A Crummy Commercial

Spacex had a successful launch of a Starship orbital mission, caught the booster, deployed Starlink satellites in orbit but then splashed down and had an explosion of Starship.  Pretty successful day although it is the 14th launch. source:  https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/09/starships-first-orbital-launch-gives-lift-to-spacexs-next-gen-starlinks/ On a related note: now that Spacex is having the Starship success, they will be ramping down their original Falcon rocket and also the Crew Dragon capsule.  So Boeing will be the only way to launch from the US to the ISS with their Starliner: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/09/boeing-incredibly-excited-to-serve-as-nations-only-astronaut-transportation/ I guess since the ISS will eventually be thrown away, there won't be any need for the astronaut and supply missions.  But I would think that there still is a need for a rocket with the Falcon's capability, for smaller satellites ?   I suspect that eventually St...

This photo is priced above my Ebay pain threshold: Although I did get a 15% discount offer: source:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/185914151164 The listing says circa 1920s but other internet pages fix it at 1911.  By that date Percival Lowell had already fired the public imagination with his drawings of Mars and had published books about Mars per the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Lowell And the War of the Worlds had been published just before the 20th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds I'm not aware of any reason for a surge of interest in Mars during the 1920s - the Orson Welles Halloween telling of that tale on the radio was in 1938. I find it a fascinating picture raising several questions.  What was it like inside ?  Was it just a movie or slide show ?  Where are the customers aka rubes ?   Of course here is the semi-obligatory inflated price (it won't go below 1913): I guess it depends on the show as to whethe...

not quite Bonestell quality from the US Army I mentioned the 1961 article by Arthur C. Clarke: The Uses Of The Moon  before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/04/bonestell.html Here's the article: https://archive.org/details/sim_harpers-magazine_1961-12_223_1339/page/56/mode/2up But not sure if old Art knew about Project Horizon before writing the article.  He did mention that the military uses of the Moon were probably not that worthwhile - the  Project Horizon document seems to lay out winning a competition with the Russians as the main reason: Curious Droid published this video on Project Horizon:    source:  source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4t59a3y-Ww I thought the Curious Droid video was quite interesting, however others HATED the AI usage !  Now that I look at the artwork it kinda looks a little like those Chesley Bonestell paintings from the 1950s !  So I guess I'm kinda ambivalent about the AI usage.  Curious Droid is prob...

I didn't know about this: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41U78QP8nBk But of course Arthur C. Clarke knew: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8N72t7aScY 1968 was 58 years ago and about the only thing we've accomplished above and beyond  2001: a space odyssey is that computers now can sing Daisy better: https://soundcloud.com/midnightalchemist7/daisy-bell-ai-evolution Or maybe (depending on your opinion) not even that ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

OOPS ! source:      https://x.com/NASASpaceflight/status/2060164928472854821 the Ars Technica article: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket-just-exploded-during-a-static-fire-test/ The New Glenn rocket uses methane and oxygen - methane is dangerous stuff.  I remember watching a NOVA program in one of the early seasons about hydrogen.  The show mentioned this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_East_Ohio_Gas_explosion Natural gas (mostly methane) is clear/odorless/heavy so it can creep along the ground and mix with oxygen to form an explosive mixture that just needs an ignition source.  This is at least partially why those open flames are seen in oil fields.  If the methane can't be captured it must be burned or eventually everything goes blooey.  Every heating season there are news stories about houses blowing up or burning - usually the family is away and natural gas is the cause.  Methane is dangerous !...

Mentioned the 1931 Nautilus arctic expedition a couple days ago: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/05/nautilus-radiogram.html Then I came across this term which also referenced 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea ?  Point Nemo https://allthatsinteresting.com/point-nemo Apparently there is a lot of space debris at the bottom of the Pacific at Point Nemo.  It's a relatively safe place to direct space junk because it is so remote.  But the Pacific is really deep at Point Nemo: This reminded me of an old time radio show called: Latitude Zero    Here is a brief article in Time Magazine , June 22, 1941: https://time.com/archive/6788665/radio-latitude-zero/ Unfortunately there is only one episode available in mp3: https://s3.amazonaws.com/RE-Warehouse/l/latitude_zero_1941-02-11_first_show.mp3 It was an unsponsored "summer replacement" - that was the summer before the attack on Pearl Harbor - this probably meant that a lot of the people working on the show, including Howard Du...

