Links - week ending August 19th

Sorry for the lack of original content. Work has been a beast over the last couple of weeks. This is all Milstuff.....

- Return of the Spaceplane (Wired)

- Laser Weapon power level mystery solved (Wired)

- ASAT - What did the Chinese stir up (Military.com)

- A Day in the life of a X-47 (Defense Tech)

- Return of the Battleship (Ares @ AviationWeek)

Links - week ending August 12th

More articles that I have kept open in my browser for the last week - to read when I need a break from the monotony of work;

- Ride along w/ Wired magazine on the first Virgin America flights (and see how Geeky air travel has become)

- How to (physically) hack a high security lock

- FAA puts new ground surveillance radar goes into service early at O'Hare

- Hypersonic's - getting closer than many believe

- Rising age of US military aircraft attracting attention (due to maintainability)

Is the Future of flight taking shape today?

With only a little bit of fanfare - the one possible future of (manned) flight - took to the air last week in the California desert. The X-48B - Blended Wing Body (BWB) took to the air from Edwards Air Force base for a 30 minute test flight.

This 8.5% scale model - based on a design from Boeing's Phantom Works. The wing is blended into the fuselage - so it has some aspects of a flying wing - but without the sacrificing payload/range for stealth.

[And - no - they didn't train mice to fly the scale test model. It was fully radio controlled from the ground. Yes - they do make jet engines that small - I have seen them on amateur radio control planes. I have to dig up the pictures from a trip the Tucson R/C Jet Rally from Feb 2004. But trust me - its a jet. All you have to do is remember the Predator/Reapers that are flown over Irag and AFG - are being controlled from CONUS - and flying something like this from the side of the runway - is child's play.]

Boeing has been looking at this design for several years. At first as a high volume passenger jet - which met a luke warm/cold reception (due to the need for airports to reconfigure to handle the different shape - as well as the fact that only a small percentage of the passenger's would have windows).

But the design attracted interest from the US DOD - whose requirements for windows - doesn't rank very high up in the design criteria. Think about it. I could see 3 different uses for this airframe;

- tanker - jet fuel doesn't care if can see out a window or not
- cargo - ditto about cargo/troops
- stand-off weapons carrier - maybe 4-6 internal rotary launchers

Just like a flying wing - the whole body is part of the airfoil. Providing what I would guess is great lift - and combine that with 3 modern turbo fans (like on the new Dreamliner) - this thing probably gets great fuel economy. Leading to either a seriously long range - or a long loiter capacity.

(I will have to admit - that this thing must be day glow on a look down radar)

It will probably start life as either the tanker or the cargo plane - but don't be surprised if the Air Force requirement for a Long Range Strike aircraft takes a serious look at the X-48B.

For more information - take a look at the following stories;
- Boeing's press release (pictures)
- AP Story posted to CNN/Money
- Wired News (pictures)
- Murdoc Online (pictures)

[UPDATE - September 16th - It looks like other people are thinking the same thing about the BWB being something that the DOD is interested in. Over on Defense Tech - http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003724.html]

[UPDATE - December 12th - here is a link to some more pictures of both the flying prototype and the model in the wind tunnel. Over at CNET - http://www.news.com/2300-11397_3-6207999-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg]

[UPDATE - December 20th - here is a link to a brief article in Popular Science - to see what a MIT/Cambridge designed BWB Passenger aircraft would look like - from Feb 2007 - http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/6d915d1eb5370110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html]

It's too late?

Well, it might be too late for any peaceful options to deal w/ Iran's peaceful (wink wink nudge nudge) nuclear program.

If not too late - then the clock is definitely ticking.

News reports out today - show new digging in a MOUNTAIN site - outside of the Natanz facility.

Digging that wasn't there six months ago.

But enough of my intro - here are the links (2nd includes the unclassified overhead that the media is using);

- Washington Post
- Arms Control Wonk

Links - week ending June 1st

Some of the links that caught my eye last week - that might be worth looking at;

- Canadian Dollar approaching parity w/ US Dollar

- Russian Nuclear Waste dumping a 'ticking bomb'

- Early picture of Prototype UCAV-N

- New memory card standard (up to 2 TB in size)

- Boeing - to snap or not to snap

- Iraq - troops saving Hanoi Jane her seat

(I have time on my hands today working on stuff - I am sitting in a jury room downtown, waiting to be called. It is either this - or let my brain explode watching Jim Carrey in 'Fun with Dick and Jane').

Is our currency changing?

[I never know the right way to title these things. I almost want to title the post w/ the premise, and then you are scratching your head trying to figure out what I am talking about - for a couple of screen's worth. But then it would be like 'Connections' in trying to figure out how what I am talking about relates to the Title].

Back in February, the latest attempt by the US Mint to release a Dollar coin - and get it accepted and used - started.

And in the space of a couple of weeks - it has had some major Quality Control issues.

What with some calling them the 'godless coin' because the phrase 'In God We Trust' is missing from the edge of these coins (that wasn't the only thing missing - so was the mint mark (that denotes the coin was struck in either Philly or Denver)).

