BellGab.com Archive

Showtime confirmed that Hall would reprise his role of Dexter Morgan in a 10-episode limited series.

Spatter away!

https://deadline.com/2020/10/dexter-showtime-reboot-limited-michael-c-hall-clyde-phillips-1234597514/

peace
Hog

 A company was aid to dispose of concentrated Dioxin tailings that were leftover from the production of some of the Rainbox Agents, of which one of the herbicides was indeed Agent Orange. Herbicides are bad enough, but some of the processes to make the herbicides result in concentrations of 3-5 parts per million, after reductions, the herbicides were brought in under 0.1 ppm.

Somehow, the oily tailings were sprayed onto properties in order to keep the dust down. The contamination also kept horses and birds "down".  Dioxin is just one of those compounds that normal humans cannot interact safely with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri#NEPACCO_chemical_waste_disposal


Any Missourians recall this story?

peace
Hog

I just watched the HBO miniseries Chernobyl.  It was excellent IMO.  I remember the actual events of 1986, but I didnt remember Valery Legasov's suicide 2 years to the minute after the actual explosion of reactor #4 at 01:23:40 hours local April 26, 1986.  He was the guy that spilled the beans in regards to the Soviet state know about and covering up the fact that the Soviet light water cooled, graphite moderated, unenriched Uranium fueled RBMK reactors with their Positive Void co-efficient can experience thermal power excursions once the emergency SCRAM buttons(meant to immediately stop the fission chain reaction-in essence the SCRAM button it the Emergency Stop button for nuclear reactors) that can occur when operating the reactor in low power states.  He wasn't shot in the head, and during the next 2 years he made several audio tapes that were circulated among the Soviet science community.  Eventually the Soviets caved and made alterations to their RBMK reactors making the emergency stop SCRAM buttons safer to use.

The initial explosion was a steam explosion when the SCRAM button was depressed causing a power excursion of over 32,000 megawatts(32,000,000,000 watts) of thermal energy inside a reactor that was designed for 3,200 megawatts of thermal energy(3,200,000,000 watts).  All of the liquid water, liquid H20, was suddenly converted to steam and since the volume of water as it changes state from liquid to gas increases by 1,600 times, there was no where for all this extra volume to go so reactor number 4 blew its 1000 tonne steel lid up and over on its side and blew the roof of the reactor building to smithereens. The core now exposed to the open air explosively caught fire as oxygen swept down into the core.  The resultant graphite fire was billowing two WW-II nuclear bombs worth of radioactive materials into the environment EVERY HOUR.  The total fuel load for a RBMK reactor is 192 tons of 2% Uranium.  Following the Chernobyl incident, the 2% Uranium load was changed to 2.4% enriched Uranium.  There are currently 10 RBMK reactors under operation at this time. 2 New RBMK reactors were built AFTER the Chernobyl incident, one of them being Smolensk-3, the other Ignalina-2.  Ignalina-2 was shutdown in 2009. 
"The automatic reactor shutdown system at Inglina-2 was triggered on June 6, 2009, at 09:15 EEST (06:15 UTC), the automatic reactor protection system was actuated and Unit 2 was shut down No radiation was released. Plant officials decided to keep it off-line for thirty days, performing the annual preventive maintenance in June, instead of August 29â€"September 27 as originally scheduled."

With the core exposed to the atmosphere apparently there was Cherenkov radiation visible in the form of a brilliant blue light that forms when high seed beta particles pass through its immediate environment.

Here is the Cherenkov light in an underwater nuclear reactor named teh Advanced Test Reactor.


and from the Reed Research Reactor


It was crazily dramatic when it was being discussed that the officials in West Germany were keeping their children inside the schools during recess to reduce their exposure to nuclear fallout while at the very same moment, school aged boys are walking through an outdoor basketball court in the city of Pripyat with the burning reactor in the background.

Years ago I remember the story of a guy who went in for a shift at a nuclear powerplant. It was Sweden or Finland or one of those smaller Western countries. At these powerplants, your level of radiation is measured upon you arriving at work AND as you leave work, this way it can be proven that you indeed became irradiated while at work or not. Well to everyone's surprise as he placed his hands into the radiation detector and the machine began to do a full body scan, the radiation alarms started going off.  I'm sure that guy needed to change his underwear shortly thereafter.  Well it was determined that this nuclear powerplant worker had become contaminated from the fallout of Chernobyl that had blown in the winds several hundred kilometers away.  I also remember stories about the detection of radioonucleotides from Chernobyl Reactor #4 being detected in Canadian cows milk. Of course the simple detection of radioactive products says nothing about the actual amount of particles from which you can determine if its at a safe level or not. Simply sleeping for 8 hours next to someone gives you a dose of 0.05 microsieverts, which is the equivalent radioactive dose of eating 2 bananas=0.1 microsieverts. For comparison a flight from New York to LA gives you a dose of 40 microsieverts, which is 4 times higher than the dose a human gets after spending one average day on Earth from background radiation sources 10 microsieverts.


