Future Dogfights (Part 4)

Future Dogfights (Part 3)

Future Dogfights (Part 2)

Future Dogfights (Part 1)

Tinkeratrix: Happy Rezday to Me

A wonderful personal story of Apollo 11 from a fellow Caledonian ;)

Tinkeratrix: Happy Rezday to Me

"Happy Rezday to Me

Meh. One thing my typist and I both share is an appalling lack of concern over our respective birthdays. But today's date is important.

20 July, 1969 is when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.

Roll the words around in your head a moment. Landed. On. The moon.

It's important to me because that's where I grew up. Not the moon but more or less right next door. My father was one of thousands of civilian contractors who worked at KSC, or as it's more popularly known, Cape Kennedy. Merritt Island, Florida was essentially the on ramp that lead to the moon. Many of you watched the launch on television, I watched from the roof of out house about 17 miles from Launch Complex 39A...."

Read the rest of her post here...

Tinkeratrix: Happy Rezday to Me

From The Earth To The Moon - Apollo 11 Landing

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 [July 16 - 24, 1969], here are two excerpts from episode 6 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

(This is excerpt part 1 of 2)



(excerpt part 2 of 2)

Walter Cronkite and the Space Program

Project Gemini - NASA's bridge to Apollo

APOLLO 11 Lunar Lander in Second Life

While visiting the Space Frontier sim for the Apollo-Saturn V adventure on Monday July 13th, I had the pleasure of meeting builder Ryder Spearmann.



I knew his name from Trek Works building various sci-fi related items such as the very detailed Classic Enterprise Bridge from Star Trek.



Lately, Ryder is using his fantastic building skills creating RL spacecraft in SL such as this beautifully built Lunar Module. I think a Command/Service Module may be next on his agenda.





I promptly setup my own LEM and placed it on display at my aerodrome...after a quick announcement in the Royal Caledon Air Force group I soon had visitors, including Samantha Poindexter, seen here next to me in an appropriate outfit...



Meanwhile, I continue to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of this great achievement through the 24th of July...

"Two of you will be first"

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11. [July 16 - 24, 1969]. Here is an excerpt from episode 1 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

[All-Hands meeting of astronauts with Deke Slayton, Director of Flight Crew Operations.]

"...I do know that the first man to walk on the moon walked into this room today and he's looking at me right now..."

Gemini 8 flight from episode 1 of "From The Earth To The Moon"

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11. [July 16 - 24, 1969]. Here is an excerpt from episode 1 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

[The Gemini 8 flight with Astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott, March 16, 1966.]

Gemini 4 flight from episode 1 of "From The Earth To The Moon"

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11. [July 16 - 24, 1969]. Here is an excerpt from episode 1 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

[The Gemini 4 flight with Astronauts Jim McDivitt and Ed White June 3, 1965.]

Freedom 7 flight from episode 1 of "From The Earth To The Moon"

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11. [July 16 - 24, 1969]. Here is an excerpt from episode 1 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

[The Mercury-Redstone Freedom 7 flight with Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., May 5, 1961.]

John F. Kennedy's "Moon Speech" - Rice Stadium

John F. Kennedy:

"President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief.

I am delighted to be here, and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.

Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation¹s own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.

No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man¹s recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.

Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.

This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.

So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.

William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.

In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where the F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.

Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were "made in the United States of America" and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.

The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the the 40-yard lines.

Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.

We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.

The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.

And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this State, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your City of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this Center in this City.

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year¹s space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United Stated, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us.

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. [laughter]

However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the term of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.

I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

Thank you."

Yuneec Chinese Electric Airplane Info & First Flight

No One Lives Forever 2 (The Trailer)

Y'know? It's hard to imagine a world without YouTube now. There's something for everyone.

Hummingbird-like Nano Air Vehicle from AeroVironment, DARPA

Apollo 12 hit by lightning seconds after launch

Shortly after launch on November 14, 1969, Apollo 12 was hit by lightning, leaving rookie astronaut Al Bean to save the day.

A fragment from the miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon"



Apollo 12 lightning-induced problem shortly after liftoff. Taken from the documentary "Failure Is Not An Option"

Apollo 11 Tranquility Base Simulation in Second Life

from dadenmedia: "This video shows a simulation of Tranquility Base built in Second Life by Linden Lab Gold Partner Daden Limited. As well as featuring a model of the Lunar Lander the simulation features a map overlay at 1:1 scale showing where the astronauts walked, and hotspots that shows the images and video in a HUD that were taken by the astronauts from the places they were made. The science experiments are also in their correct places and link back to web pages providing more information...."



In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 [July 16 - 24, 1969], I setup two excerpt videos from episode 6 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

FOZ 1.0

Prokofy Neva has a new FIC 2.6 and Noosphere list posted and it got me thinking of my own list.

So I'd like to announce FOZ 1.0.

FOZ = Friends of Zoe

This is a list of people in Second Life who have been good friends, an influence or source of advice in some manner, and a real and consistent asset to me from January through June 2009. The list is a snapshot of that time frame and I'm sure will change as time marches on.

Some people will know why they are mentioned. Others may be surprised to be listed, but in some small way they contributed to my sanity in SL.

Aether Inglewood
Charlanna Beresford
Cornelius Fanshaw
Crap Mariner
Denver Hax
Edward Pearse
Eladrienne Laval
Excalibur Longstaff
Fogwoman Gray
GoSpeed Racer
Ilsa Munro
Karl Reisman
Phineas Messmer
Sin Trenton
Thadicus Caligari
Titanas Vella
Tymmerie Thorne
Vickster Kuhn
Vivito Volare
Whitewolf Mumfuzz
Wrath Constantine

If you're not on this list, and think you should be...don't feel hurt. This is version 1.0 and will change over time.

I tried to think of an enemies list (EOZ = Enemies of Zoe) but to be honest I couldn't think of anyone who deserved to be listed. I'm no good at sustaining grudges.

From The Earth To The Moon

We Choose the Moon: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11. Here is an excerpt from episode 6 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

Intro and Main Titles to the Mini-Series



Excerpt Part 1


Find more videos like this on Royal Caledon Air Force (RCAF)

Excerpt Part 2


Find more videos like this on Royal Caledon Air Force (RCAF)

Destination Moon



The Project Apollo Image Gallery

Online Talk Radio Station - Live365 Internet Radio - Apollo 11-Lunar Landing

Clavius Moon Base - debunking the moon hoax

Check ArminasX Saiman's blog for his Second Life Apollo Experience....

Second Effects: To The Moon, Almost

Second Effects: Back to the Moon

Mitchell

Watch more videos of IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey

July 4, 1776

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

****************************************************************

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Results of the Tiny Dogfights in Steelhead

I missed the Tiny Dogfights in Steelhead, but here are two accounts of events....

A Stroll Through Caledon: Steelhead Goes Tiny for the Dogfights!

Through the Filter of a Victorian Aesthetic: Tiny Dogfights in Steelhead

Love the Tinies!

They're both cute and fierce!...and...CUTE!

Because I Fly (by Grover C. Norwood)

Because I fly

I laugh more than other men
I look up an see more than they,
I know how the clouds feel,
What it's like to have the blue in my lap,
to look down on birds,
to feel freedom in a thing called the stick...

who but I can slice between God's billowed legs,
and feel then laugh and crash with His step
Who else has seen the unclimbed peaks?
The rainbow's secret?
The real reason birds sing?
Because I Fly,
I envy no man on earth.

— Grover C. Norwood

Great Aviation Quotes: Poems

Air Racer: Chasing the Dream