And then there are the ones that apparently came out of Denver - missing anything on the front or back of the coin. But they got the edge info (the above missing 'In God We Trust' and the mint mark - hence knowing that they came out of Denver).

Why is the Mint fascinated by a Dollar coin? Well - based on the amount of money that the Mint has made on the State Quarters - they decided to take the next step. Make money? Yes - because the Mint is ahead of the game when people get these Quarters (and these Dollar coins), and just put them in piggy banks or coin albums. That money is affectively out of circulation. There is a term for it - but I just can't remember and/or find it at this point.

And there is always the debate that coins last longer than bills, but depending on the cost of metals - this isn't always true. The current surge in nickel (the raw material) prices actually means that the nickel's face value is less than the metals that are making it up (Remember - defacing - or melting US coins down - is still a crime).

I think the Mint needs to come up w/ a fancy slogan or term for the Dollar Coin. Because when everyone thinks of a Dollar - they think of a greenback (which is one of the few US bills that is still mostly green). The Canadian's were quite successful - I think it was unintended - by naming their 'dollar' coin the 'Looney' - based on the bird on the coin. And then they came out w/ a 2 'dollar' coin - which was termed a 'Tooney' (at least by my Canadian relatives - on my wife's side).

So what should we call this new US Dollar coin? How about the 'Geep'? Yeah - for 'Gold President'? Or should we give in to the call of our childhood, and call them Gold Pieces.... because the people in power now - are those of same people that enjoyed D&D when they were kids.

Undiscovered Soviet space programs - the N-1

Ok - maybe 'undiscovered' is mis-leading. Since I haven't personally dug up these stories, just have come across them recently. But I got you to read - right? Stay - it is worth it.

Back in January - I took family down to Tucson area to see the Pima Air and Space Museum and the Titan Missile museum. If you haven't figured it out already - I am a bit of a aircraft & defense issue nut. Just a nut - not a freak. I have a life otherwise.

While we were waiting for our tour, I was browsing the books at the Gift Shop - and ran across what I thought was going to be a cheesy little guidebook to the Russian (former Soviet) space program. It is titled Russian Spacecraft by Robert Godwin. Initially it didn't look like much - especially with only 96 pages - but the author did a good job of putting in the important facts. Like;

• Russian boosters were fueled w/ Kerosene & Liquid Oxygen (LOX) - instead of the US preference to Liquid Hydrogen (LH2) and LOX. And this dictated a lot of the design issues (not having the extra oomph of the cryo-fuel)
  
• Early Cosmonauts were ejected from their capsule on re-entry and parachuted to the ground themselves (because the parachutes on the capsule wouldn't slow it down enough)
  
• The Booster/launcher used to launch Soyuz and Progress capsules to the International Space Station today - is an modification of the early R-7 ICBM - which was used to put Yuri Gagarin into orbit.
  

But there were other things in this book - that immediately caught my eye (and finally swayed me to purchase to bring home to read). Like;

• The Russian Space program was truly mired in bureaucracy. The 'Designers' (like the great Korolev) fought harder among themselves for funding of their dreams/proposals at times harder than against the US Space program.
  
• the famed N-1 super-booster - did actually leave the launch pad an astounding four times. But due to the funding issues - it was never successful (zero for 4). More on that later.
  
• A 'Polythem' orbit anti-satelite weapons platform
  

I think the N-1 was held in almost mythical proportions by the US during the race to space - at least publicly. I don't ever remember seeing pictures of it, and was amazed when I first read that a not so secret US Intelligence agency, had a scale model of the N-1 launch complex in their on-site Museum.

Once Glasnost struck - then info started pouring out. Even the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC put a model of an N-1 on display (it was built by a model builder who donated it to the Museum to go next to a Saturn V in the same scale).

Speaking of the NASM - this is a picture of a Russian Vega probe that was given to the museum - and is now on display in the 'Space Hall' the Udvar-Hazy Center out at Dulles, VA.





Ok - back to the N-1. So before this little Pocket Guide, I (and my brother - the aspiring Aerospace Engineer - don't laugh - he graduates this Spring - and has real job offers already) thought that the N-1 never made it off the pad. And that's what hooked me about this book - because it had a picture of a night shot of the N-1 clearing the pad.

Now - it was never successfully flown - and the longest flight listed was just over a minute. But it was fresh info.

[You have to realize - that when I realized in college, that while I could run a computer just fine, I just didn't have the mindset to program one. So in an attempt to complete any degree and join the military - I switched to History. And one of the classes I had to take - was how to research. And my paper was going to be how to research the Soviet space program. Ala James Oberg (a former NASA engineer - who has become one of the foremost Space Experts). I think I got a 'B' on the paper - because I neglected one small fact. I don't read, speak or understand Russian. The prof said it wouldn't stop the research, just make it much more difficult!]

Ok - this one has been dragging on long enough. If you want more info on the N-1, may I suggest these two sites;

- Wiki and
- My Space Museum

Maybe when I rediscover my motivation for this post - I will write up the Polythem.