My hats go off to those "liquidators" that helped to save Europe from certain irradiation, esp. if the predicted multi megaton thermal explosion occurred. If the contents of the core of Reactor #4 caused that steam explosion we would have seen the cores of 4 Soviet era RBMK reactors with the force of 4 of the USA's largest strategic nuclear weapons currently in service, the 1.2 megaton B-83 nuke.  Europe/Africa/Asia, heck the world would be a very different place if the contents of those 4 reactors were strewn across the countryside.


Both the Chernobyl and Fukashima Daichi incidents are rated at Level 7 event classification of the International Nuclear Event Scale.  I remember when the Fukashima incident was rated at a level 5, then was uprated to Level-6.  I dint realize until exactly 2 minutes ago that Fukashima was increased again to a Level 7 incident.


Anyone else care to share their reviews/stories from Chernobyl/Fukashima?

peace
Hog

I just received an email from a BellGab user, it came via the admin@bellgab.com address into the same email account that I opened my account at Bellgab with.

Does this Bellgab member that messaged me actually have my email address?

If I hit reply to the email I received, and typed a response, will the Bellgab user

a) Even get the message, or will the message simply get dumped at Bellgab.com's admin page.

b) Will the Bellgab member now know my email address?

thanks in advance

peace
Hog

Hey Lee, when I try to select the USERLIST from the Home>Logout>New Post>Search>Profile Userlist>Stream/Chat>Art Bell>Twitter>Donate selection area, I get this.

"syntax error, unexpected '$context' (T_VARIABLE), expecting '('"

It's been like this since Monday when the site was down for Maintenance.

The remaining selections work flawlessly.

peace
Hog

"Most destructive in history."





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bushfire_season

JAZMUNDA, you OK buddy?

peace
Hog

  I just started raising Monarch butterflies and just had my 1st chrysalis form and have a further 2 caterpillars fasten their backsides in preparation to form their chrysalides.

Anyone else interested in similar?  I find the process of metamorphosis fascinating.

Area covered by monarchs (Danaus plexippus, eastern migratory population) in their overwintering areas in Mexico between 1993 and 2018. (click to enlarge)


The Monarch Butterfly is on the cusp of becoming an endangered species.  If only the human species would somehow have some sort of a population decrease.  10 billion humans by 2050, that's such crap.

peace
Hog

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/black-lives-dont-matter-lawyer-says-after-jury-awards-family-dollar4-in-police-killing/ar-AAy5FaA?li=AAggNb9


How did the guy get his gun back into his back pocket after taking 2 to the abdomen and then another final shot to the head?  If I'm brandishing a weapon and start taking bullets, I dont put the handgun back into my back pocket.  Perhaps the cop is lying? but that doesnt happen.

peace
Hog

Yesterday I was in Toronto for the Slayer Farewell 2018 tour, tonights show is in Montreal, then it swings back into my area for London Ontario in August.

The 8 hours of Behemoth, Anthrax, Lamb of God, Testament, Obituary all topped off by SLAYER has me sleep deprived.  I had a great time, my last concert involved White Zombie and Pantera back in the 90's.  I certainly have heard much of this music but wouldn't consider myself a crazy fan of all these bands, but certainly enjoyed the concert.  The way that it started in the afternoon sun and then finished in full moonlight(Full Moon) really illustrated the differences between night and day concerts.  At night the light display and the Pyrotechnics that were employed Slayer only really keep the eyes entertained.  It's cool that I was a few hundred yards from the stage in the grass location around the rim of the bowl elevated above the stage.  Everytime a pyro was used you can immediatley feel the radiant heat on exposed skin.  They used a lot of natural gas flames, I was surprised just how accurately these pyrotechnics were timed with, in some cases, individual drum hits.
The day to night concert reminded my of the Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour of 1992, the tour where in Montreal Canada on August 8 1992, James Hetfield was burned by pyrotechnics that went off when he was standing in the wrong stage location, the Axhole Rose stopped the show when he said the monitors weren't working and he was hurting his voice, so he stopped.  Lars Ulrich later interviewed stated the as Axle Rose was telling the Metallica members why they left the stage, he had a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other, perfect combo for a lead singer with a strained voice.  A riot ensued and the area was trashed and burned.  The next day on August 9 1992 the tour was supposed to be in Toronto at Exhibition Stadium, but when I arrived at the Stadium, all the workers were loading up the trucks and packing up the infamous snake pit stage.  The date was made up on September 13, 1992.  Faith No More, then Metallica were during the day, then Guns and Roses came out after dark.

