« May 21, 2021 | Main | May 23, 2021 »
May 22, 2021 Archives
Saturday, May 22, 2021
THE HAPPENING WORLD: Virgin Galactic Completes Suborbital “Space” Flight from New Mexico
Sending our heartfelt congratulations to our cousins @virgingalactic on an excellent test flight today, which carried two astronaut pilots to space and safely back! An exciting moment for the Virgin family, the people of New Mexico, and space fans everywhere https://t.co/GqAyb5tHmk
— Virgin Orbit (@VirginOrbit) May 22, 2021
Virgin Galactic uses a definition of “space” of 50 miles (80.5 km) or above which is only used by the U.S. Air Force, NASA, and some other U.S. government agencies. The rest of the world and most aerospace engineers define space as above the Kármán line (100 km or 62 miles). Virgin Galactic's “space” plane cannot reach this altitude, so they adopted a definition within the capability of their vehicle.
I suggest we call the people who fly to “space” on Virgin's ship “asterisknauts”.
Posted at
19:12
CONTEXT: Lockheed CL-346: Vertical Takeoff and Landing Mach 2.2 F-104 Derivative Concept from the 1950s
Posted at
14:13
THE HAPPENING WORLD: Chinese Zhurong (祝融) Rover Descends to Martian Surface
Front and rear hazard avoidance camera views of Zhurong descending onto the Martian surface today (CNSA/PEC) https://t.co/YdDi91cdVS pic.twitter.com/laPwXTttoI
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) May 22, 2021
Here is more on Zhurong.
Posted at
13:41
CONTINUITY: Proximity Fuze—An Underappreciated Technological Breakthrough in World War II
The Germans never developed a proximity fuze for anti-aircraft artillery because they never imagined it would be possible to make vacuum tube electronics you could fire out of a cannon.
Posted at
12:34
CONTEXT: When Agatha Christie Named a Character “Major Bletchley” During World War II
Shame! Did you know that a train delay helped inspire Agatha Christie to name one of her characters 'Major Bletchley' https://t.co/HMI4v44lI6
— Bletchley Park (@bletchleypark) May 21, 2021
Posted at
11:08