Month: February 2017

CRS-10 Launch Scrubbed Due To Thrust Vector Control Issues – What That Means

Todays launch of the Falcon 9 carrying the Dragon spacecraft for the CRS-10 mission was scrubbed until tomorrow, February 19th. The reason? An issue with Thrust Vector Control (VTC for short) on the 2nd stage.  Reports are early, so I don’t have details, but this seems to have been the key issue for the scrub, […]

SpaceX CRS-10 – The First Launch From LC-39 In 5 Years

Saturday, February 18th, 2017, will mark the first launch in 5 years from Kennedy Space Center LC-39. Pad 39A last saw usage for the final launch of the Space Shuttle Program, STS-135, in 2011, and since then has been only slightly modified from its shuttle configuration to accommodate the future SpaceX Commercial Crew Missions to […]

Tortoise vs Hare Live Race – The Results May Surprise You

Now for something completely different and rather amusing, I bring you something quite random I found out about only towards the tail end of it happening: The Facebook page Super Deluxe had a live race between a Tortoise and a Hare, as per the classic story. https://www.facebook.com/superdeluxevideo/videos/417564681921421/ It looks like all the two had to […]

India Launches 104 Satellites In One Record-Breaking Launch

Yesterday, Feburary 15th 2017 (In India, still the 14th here in the States), The Indian Space Research Agency (ISRO) successfully launched 104 satellites using one booster as part of their PSLV-C37 mission. The mission was launched into a polar orbit, with the primary payload being the CartoSat-2D Earth observation satellite. 103 micro-satellites, 3 of which […]

Nuclear Thermal Rockets: Nuclear Propulsion in Space – 1968 NASA / AEC Film

Nuclear Rockets. They still sound futuristic even today. Interestingly enough, they were under active research in the late 50’s and early 60’s as part of the then-planned natural progression of both manned and unmanned space flight. Nuclear rocketry doesn’t operate the way the common man would normally think; it doesn’t ignite its fuel, but instead […]

The Computer Chronicles – Intel 386 – The Fast Lane (1987)

Back in 1987, computer processors were going through somewhat of a major evolution. While software was still stuck in the land of 16-bit, the Intel x86 series processors were reaching 32bit performance. In the case of the Intel 386, there wasn’t even any software for it – the raw speed alone was enough for people […]

Television in the Soviet Union in 1986

Last week I was watching some videos  receiving far-away TV transmission when this video was recommended by YouTube – it’s a 1986 American public access show which covers Soviet state TV recorded over 1985 and 1986 – this includes comedy programs, news (including an early Chernobyl report), game shows,special reports on their space program, and […]

So The NES Classic Edition Got Hacked To Have Virtually The Entire NES Library On It

Well, we all knew this was an inevitbility – A little while ago the NES Classic Edition got hacked, apparently, and the group behind such was able to add in around 60 games, or so I understand. Well, this past week that number grew to, oh, about 700. This basically covers the entire NES library, […]