This tour was supporting the Use your Illusion-1 and the Use Your Illusion-2 albums which dropped in 1991 and Metallica was supporting the release of their Black Album also from 1991.  Faith No More was in late support of their The Real Thing album from 1989.  The video for "EPIC" was released in Jan 1990 and it received extensive play on MTV, back when MTV actually played music videos.
The album Angel Dust dropped mid tour on June 1992.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns_N%27_Roses/Metallica_Stadium_Tour#Tour_dates

I caught Metallica in 1991 as Part of their Wherever We May Roam- North American leg in Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens, then again as part of the same tour April 14, 1992 at Copps Coliseum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wherever_We_May_Roam_Tour



I need to go see live music more often, the sound was excellent.  A big thanks to my cousin for the invite and ticket.  He works in the industry and it was awesome to here him explain all the set changes.  The concert was at the old Molson Amphitheater now called Budweiser Stage, never been there before but the sound was excellent.  The sound of the kick drum was hitting hard, I could feel it in my intestines.  I told my cousin "I think Slayer is playing the "brown note" and he laughed.(Google brown note)  The with this type of heavy metal thrash metal, the sustained double kick drum is impressive.  I'm sure as a drummer MV/Liberace would be impressed, if not at least appreciate all that legwork.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slayer_Farewell_Tour


Tragically Hip
Midnight Oil
Suicidal Tendincies
Danzig
There are many more, but we'll save that for another post.  I love being able to and search these old concerts and see then documented on the internet.  There's even dedicated sites for concerts.

Anyone else want share their concert/band list? or shareany cool concert stories

peace
Hog

 "some competitors will be invited to participate as an "Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR)" without their national flag or anthem."

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/sports/more-sports/ioc-suspends-russian-national-olympic-committee-for-2018-games/ar-BBGgNhE

That sucks, but you got caught, now suffer the consequences.  Unfortunately its the athletes that will suffer.

peace
Hog

I just saw that Dr MDMD had a sked me a question about the car that I had pictured in the Celkebrity death thread, so instead of clogging up the other thread, post all your experiences with cars/trucks and bikes here. Anything and everything, memories old and new are welcomed here.

Quote from: Hog on October 26, 2017, 02:55:19 AM
  Rolling into the local A&W in the '57 Chev with all the windows rolled down, hardtoppin' as they say, with Fats blasting away in the background.


Wow RIP Fats, your music will live forever at all the classic car shows I attend.


peace
Hog

Quote from: Dr. MD MD on November 08, 2017, 04:45:45 PM
Is that really yours, Hog? It looks like a perfect example of a 56/57? Bel Aire.  Drool

Mine looks exactly like that Doc, its a 1957 Chev Sports Coupe(2 door hardtop) in Tropical Turquoise.  I posted that pic as all my pics are FUBAR because of the Photobucket issue.  The only difference is that my car has is all turquoise while the pictured car has a White top IIRC.
The 57s are the ones with those specific fins.  If the car has a V8 engine and is a BellAir model, the Vee on the front of the hood will be present and will be Gold in colour.
My car was selected by GM for the 1996 Chevy Cavalier commercial which was shown as a 15 second spot during the Superbowl.
It was also selected from UK/Europe and North America for the 1997 Snap On Tools Calendar.

It's highest score out of 1000 possible points was 993, anything 970+ points receives a "Platinum Certificate".  While people who aren't into cars may think, well its not a perfect example missing 7 points, and it's not.  Though 100% factory original, with correct numbers matching engine trans etc(driveline) it is a "driven class" car.  When I say driven, it regularly got "longest drive" awards for the shows it attended.  I remember people would enter their cars in the driven class, then drive their truck/trailer to the local hotel and unload their "trailer queen", then drive it the 3 miles to the show.  It was very satisfying to take my car which had just had 1700 miles of freeway driving put on it, compete directly against a guy who is entering a trailer queen in my class, and I still beat him by 100 judged points.

