We use these to make our rockets visible for their entire flight at night launches, but you could easily come up with some cool ideas for your own use.

First up is Glow, Inc. This company sells glow-in-the-dark paints and powders, and theirs are the best I've ever seen. Not the pale and barely-visible luminescence we're used to, these are incredibly bright and last for hours. I bought the sampler powder pack, and have been playing with various application techniques. Very cool.

If you've ever seen the Indiglo watch faces, you know that they get very bright with the touch of a button. The folks at Night Launch offer sheets of this material up to 3" wide and 16" long in multiple colors. I got one of their starter kits for Christmas last year and believe me, this is neat stuff to play with.

Both sites offer plenty of great ideas on how to use their products, as well as occasional special offers and discounts. New products are also announced periodically.

Posted by: Ted at 06:36 AM | category: SciTech
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Next time you need to refer to somewhere remote, instead of "Bumf**k, Egypt", try "Unpronouncylvania" instead.

Posted by: Ted at 02:02 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Last week I had to do the interview for my security clearance update, which is routinely done every five years or so. The Special Agent came to my place of work at the time agreed on, and we sat down so she could conduct the interview.

These interviews start off with about five minutes of "Privacy Act..." and "Civil Code..." and "You can..." and "If you so desire...", accompanied by much form signing and reading of paperwork.

Then comes the personal questions. Most of it is just verifying that what you told them on your paperwork is correct, and asking for certain amplifications to an answer here and there. It's the price you pay for the clearance, and in this neck of the woods, the clearance is worth extra bucks on your resume.

After a standard series of questions about "illegal substance" use, I asked the agent whether anyone still answered with "I didn't inhale". She laughed and said that she had never had anyone use that line.

I told her about my last interview, when asked if I ever smoked marijuana that I had replied "I suppose the politically correct answer is: I didn't inhale". That agent wasn't amused, so I quickly revised my answer to a simple 'no'.

The interview was easy, because I'm boring. The agent said that for this purpose, that's a good thing.

In the next month or two, the neighbors will tell me about being visited by an agent asking questions about me. Personal privacy is a relative thing.

Posted by: Ted at 08:09 AM | category: Boring Stories
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National Museum of the American Indian, opening September 2004.

There are benefits to living close to Washington DC.

Posted by: Ted at 07:04 AM | category: History
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President Bush made a pretty speech the other day, long on rhetoric and short on details. For those disappointed - and I was one at first - remember that one constant throughout our national relationship with GW Bush is that people tend to badly underestimate him.

RocketForge has an interesting post with some budget projections that don't seem at all unreasonable. This, of course, assumes that you're already somewhat pro-space.

Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial Musings posts some amusing email from a rabid anti-space citizen. The main thing I got out of the exchange (and comments) is that whatever side of the debate you're on, if your mind isn't open then you're an idiot and just wasting everybody's time. The link is to his main blog page, there's much worth looking at, so scroll down and enjoy.

Rocketman has a nice roundup of opinions and articles about the speech, and Laughing Wolf has an interesting take on what it says and what it doesn't say.

My attitude about space exploration is unchanged since before the speech. Like a little kid, "Aren't we there yet?"

Posted by: Ted at 09:32 AM | category: Space Program
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1 I agree - much like his dad, but with an even longer time frame. My eight month old son will be four years out of college before the earliest date we might be on Mars.

I'm posting a series on how I'd do a Mars mission over at Perfidy.org, if you're interested.

Posted by: buckethead at January 16, 2004 02:45 PM (ztNrs)

2 My take on it is that I would prefer Bush the politician to give broad direction and little specifics to the Rocket Scientists who think this shit up. I would not want to lock such a program into a politically determined technological direction. The best thing Bush could do is say " Here's a few billion dollars - take it and land a man on mars" then get the hell out of the way and let the people who know this stuff figure out how to do it.

Posted by: StMack at January 16, 2004 05:06 PM (CSxVi)

3 Buckethead, I've been reading it, good stuff so far. I'm sorry I forgot to link to it, but there's so much out there right now on the subject.

StMack, I'm hoping some of the x-prize guys become all kinds of successful. The government can do it's part, but private industry are going to be the real drivers from here on out. Gee, I sound like an American, don't I?

Posted by: Ted at January 16, 2004 09:20 PM (2sKfR)

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Flathead County, Montana is home to the newspaper Bigfork Eagle, which recently had an article containing all the sordid details about a recent law enforcement investigation. It's brief and you really should read it all for the chuckles interspersed with "ewwww" moments. Here are the last two sentences of the article:

"It appears we have a serial horse rapist," Dupont said.

The sheriff's office is investigating, and Dupont advised horse owners to be vigilant.

