Archive for February, 2009

When Satellites Collide

Like a scene from the Japanese TV series “Planetes“, a Russian and US satellite have collided in orbit. Early in February a non functional Russian military satellite (Kosmos 2251) and a US Iridium communications satellite occurred temporarily disrupting the Iridium communications network. An on orbit spare will be brought into service within the next 30 days. So far this isi the first accident of it’s kind, where a satellites has struck another satellite and not just orbital debris (paint chips, fuel tanks, etc) hitting working space hardware. There was that Chinese missile test where they destroyed a non functional weather bird but that was intentional (and also caused quite a mes up there). Hopefully the junk left from the recent accident will burn up, if not it will become part of the cloud of over 17,000 objects that are currently tracked by ground stations.

Original story:
Russian and US satellites collide

Whoa… Cool Rockets!

These are so fantastic! As a fan of the ‘golden age of science fiction‘, this is what I envision spacecraft of that imagined far flung future would look like.

Cool Rockets is a line of resin-cast, hand-finished rocket ships, all inspired by the styles of the 40’s and 50’s rockets from comics, TV, and toys. Created by Jeff Brewer, a film and special-effects modelmaker in northern California, Cool Rockets offer a unique collection that is handmade, unique, and more affordable than you’d think. All the designs are original inspirations of an era, not copies of some vehicle you’ve seen in a movie or TV show.

Cool Rockets

This is Why You Are Fat…

I spotted this while on Twitter today. Neil tweeted this site that just has me stunned. The name says it all. ‘This is why you are fat’. Yeah. I told my daughter “Not even Jesus and his invisible rainbow colored dinohorse could eat this stuff and expect to live. He’d have to heal himself after every bite.” She replied that he’d have to heal himself after just thinking about taking a bite. I think she’s right. Excuse me, I’ve some DIY angioplasty to do after looking at this page. Ugh.. (“Turbaconucken”?!?! What the was the creator of that monstrosity on?)

This is Why You Are Fat