Dad brought the car home form the Southern States, which are known for no rust, but interiors and all rubber/weatherstripping will be shot. But you are after the solid body.  A guy had started a frame off restoration and had the frame all nicely painted black on a chassis rotisserie(literally allows you to turn the car around like a BBQ rotisserie) he then put all the original body back on the car and sold it.  The engine was in the back seat, the transmission in the front seat, the body was in many different colours, but she was complete and all the numbers matched. That was 1991. Over the next couple of years, Dad and I worked on that car.  Mom and Dad would go on vacations to the USA and buy NOS parts(New Old Stock) NOS parts are parts that were made by the OEM(Original Equipment Manufacturer) suppliers for use by GM to build their cars on the assembly line.  Typically NOS parts are more difficult and certainly more expensive to buy, but they are preferable to a Remanufactured or "Re-pop" part which is a modern "copy" of the parts.  Ive got about 6 pairs of the stainless steel inserts that fill in the outside of the rear fins. Some are reproductions and some are NOS, only NOS parts are used on this car. Right down to the correct headlights and the correct "Tar-top" Delco 12 volt battery.  Obviously parts like the battery is reproduced as they went out of production about 50 years ago.  The outside parts are OEM and the reman company puts new lead plates and new acid in the original cases. Those tar top batteries are about US$300 each.
The tires on the car are reproduced by a company called Coker Tires.  Coker makes a perfect reproduction of the bias ply tires that came on the cars, 1957 went back to 14" rims while the 1956's used 15" rims. Chev was trying to give the 57s a lower profile look, so they went back to a 14" rim/tire. Anyhoo, the tires of the day were BF Goodrich bias ply tires. Anyone around back then will remember that bias ply tire make any car ride like a lumberwagon and have a bad propensity of following imperfections in the road surface.  After the judging body allowed for the change from requiring Bias Ply tires, to allowing for reproduction tires in the newer and much more safe Radial tire technology, Coker tire came out with the reproduction BF Goodrich "Silvertown" tires.



Prior to the sanctioning body changing the rules allowing for radial tire reproductions, the car would be deducted "X" amount of points for each tire that was NOT an original design bias ply tire.

I remember wet sanding that car with 2000 grit paper.  The paint was so smooth it looked like there was a few layers of clear coat on it, when their wasn't.  Just so people understand 2000 grit "sandpaper".  It doesn't feel like sand paper anymore, it actually feels like a soft velvet.  There are actually 2000 pieces of "grit" bonded to the "paper".  And because the high spots of the paint that you are removing are so very fine, you must use a waterhose with the spigot set at a very light "trickle" so that those tiny paint particles flush out of the sandpaper instead of staying in it and binding it up.
Before painting my buddy would spray a very fine coat of reddish primer on the entire car. This would "mark" the high areas of the "orange peel" of the body work coats that are applied before the paint.  We would then go in and hand sand all that reddish primer off, which would leave an absolutely smooth surface.

Orange peel


Here is the Classic Chevy Internationals(CCI) points Certificates.
970-1000 points for a Platinum Certificate
949-969 points for a Gold Certificate
900-949 points for a Silver Certificate
850-899 for a Bronze Certificate

Well I has a whole shit load more, but somehow it was all lost.

peace
Hog

Not really aviation news, but an important step for the American Human Spaceflight industry, so I started a new thread.
Post all your Spaceflight news, questions, concerns and opinions.  Be it that rover on Mars, or that Space-X launch to the ISS. If it flies in space, lets discuss it here.

The recent test of Main Engine 2063 was a success. ME-2063 is a RS-25D engine that was assembled in late 2014 3 years after the Space Transportation System(STS) was retired after STS-135 in 2011.
4 of these RS-25D engines are to be used in the sustainer role on the core stage of/for the upcoming Space Launch System(SLS) to be launched no earlier than December 15, 2019 during Exploration Mission-1(EM-1). EME-1 will be an unmanned flight test of the SLS rocket and Orion capsule that will fly to the Moon and back.  The first test flight of Orion was completed in December 5 2014 when she was launched atop a Delta 4-Heavy rocket and boosted out away from Earth and then re-entered the Earths atmosphere at speed much faster than experience during Low Earth Orbit (LEO) re entries. That test was Exploration Flight Test-1(EFT-1) and the flight lasted 4hours 24 minutes.  This was the first time since Apollo-17 in 1972, some 43 years prior, that America has launched a vehicle capable of supporting humans beyond Low Earth Orbit. Orion reached a max altitude of 3600miles and re entry velocities of 20,000mph(8900 meters/second), splashed down in the pacific and was recovered by the USS Anchorage.
USS Anchorage