Posted by: Ted at 07:06 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Robert Zubrin wrote an interesting book called The Case for Mars that talks about what it would take to get there and back. The Mars Direct Manned Mission Homepage has autographed copies available, plus lots of other information including downloadable versions of several papers written by Robert Zubrin.

Posted by: Ted at 06:57 AM | category: Space Program
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On the newsgroup Rec.Models.Rockets, A. Mericas said:

I think the space program should go the way of College Bowl games: corporate sponsorship. I can see it now: "The Nike Command Module has just separated from the Pepsi Lunar Module. In the next 15 minutes they will enter the Dodge Powered Decent phase. If all goes as planned, the OfficeMax landing will occur at 15:00 Hours, Miller Time, near the Sea of Tranquility, Ford Country."

Houston, we have a Microsoft Moment.

Posted by: Ted at 06:43 AM | category: Space Program
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Another special logo, check it out.

Posted by: Ted at 08:27 PM | category: Square Pegs
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It's what I always imagined chocolate milk in prison would taste like.

Ick.

Posted by: Ted at 01:58 PM | category: Square Pegs
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I'm not sure if this would fit in under 'lustful' or 'pandering' on my Going to Hell score, but the mens magazine FHM posted some very nice pictures of Food Network hottie hostess Rachel Ray.

Provocative but work safe, unless your workplace is very conservative.

Update: Phillip Coons has a link to the WaPo article online.

Posted by: Ted at 07:16 AM | category: Links
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Imagine walking into a room of your house and the sun is blaring in, so you press a button and the window becomes opaque. The news is on so you tune another window to your favorite channel, and when that's over you put some music on and the sound is perfectly balanced because your chair sits in the sweet spot between two - windows?

Coming to a home in a ritzy neighborhood near you some time in the near future.

Posted by: Ted at 06:32 AM | category: SciTech
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Ocean salvage companies spent many years looking for the remains of the Titanic, studying the local currents and projecting possible search areas. Because of the depth of the seabed in that area, as well as the frigidity of the water, the actual searching was accomplished with robotic submersible craft carrying cameras.

RMS Titanic, Inc. was formed once they confirmed the location of the wreck. Here's the picture that finally convinced them that all their years of work had paid off (in the extended entry, as usual): more...

Posted by: Ted at 06:09 AM | category: Square Pegs
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The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Oops, forgot to thank Lady TwoDragons for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 01:21 PM | category: Square Pegs
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The official full title is the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, which is where you can find this nifty interactive page about the Anatomy of a Page from the Gutenberg Bible.

Thanks to Trish of Design Kitten for pointing it out. She also has some links to one of her favorite artists, Tamara de Lempicka. Art-deco style, very nice.

So let's just run around and say hello to some new (to me) blogs, maybe you'll find something interesting and to your taste as well. And just how can I do this while being 'insanely busy'? Simple, mon ami! It's called 'downloading 1.8 million audit trail records', and the job will run for another short while, giving me this chance to scoot hither and yon.

Cruising around, I stumbled across Thud Factor, who has a picture of a rocket-propelled turtle. That's an auto-link right there.

I'm sorry I lost the link to who sent me to this one. They deserve trackback for pointing the way to The Brick Testament. You say it sounds like the Bible done in Lego? Yepper!

Just because I love the name of her blog, drop by and say hello to Mona at But That Sounded SO Good In My Head.

Another one, for the title. Graigs Transparent Soap (which used to be Spider Behind My Toilet).

Trailer Park Girl, and Hotel Illness.

Here's an odd little blog. Lunch. "i write about my lunch. you write about your lunch. we read about other people's lunch."

And here's The Sandwich Project, just...

Job is done. Must go.

Evening Update: Long day, surf a little before bed. Found this next one, and it's sooooo what I want to do with my life since it looks like the lottery thing ain't gonna pan out.

Evil Plan Generator. All I need now are some henchmen and a beautiful but evil assistant/bodyguard. Accepting resumes, duties negotiable.

I'm annoyed because somewhere I read a very funny bit I wanted to share. I even saw a link to it from one of my regular stops later on. Damned if I can find it now. Any help? It really is worth a look.

Found it! Infinite Monkeys, and I found it again thanks to Sophont. Enjoy.

Oh, and Jim, it's very funny. Hop to it now, dinner won't fix itself!

Posted by: Ted at 07:19 AM | category: History
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1 Ted, the rocket-turtle is a product of istockphoto.com, a community-driven stock art organization.

