The Space Shuttle wasn’t just the NASA follow up to Apollo – oh no, it was intended to replace all expendable launch vehicles, both those in use by NASA for civilian payloads and military launches. The specifications of the payload bay and the overall design of the shuttle were driven by military payload requirements, namely […]
Top Gun may be a well loved film, but the same can’t be said about the NES Game.
Early in the morning on April 27th, 1986, the East Coast broadcast feed for the television station HBO was interrupted by a mysterious message, consisting of a standard color test pattern and a somewhat politely worded warning message: GOODEVENING HBO FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT $12.95/MONTH ? NO WAY ! [SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!] It’s quite the complex […]
Last night Cassini made it’s first plunge into the space between Saturn and its rings. Following several hours out of contact with Earth (due to the planet blocking signals), the probe emerged unscathed and provided us closer than ever views of the upper atmosphere of the ringed gas giant! The gap between Saturn and its […]
Here we go, our first look at Call of Duty – WW2, this much awaited return to the series roots in the most pivotal conflict in human history. I’ll sum up my thoughts here: It looks awesome! Now, I’m not one to fall in to all kinds of hype – I know things always look […]
It’s been 31 years since the Chernobyl Disaster, an event, alongside the 2011 Fukushimi Daiichi disaster, that ranks as the worst nuclear disaster in history. Last year, for the 30th anniversary, I covered the disaster in some detail. In the year since then, the Chernobyl remains have since, finally, been covered with a permanent shelter […]
The Soyuz 1 mission, which I discussed in great detail yesterday, flew, amazingly, for just about 24 hours – it was a day after launch that Komarov finally made his landing attempt, which of course as we know ended in disaster, on April 24th. Something I forgot to mention is, had everything gone perfectly with […]
On April 23rd, 1967, the Soviet Union launched the first manned mission of their new Soyuz program. The Soviets had not launched a crew in 2 years, realizing that to get anywhere close to beating the Americans at a race to the moon they would need to produce a new spacecraft that could conduct a […]
A very Star Wars heavy game set for May, the Games With Gold program actually seems to be providing a damned fine set of games this month in comparison with previous months releases, many of which have been average at best. This time around we get 2 Star Wars games, and 2 others, which we […]
So, reports are that the long-standing definitive first person shooter series Call of Duty will be returning to its roots: World War 2. This comes following the abismal reaction to last years release Infinite Warfare which was in the eyes of many Call of Duty players, more like Halo than Call of Duty. Infinite Warfare […]
Yesterday morning an Atlas V rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a mission to resupply the International Space Station. The Cygnus Resupply Vehicle, named the SS John Glenn, is carrying over 3,000 kilograms of cargo to the Space Station as part of Orbital Sciences contract with NASA to provide commercial cargo transportation […]
One thing that all computers do in some form is store data, be it programs we install on them, or data we generate ourselves using these programs. This is, of course, by design – computers are tools to help us do work (or at least, that’s why they are made, whether or not we use […]
45 years ago today, on April 16th, 1972, Apollo 16, the penultimate mission of the Apollo Lunar Program, launched, carrying John Young, Ken Mattingly, and Charles Duke on a mission to land at Descartes Highlands and learn more about the geology of the lunar highlands, a part of the Moons lithograph that had not been […]
Memphis’s primary local newspaper, the Commercial Appeal, will no longer be printed here in Memphis, Tennessee, starting with the April 18th edition. This marks the first time since the Civil War that the paper hasn’t been printed in its home city. This means the end of jobs for 19 people who work at the production […]
I swear I’ve written 3 separate times about this subject, but this really does look to be it – the NES Classic Edition is over and done. That’s it. Game over. This last batch is the end. It’s been reported to IGN, and of course being shared via every gaming news outlet imaginable, that Nintendo […]