At the end of the Space Shuttle Program(SSP) there were 15 RS-25 engines left over, 14 that had flight history, and ME-2062 which was built in 2010, but never even test fired or "Green Run" as they say.  Then in 2014 ME-2063 was assembled making for 16 RS-25 engines, 2 without flight testing without even having been "Green Run".  On October 19, NASA opened up Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for any US citizen to watch the
Green Run" of ME-2063.
Here is the full "Green Run" test of the 2014 build ME-2063.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFqfCDEp6iw

and here is a condensed video of ME-2063 being assembled back in 2014.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtE_61ZR67Y&t=2s

ME-2063 will be used on the second SLS launch, EM-2 along with her as yet un-tested sister ME-2062(circa 2010).  The other 2 Main Engines will be ME-


The four engines manifested for EM-1 are ME-2045, ME-2056, ME-2058, and ME-2060.


With the EM-1 mission taking a major slip to the right and being ready for flight no earlier than December 15, 2019, the major engine "Green Run" test that will take place now in early 2019 at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.  First, the quartet of previously tested RS-25 engines will be shipped from Stennis, to Michoud Assembly Factory in Louisiana where the 4 engines will be installed onto the first SLS core stage.  Then the engine/corestage will be loaded onto the freshly lengthened Pegasus barge, then transported to Stennis SPace Center for the "Green Run" testing of the core stage where all 4 RS-25 engines will be fired at the same time on the specially modified B-2 test stand at Stennis.
The 4 RS-25 SLS engine core stage Green Run test will be very similar to the Saturn-V 1st stage (called the S1-C) testing that ran 5 F-1 engines at the same time.  The F-1 engines burn liquid Oxygen and RP-1(a high quality rocket kerosene) while the RS-25 SLS engines burn Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen.  The result is heat and water. In fact after RS-25 engine tests it rains downrange of the test facility.
S1-C Saturn V 1st stage testing at Stennis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YTaG91KD5s

These 4 engines will serve as Contingency engines for EM-1 if there is an issue with 1 or all of the EM-1 flight engine set. If the originally planned EM-1 flight set proves to be OK, the Contingency engines will be the 4 flight engines for EM-2.

Here is the proposed manner in which the 16 current engines will be flown on EM-1 through EM-4, assuming no issues occur with the flight certification with these engines.


So at the end of the Space Shuttle Program, there were 15 Main Engines that were known as RS-25-D or RS-25 Block-II Space Shuttle Main Engines(SSME) or "Heritage" engines as they were setup and configured to be used in sets of 3 for Space Shuttle usage. Then ME-2063 was created in 2014 to make 16 Main Engines. These "reusable" engines were designed for over 50 starts for a long service life.
Then after these 16 engines have been tested in the new configuration of 4 engines at a time, with higher fuel and oxidizer "head" pressures and higher 109% Rated Performance Level(RPL) the engines are considered to be "Adaptation" engines.  Since the quartet of Main Engines will be dumped into the sea after use, the design constraints for starts and service life is considerably relaxed. These engines are now considered "expendable" rather than "reusable" designed to last for only 6 starts and roughly 2500 seconds of run time.



If all 16 Main Engines work as designed, there is enough RS-25s for 4 SLS launches(4 per launch).  NASA has already started negotiations for 6 new style RS-25 Main Engines, these new engines will be designed from the onset to be "expendable" without the rigorous long life expectancies that the original RS-25 were put through in the early 70's.  These engines will be known as "Restart" engines as these will be the new engines after the RS-25 assembly line will have been restarted at what is now known as Aerojet/Rocketdyne since 2013.
The procurement for these new RS-25 engines is a difficult process as it is difficult to foresee the engines need for the late 20's and beyond.