Posted by: John at January 14, 2004 07:30 AM (3ysBE)

2 I'll be the henchman! I'll probably need a deformity of some type, though. . .

Posted by: Victor at January 14, 2004 08:45 AM (L3qPK)

3 I think the joke is on me, because I did prepare the family dinner last night!

Posted by: jim at January 14, 2004 01:00 PM (zE10C)

4 Come to think of it, so did I.

Posted by: Ted at January 14, 2004 01:39 PM (blNMI)

5 I want to be a henchman too. I can be the big dumb one who never gets the plan and always has objects hitting him in the head. That wouldn't change my life too drastically.

Posted by: Kurt at January 14, 2004 04:45 PM (DeMF5)

6 May I be your henchwoman? Pretty please?

Posted by: Susie at January 24, 2004 01:36 AM (0+cMc)

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This is a series of posts where weÂ’re building a basic model rocket online. Each post shows part of the process step by step, including pictures and passing along tips and tricks IÂ’ve learned along the way. You can find the rest of the series here. To learn more about what model rocketry is about, see this Q&A.

The main part of the post is in the extended entry so you donÂ’t have to deal with it if you donÂ’t want to, but I hope you follow along because when we get done youÂ’ll have built and flown your first model rocket. Questions asked from before are answered too. more...

Posted by: Ted at 06:24 AM | category: Build It
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Congrats to Helen and her Dallas Stars, who defeated my beloved San Jose Sharks last night 3-zip. In accordance with our informal bet for the season, the Stars logo will be displayed up top for a day or so.

Posted by: Ted at 04:53 AM | category: Munuvian Daily Tattler
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1 WooHoo!

I love it when we crush the fish

Posted by: Matt Navarre at January 14, 2004 05:17 AM (n/wkr)

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Too cool.

Posted by: Ted at 08:08 PM | category: Space Program
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At work we had one of those know-it-all managers. He's since retired, and it was a huge loss of experience and knowledge, because between the two of us we knew it all.

He knew everything in the world except that he was an idiot.

And I knew that.

Update: My gratitude to all who didn't comment on the incorrect spelling of 'knowledge' above. I said I only needed to know one thing...

Posted by: Ted at 08:14 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Back in the late 1950Â’s and early 1960Â’s, the military started looking towards the 'next' weapon. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) were all well and good, but everyone was feverishly working on anti-missile systems and the first country to perfect them would render much of their opponentsÂ’ nuclear inventory obsolete at a stroke. Project Pluto was conceived as a hedge against that possibility, but has been nearly forgotten over the years and achieved near-mythical status.

So what exactly was Pluto? Simply put, Pluto was an atomic robotic aircraft, designed to fly faster than the Soviet defenses could react, dropping bombs and missiles at targets along the way as it went about its mission. Pluto would be powered by a ramjet, and fly just above treetop level at Mach 3+ (~2500mph).

From a Department of Energy document:

The principle behind the ramjet was relatively simple: air was drawn in at the front of the vehicle under ram (under great force) pressure, heated to make it expand, and then exhausted out the back, providing thrust.

The notion of using a nuclear reactor to heat the air was fundamentally new. Unlike commercial reactors, which are surrounded by concrete, the Pluto reactor had to be small and compact enough to fly, but durable enough to survive a 7,000 mile trip to a potential target.

The name of this experimental RamJet was Tory II-C, and a working model was actually built and successfully run for a few seconds in 1961.

This .pdf document contains a picture of the Tory II-C test engine, which was mounted on a railroad flatcar. The technician working on the engine gives an idea of the scale of the engine, and just how large Pluto would've been.

This site is a nice look at various types of ramjets and how they work.

From the Sci.Space.History newsgroup:

Much of Pluto's rationale was lost when effective ABM systems failed to appear. The concept always had problems with attack routing -- many of the approach routes to the Soviet Union are over friendly or neutral territory -- and with detectability -- it might be hard to catch, but it would be awfully easy to track, since a *less* stealthy aircraft is difficult to imagine. The deathblow was the problem of how to safely test an ultra-high-speed necessarily-unmanned aircraft with global range and a tendency to kill everything under its flight path. Sure, you can run the tests over the Pacific, but what happens when one has a navigation failure? And for that matter, assuming everything works and your test is a success, what do you *do* with the thing at the end of the test? It's intensely radioactive and has no landing gear...

There was also some debate about whether Pluto actually needed warheads. Once again from Sci.Space.History:

The reason why folks wondered whether the thing needed a warhead was the radiation emitted by the engine itself (a completely unshielded half-gigawatt reactor) plus the shockwave generated by a fairly large aircraft doing Mach 3 at treetop height.

Sometimes you have to wonder how we ever survived to see 2000.

You can find more historical context in this paper titled The Decay of the Atomic-Powered Aircraft Program. The paper "examines the technical and socio-political aspects of the United States Air Force's Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program and associated programs, including the reasons the ANP program was undertaken, and the reasons it was canceled after a decade of work."

Posted by: Ted at 07:56 AM | category: Military
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