Yesterday evening, from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, an Ariane 5 rocket successfully launched 2 large communications satellites into orbit, one for Brazil and another for South Korea. Ariane 5 is the European Space Agencies heavy booster, using 2 solid rocket motors for the bulk of liftoff thrust, and a core engine burning Hydrogen […]
One particular type of scam that’s rather common are ones involving your utilities, mainly electricity, where they claim you owe a large amount on the bill and you have to pay now. Thing is, you can’t pay with your bank card, they only take cash at an undisclosed location or, to make things simpler, you […]
Double Dragon may be a good NES game, but Double Dragon 3: The Sacred Stones is not so much, and that’s what the Nerd is taking a look at in this episode.
I’ve made a pretty big mistake in my article yesterday about the Falcon 9 launch of NROL-76. This is the fact that they used high-end cameras and telescope systems to track the booster for it’s entire flight and return to land. https://www.xadara.com/nrol-76-successfully-flies-on-a-falcon-9-rocket/ Seriously, re-watch the footage: aside from a few sections to show the on-booster […]
After a day long delay, the classified U.S. Military payload known as NROL-76 was launched this morning, not on a Delta IV or an Atlas V booster, but on a SpaceX Falcon 9! It’s an incredibly standard launch from LC-39A, but being a military payload, the livestream of the event focused on liftoff and the […]
A few days ago Nintendo put out information on another handheld coming to the market – this time, an updated version of the 2DS hardware from a few years ago, named (get ready for it): The “new” Nintendo 2DS XL. This naming scheme follows the terrible naming trends Nintendo has been known for for the […]
45 years ago this past month, from April 16th to April 27th of 1972, the Apollo 16 mission went to, and returned from, the Moon on our 5th successful lunar landing mission. This film goes over the mission in detail, going over key points of the mission and the unique events that happened during the […]
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 […]
As I mentioned in the previous articles about the Cygnus CRS-7 launch, this launch was one of the recent ones recorded using 360 degree cameras. One of the few “trendy” things I actually like, these allow you a somewhat “like you’re really there” experience without requiring expensive virtual reality gear, and without ruining the video […]
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 […]