Here is a graphic outlining the 3 differing naming classifications of the engines along with some design differences and thrust designations and the engines ISP(basically the amount of impulse per unit of fuel, aka a measure of how efficient a rocket engine converts its fuels into thrust).  SLS will use 4 RS-25 engines which will start a few seconds before liftoff, just as they did in triplet on the Space Shuttle.  This gives the liquid fueled engines time to start, throttle up to max power while at the same time the computers run various checks to ensure a safe liftoff.  If there is an issue, the engines are shut down, prior to the liftoff command being given. If an abort signal is given prior to liftoff, but after the main engines have started, in the Space Shuttle world this was referred to a Redundant Set Launch Sequencer abort(RSLS Abort, or pad abort. This occurred 5 times with Shuttle, with the last one on STS-68.  All of this main engine verification before the liftoff command is given is VERY important, because one of the signals that is commanded is the signal to ignite the 2 Solid Rocket Boosters, one on each side of the SLS rocket, as well as the command to blow the explosive nuts that hold each of the SRBs to the Mobile Launch Platform(MLP).  Once the SRBs which are powered by a solid fuel, powdered aluminum, are ignited, they cannot be shut off until they burn out some 130 seconds later.
The SRBs used for SLS are very similar to the ones used for the Space Shuttle Program(SSP).  The Space Shuttle used 2 SRBs, each one being composed of 4 segments with each Solid Rocket Motor(SRM) delivering a maximum of approx. 3.1 million pounds of thrust 22 seconds into the flight which decreased down to 2.2 million pounds at 50 seconds mission elapsed time(MET) as the "stack"(the Orbiter, External Tank, 2 SRBs) approached the speed of sound in an area of Maximum Dynamic Pressure(Max-Q) on the vehicle. When approaching Max-Q the 3 RS-25s reduced throttles from 104.5% down to approx. 72% while at the same time the SRBs also reduced their thrust profiles. The SRBs are "throttled" by the shape of the solid propellant inside the 1/2" thick steel cases.  The shape in which the solid fuel is cast can change the rate at which the solid fuel burns, therefore its thrust profile can be manipulated somewhat.
Here is the thrust profile of a Space Shuttle style 4 segment SRB


The SLS rocket will use the same 1/2 thick steel cases as the Space Shuttle did, except that instead of 4 segments, 5 segments will be used.  Instead of the Space Shuttles SRB thrust maxing out at almost 3.1 million pounds, the SLS 5 segment SRB will output approx. 3.6 million pounds of thrust EACH for SRBs making 7.2 million pounds of thrust total. Couple that with 4 RS-25 engines making over 500,000 pounds of thrust each, the Block 1 SLS rocket will produce over 9.2 million pounds of thrust, making SLS the most powerful rocket ever built by humans.  For comparison, the 5 F-1 engines that powered the first stage of the Apollo programs monster Saturn-V rocket produced approx. 1.5 million pounds each, with 5 of them firing at once, the Saturn V's total 1s stage thrust was 7,500,000 pounds of thrust.
The Space Shuttle SRBs were designed to launch with the Shuttle, separate after 122 seconds, with parachutes slowing them enough to fall into the Atlantic Ocean where they were retrieved by 2 NASA ships and then fully refurbished and reused.  The SRBs for SLS will not be recovered, they will become relics of the deep.  As such, the foundry which produced the special spec high quality steel for the SSPs SRB cases was shut down in the 00's, and once shut down, this special kiln cannot be restarted.  It was literally heated continuously from the 1970's in to the early 2000's.  As such, there is a limited number of these special high strength 1/2 thick steel segments left in the inventory at Orbital/ATK(the old Thiokol company).  I've heard rumours that there are enough cases for either ten, 5 segment SRBs or ten pairs of 5 segment SRBs.  After these SRB case are used up, a new type of SRB will be needed.  Originally there was a design that would have used 2 F-1B engines in each booster for a total of 2 F1-B engines per SLS launch, but the costs associated with converting the Mobile Launch Platforms and the pad 39-B itself would be too costly.  At least that's the story I heard.  And yes, the new 5 segment SRBs will be shipped via rail across the country from Utah to KSC Florida.
One issue that the Shuttle SRBs faced that the SLS SRBs wont have to face, is to have the flexible field joints be exposed to the "Twang" effects of the Shuttle thrusting off center.  The SLS will have no twang, therefore the O-ring seals wont be exposed to that load at least.
Here is the Shuttle stack "twang" effect. The liquid engines on the Shuttle ignite at T minus 6.6 seconds and the throttle up to 100% RPL, because the Orbiter is mounted off center, hung on the side of the  External tank and the Orbiter and External Tank is supported entirely by the 2 SRBs and the SRBs are bolted firmly to the Mobile Launch Platform, the only device that is allowing for this "twang" motion is the joints in the SRB cases.
Launch engineers start the Orbiters engines and their off center thrust causes the stack deflect or "twang" then after maximum deflection, the stack begins to move back in a pendulum effect.  As soon as the stack returns back to its original position after the deflection, the SRB nuts explode thus releasing their hold-down of the SRBs while simultaneously igniting the SRB which kicks the stack off the MLP.  In this video you can see the off center thrusting of the Orbiters 3 RS25 engines causing the entire stack to "sideslip" across the frame towards the left of frame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExfjSuJxOP8

And this is just one part of what is happening at NASA.  The entire budget of NASA since 1957 to now(60 years) is less than what the US spends on its military for a single year.  All the Voyagers, Mariners, Space Shuttle, Space Stations, mars rovers, Hubble telescopes etc etc etc, all for less than 1/2 a penny on each Federal budget dollar. There is the thinking that NASA takes up 20-30% of the budget, far from true.

