟥⬛
⬛⬛⬛🟥⬛
🟨🟨⬛🟥⬛
🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥
You guess a word at random, and if a letter comes up red, then that's the correct letter in the correct place. Letters in yellow are in the wrong place yet still have to be used. Any greyed-out letters cannot be re-used. It's much harder than you'd think to actively avoid solving the puzzle. Conrad will have another go tomorrow as I have a demon of a word to try out, which I'm not going to tell you about.
"City In The Sky"
We get an explanation about the Adelaide destination.
‘We laugh at rivers!’ added Ace. Alex looked faintly glum at not being able to
see a real river, until Officer Kane explained about the distance involved to
get to the
‘Do we need to worry about the South Australian Police arresting us?’
asked the Doctor, looking ahead as he usually did, and trying to pre-empt
trouble. ‘You know, strangers, dressed
oddly, no papers, arriving mysteriously.’
Kane frowned.
‘We don’t arrest the Wanderers, and they’re completely round the twist –
strange, ragged, can’t even read. Get
arrested? I don’t see what for, unless
you steal. Or pick a fight. People won’t stop asking you questions,
you’re right about that – you stand out.’
He snapped his fingers. ‘I can
get a notice added to the courier post, warning townships that you’re
coming. They won’t stop asking
questions, but they won’t try to arrest you, either.’
The “courier post” turned out to be a mail service that used horses, way
stations and dedicated riders to make deliveries across
A variety of horse express, nicht wahr?
Habla Halma?
HALMA was a crossword solution in the Desk Diary Crossword binder that I've neglected for months and months.
"Halma?" say what, I queried. It's alright, I was on my own in the Sekrit Layr with nobody to worry. "A peg-board game" was the clue, to absolutely no help whatsoever. I know, I know, it sounds like a Middle Eastern dish, probably made with cous-cous and sultanas and saffron. Art!
One has to get one's pieces across the board and into another corner (or 'camp'). You can jump over pieces, and there's no removal of pieces. It seems to have been very much a thing of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and Conrad doesn't feel aggrieved at being completely unfamiliar with it.
Finally -
Off to brew a pot of tea and sort out a pizza. See you!
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