The Problem With Trendy Science

Yesterday I did my best at trying to explain the concept I call “Trendy Science” – that is, the idea of proposals which sound amazing and pick up interest from the media and the populace, but when examined in detail the proposal just doesn’t hold up. Rather than researching something and figuring out practical applications …
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NASA Saturn S-IV-5 Rocket Testing & Launch – 1964 NASA Informational Film

Here we have a film from the earlier days of Apollo. More correctly, early 1964, after Mercury but before Gemini, we had this historic test of a Saturn 1 vehicle with the first live upper stage. To put this in perspective, when this rocket system, SA-105, was launched and successfully orbited, the S-IV upper stage …
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What Is “Trendy Science”?

The news right now is filled with reports of different companies, in all kinds of fields, announcing new technical marvels that will change the way we live! Hyperloops, Solar Roadways, self filling water bottles and more get thrown in our faces in much the same way that the next big weight loss cure is pushed …
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A Blogging Backlog

Anyone who attempt at least some kind of regular content creation has certainly run into the issue of simply having too much to publish, and running into a backlog. Hell, I’ve had to just abandon some planned posts thanks to them running so far behind that I just never bothered to actually write and publish …
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Elon Musk Says The SpaceX Falcon Heavy May Fail On Its First Flight

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy is a rocked system designed along the same lines as the Falcon 9 booster – in effect, 3 Falcon 9 1st stages strapped together. Of course in practice it’s much more complex than that, but that helps you visualize the idea of the booster – 3 times the initial power to …
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The SpaceX Dragon V2 Crew Vehicle To No Longer Use Propulsive Landing

File this one under “things not going as planned”, SpaceX announced at a recent conference that the planned Crewed Dragon vehicle (also known as Dragon V2) which will be used for SpaceX launched manned missions to the International Space Station and also as part of their planned Mars missions will no longer use propulsive landings …
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Neil Armstrong Narrates The Apollo 11 Moon Landing

This footage, taken from the interview shared in the previous article, is a combination of modern Lunar imagery of the Apollo 11 landing site matched up with the footage from the camera onboard the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. I had previously found the combined videos, but I had not seen until yesterday this version with …
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A 2011 Interview With Neil Armstrong

UPDATE: I’m aware the video is no longer available. I will be looking for an alternateive source. If I do not find one, this article will stay in this state until such a time as I do. 48 Years ago today, on July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon as …
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Project Apollo Guidance and Navigation – 1968 NASA Apollo Digest

This film is a quick, 6 minute look at the navigation and guidance systems of the Apollo spacecraft. Something I noticed is that the film is dated to 1966, but uses footage from what is clearly the Apollo 6 mission, an unmanned Saturn V launch in April of 1968 – my best guess is this …
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An American Rocket Using Russian Rocket Engines – What’s It Matter?

Let’s deviate away from SpaceX for a moment – let’s talk about United Launch Alliance. United Launch Alliance, or ULA, is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. Lockheed and Boeing have been involved in rocketry since the the 1950’s, having combined between them over a century of …
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One Alternative To Photobucket – Postimage.org

Nearly a month after Photobucket somewhat wrecked a pretty substantial chunk of the internet by locking hotlinking of images behind a very pricey paywall, users are still searching for alternatives, both common ones you would think of, and obscure ones that may be more fitting of niche uses. I, for one, am going to give postimage.org …
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The Lead Role In Doctor Who Being Played By A Woman?

News circled around the internet pretty quickly yesterday when the BBC announced that the next person to play the titular character of “The Doctor” on the long-running science fiction series “Doctor Who” is *gasp* a woman! In this case, the woman in question is Jodie Whittaker, an actress who, thanks to my lack of caring …
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Apparently, People Are Actually Paying For The Top Tier Photobucket Account

In an amazing example of what amounts to a successful hostage situation (that is, successful for the hostage taker) it would seem over the past few weeks since Photobucket Screwed Over The Blogging Community  that people have actually been paying $399 for the account plan that allows hotlinking. …Are you fucking serious? I can only …
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48 Years Ago: The Launch Of Apollo 11

July 16th, 1969, the day 48 years ago that a Saturn V rocket launched carrying Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin into Earth orbit, and then beyond it towards the first attempted landing on the Moon. That landing of course would be successful on July 20th, 1969. Give that it’s a Sunday and an …
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B-52 Flying Without A Tail Fin – 1964 USAF Film

This film just got uploaded to YouTube by regular historic footage source Jeff Quitney, and what a film it is! A very to-the-point 10 minute or so film about a B-52 Stratofortress which lost it’s fail fin during a test flight over Colorado! Now, under most circumstances, an aircraft without a tail fin would lose …
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