Lotsa good stuff going on at NASA, and in the Spaceflight industry in general.

peace
Hog

In Iraq, an unidentified Canadian sniper team took out a target from an elevated position at a range of 3450 meters/3377 yards/2.14 miles.

The bullet travel time was over 7 seconds, dropped about 180 meters/600 feet(in essence you would have to aim 180m/600ft high to compensate for gravity's effect pulling the bullet downwards. At 3450m/2.14 miles, the 0.50" caliber round still had 1400lb/ft of force.(more than a C7/C9/M16/M249 SAW 5.56x45mm round at point blank range).

Here are the top 5 longest sniper kills of all time
The world record sniper shot means that three of the top five longest confirmed kills were carried out by Canadian snipers. The top five are:


1.Canadian sniper in Iraq (2017): 3,450 meters.

2.British sniper Craig Harrison in Afghanistan (2009): 2,475 meters

3.Canadian sniper Rob Furlong in Afghanistan (2002): 2,430 meters

4.Canadian sniper Arron Perry in Afghanistan (2002): 2,310 meters

5.U.S. sniper Brian Kemer in Iraq (2004): 2,300 meters


For comparison, the legendary US Marine Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock 2,286 meters/1.420 miles shot of the Vietnam war. 
Gunnery Sgt. Hathcock had 300-400 kills in Vietnam with 91 of them confirmed.  He was nicknamed the "White Feather" as he kept a white feather in his bush cap band. He had a variant of the M21 called the Springfield Armory M25 "White Feather" rifle.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canadian-elite-special-forces-sniper-sets-record-breaking-kill-shot-in-iraq/article35415651/

The sniper team is part of Canadas Special Operations Force(SOF) currently deployed to Iraq. We are tripling the number of SOP members to the area.

In early 2017 it was announced that 600-700 new SOF members were to be selected. 

Come home safe my Brothers and Sisters in Arms, but in the meantime, give 'em Hell!

"Facta Non Verba"

peace
Hog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMDdaNLc8DU

Till we visit again, SLS-1 will visit in a cis-lunar orbit in late 2018 without a crew, then hopefully in August 2021 with a crew of 4 NASA Astronauts.

In late 2017 Space Explorations Dragon-2 vehicle will begin flying, with eventual missions to the International Space Station(ISS) to rotate crew and provide emergency egress craft from the ISS.  In 2018 the Boeing CST-100 Starliner will begin its flying with the same missions as the Space Explorations craft.  Both systems are being funded by NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev).  When these crew systems begin to take NASA crews up to the ISS it will end the lack of capability for the US to fly it's own crew to and from space since the Space Transportation System(STS)/Space Shuttle Program(SSP) ended with the landing of Atlantis at the conclusion of STS-135 on July 21 2011 some 5 years, 4 months and 11 days ago today.  We have been spending approx. US$70 million PER SEAT to send American/Canadian/European Space Agency(ESA) Astronauts to the ISS aboard the Russian Soyuz launch vehicles and space vehicles.

CCDev COTS/CRS
CCDev is similar to the already up and running Commercial Orbital Transportation Services(COTS) program. COTS selected Space Explorations Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket, as well as Orbital Sciences Cygnus capsule and Antares rocket as the two companies to supply cargo capability to the ISS.
After COTS selected the 2 players out of the 18 separate companies that participated in the selection process, the Commercial Resupply Services(CRS) program took over the actual operation portion of the resupply missions.