It was good to hear that the Artemis II mission astronauts splashed down safely after a successful mission.  I have to admit that I didn't follow it quite like I did with the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. . . . . . People may not realize what the year 1968 was like.  It started bad, at least for the United States.  The North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo.  Then the Tet offensive in Vietnam exploded - it was eventually crushed but the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese mounted a countrywide battle that took me by surprise and I imagine many others.  There had been lots of somewhat optimistic reports about the war over the years so even though the offensive wasn't a military victory it was a publicity triumph for the "bad guys".  It helped change both the war and the US elections.   LBJ decided not to run for another term as President. The next big thing were the assassinations, starting with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis.  That touched ...

I remember seeing this one a while back: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wqVhuAWyxc But this one is new to me: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbOCkhhTs2w I assume they are both part of the Russian tradition of sad art ?  I shudder to think what the Russian version of Snow White would be like ! And of course the Carl Sagan television program: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3fXtsHNJdA BTW, COS/MOS is what RCA called their CMOS logic IC products: I used to use the subsequent versions of that book a LOT at GTE. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

Heinlein felt that July 20, 1969 would be a very important date in history, the start of Man as a space faring species, not just an expensive stunt to beat the Russians I saw this video pop up on my feed and with all the spacey stuff recently on this blog I felt I had to watch it again: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxiCIX6rp2Y the video title => " Destination Moon (1950) is Way Better Than I Expected "  is the very definition of faint praise. :) The "George Pal-ian" special effects were fun (I'm still not sure how they distorted their faces on takeoff), the movie tried to make the trip as accurate as old Heinlein could imagine.  The 4 astronauts even have visible beards at the end of the movie :)  The matte paintings and backgrounds were very "Bonestell-ian": https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/04/bonestell.html One thing they got right:  the photographs on Apollo 11 were taken with a reflex camera, a Hasselblad (SLR) - in the movie they ha...

The Blue Origin big rocket was able to land the first stage on a ship on the second flight: source:  https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/11/blue-origin-caps-second-heavy-lift-launch-with-first-offshore-landing/ I was looking at a video of the landing, either my internet is chopping up the video or Blue Origin's video was choppy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2NlWjNWvXo But then Youtube served a link to this video on the side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXUuExL8Cac Amazing !  A jet powered glider !  With a guy on top !   I wonder if this is what it's like to be a bird (with a lot of self control :).  It doesn't look super safe but it does look like fun.  Sorta like those flying videos that Peter Sripol used to do, mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/01/ricky-nelson-died-in-plane-crash-on-new.html Small aviation is DANGEROUS !  BTW, "be careful" translates to "Ki o tsukete" in Japanese (heard this many times as a kid, it never ...

Attitude Control (I get it) I completely forgot about NOVA last night: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAKnhanjXVI The second NOVA  program on the ISS had two interesting survival episodes.  The first was where an EVA astronaut's helmet starting filling with water from a leak in the cooling system of his suit.  They finally got him inside OK.  The suit helmet now has absorbent pads and an emergency snorkel (!) to guard against a water leak.  They mentioned that his suit had a CO2 alarm go off but they didn't mention (that I noticed) whether that alarm was related to the water in the helmet. The second survival episode shown was when a Russian science module was docked to the ISS - it then began firing it's thrusters and causing all kinds of problems.  The Russians never really quite figured out how to stop the thruster firing, the Russian module eventually ran out of fuel for the thrusters !  That's like the Bugs Bunny WWII cartoon where...

I have found it !  I finally came across this box today while putting away the fan (the island has cooled off): The box was cleverly hidden in a small Rubbermaid tote with old Nikon cameras and lenses which I had also forgotten about.  I have been looking for this silly box for a couple of years !  see: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/11/andromeda.html Here is the Telescoper  right angle eyepiece: Here it is mounted on the old 500 mm mirror lens: It transforms a Nikon F mount lens into a telescope or monocular.  I suspect the results may be disappointing but at least it wasn't thrown out !  Now to find the other umpty-ump things I have misplaced !  This makes me so happy :) Update: I looked on Ebay and found this:  Unfortunately this is the best quality photo I found from that listing :(  But it was from Porter's Camera in Iowa and cost less than $10 (looks like $8.99).   Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

I love this video: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep9PQEb5-7U Made by these folks: Even the music is weirdly appropriate for the night :) I love how they shout out the important places: And near the start the lightning strikes remind me of the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium, all the flashbulbs popping in the grandstands, amazing ! I betcha those snapshots are all in picture albums somewhere :)  You can see the pink light in the middle of this: It's from a flash bulb. source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzF1hTWpUWE I suppose it gets boring for the astronauts, especially since it's a much slower transition in real time but still it must be cool to see.  Semi-obligatory ham / Field Day content: I do remember seeing a spacecraft passing by on a Field Day evening but it must have been Skylab because the ISS wasn't a thing until 1998 - Skylab was more of a 1970s thing. Here is a closeup of the Door peninsula with the island at the top of the thumb and Green Bay dow...