The actual contracts for delivering cargo has been broken up into blocks of time.  Commercial Resupply Services Contract #1 (CRS 1) began in 2012 and will conclude in 2018.  CRS 2 will begin in 2019.
Space Explorations Dragon capsule and their Falcon 9 rocket have been bringing cargo up cargo since 2012 and Orbital Sciences flew a test payload on April 21, 2013 and went operation with its first actual payload classified as a demonstration payload on September 29, 2013.
Orbital Sciences 3rd CRS mission  from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on 28 October 2014 failed when the 1st stage failed and exploded shortly after launch, large parts of the rocket fel back onto the pad causing damage.
While an investigation into that accident was ongoing, as part of Orbital Science's contingency planning, they had contracted with United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 launch vehicle to launch Orbital Sciences "Orb-4" spacecraft. The launch was successful and Orbital Sciences was awarded CRS flights for space vehicles Orb-9 and Orb-10  which are expected before 2018.  These missions will be using Orbital Sciences new launch vehicle the Antares 230.  It can launch a heavier payload due to its 1st stage using the more powerful Russian RD-181 engines in its first stage, as well as using the more powerful Castor upperstage as well.  The orginal Antares 200 used the AJ26  which were Russian engines that were stored since 1970's.  The AJ26 are mildly modified Soviet NK-33 engines which were the replacement engines that were to replace the original NK-15 engines which were used in a cluster of 30 engines for the first stage of the Soviet N-1 rocket, the rocket that were to allow the Soviets their Moon shot.  The N-1 was launched 4 times, each time the flights ended in catastrophe. These rockets were about the same height as the Apollo programs Saturn V rockets which used 5 huge F-1 engines, the Soviets tried to make their 30 NK15s work.  The NK-33 engines were to be used on the 5th N-1 attempt but the Soviets cancelled to program as the Americans had landed multiple times on the Moon.  The scrapped the rockets, stored a couple hundred of these NK-33 engines in a building and the Soviets buried the program. Little did they know that the Americans had satellite photos of the N-1 launch facility in Baikonur Kazakhstan.  It wasn't until 1989 and the fall of the SOviet Union that the program was finally uncovered.  Some of tehse NK-33 engines were discovered and American rocket engine companies sent engineers to check out these highly advanced engines.  It was once thought by American engineers that theses types of engine would use technology that was impossible to harness. This technology for these
liquid fueled engines was the Oxidizer Rich technology.  It used pressures that were unheard of in the USA.  So a batch were acquired and the NK33 was renamed the AJ-26 by AeroJet Rocket, which is now Pratt Whittney Rocketdyne.  Well one of these engines failed in the Orbital Sciences Orb 3 launch and it was decided to move on to a more proven engine, the Russian designed

On June 28 2015 Space Explorations CRS-7 exploded after liftoff during a 1st stage failure.  But the company has supplied launches after this without incident.
Arpund the same time, the Russian resupply ship also failed.  So every system that supplies the ISS has had some sort of flight anomaly.  Like they say "Space is hard".




N-1 rocket being erected, NASA stacks their rockets vertically and crawls them to the pad vertically


N-1 rocket


The new SLS-rocket next to Saturn V


SLS rocket and crawler Mobile Launch Platform(MLP)

peace
Hog

What is a headache, what causes them?

I'll be checking back in 24, until then

peace
Hog

After quickly skimming the 55 pages in the "Radio and Podcast" forum and not seeing a dedicated UFOShip.com thread, I decided to start one.

Is the UFOShip.com stream not up tonight? 

I've tried to connect from about 2230hrs to 2305hrs EST.

Thanks.

peace
Hog

IDA adapter ring to allow new vehicles to dock to ISS


Mission patch



Launch/landing
July 18, 2016 12:45am Launch and Stage 1 landing of Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral, FL. Recorded from Terminal A, Port Canaveral, about 10 miles south of Launch Complex 40.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_834100983&feature=iv&src_vid=JN7VQ0vDIQE&v=6YoUte61c1M


peace
Hog

Bigalows Expandable Activity Module (BEAM)  was expanded at the end of May 28, 2016 aboard the almost 1 million pound International Space Station.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxzCCrj5ssE

Expandable modules like this will revolutionize the way in which humans live and travel in space.  You can launch a small package and expand it in space.  It was lifted to ISS in a SPace Explorations Falcon 9 rockets trunk.

From its stowed length to expanded length, was a difference of 67" or 170cm.

Packed dimensions 2.16 m (7.1 ft) long and 2.36 m (7.7 ft) in diameter
Expanded dimensions 4.01 m (13.2 ft) long and 3.23 m (10.6 ft) in diameter.  So its volume "grew" from 5.26 cubic meters to 17.8 cubic  meters.

This BEAM is a multi layer fabric with interwoven Kevlar like materials and vinyl foam. This layer provides radiation shielding and micro meteor protection which is equal or better than the rest of the ISS structure.  The BEAM was tested using the same testing procedures that the ISS structure was tested with and provided protection that equaled or was better than the rest of the ISS structure.

Yet another private company committed to space.

peace
Hog

For those interested in the current space launch industry.

http://mainenginecutoff.com/

peace
Hog

..after a year aboard the ISS.

His face sure thinned out quickly after being affected by gravity again.  There is a large fluid shift in the human body in microgravity.

peace
Hog

Its been 30 years already.

The Challenger mishap really made us averse to adverse space travel.
Jan 30th is NASA's official day of remembrance for Apoll0-1, Challenger and STS-107 Columbia and the other NASA space workers who died.
RIP

peace
Hog