Politics - Business - Science and Technology - History - Popular Culture - Simulations
Last update: April 21, 2007
| THE OBSERVATORY |
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| Analysis,
Commentary ... and Sheer Speculation "May You Live In Interesting Times"
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Welcome to The Observatory! With a billion pages now on the Web, you might ask, "Why put up yet another site?" The short answer is, because I can. For a slightly longer answer, well, surf the site and judge for yourself. If you have comments, feel welcome to email me here. And, yes, I do have an ulterior motive: find out about it here. -- Rick Robinson
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I finally have a real, actual blog:
My shortlived initial handcoded blog effort is here. My second one is here. The version of my front page from the 2004 election is here.
Articles - Electoral Vote, 2004 - a first preview (August 28, 2003)
Over the Cliff (May 12, 2002) "Gitmo" (January 23, 2002) A Whiff of Normalcy (January 23, 2002) Both Sides Now (November 29, 2001) Jihad (September 17, 2001) Day of Infamy (September 11, 2001)
Toyz and Other Stuff - Aircraft Specification Simulator This is, more or less, "Spring Style for Airplanes." This Excel workbook allows you to specify the dimensions, power plant, and maximum takeoff weight of an aircraft; the workbook then computes its weights and allows you to explore its flight performance envelope. (It's not a flight simulator, but tests what speed and altitude the aircraft could attain. Provisions include simming orbital spaceplanes and airships, as well as conventional airplanes. ZIPped file contains Excel workbook with explanation/instruction notes and sample aircraft. This is a beta! Requires Excel.
A (rough) visual image of starships in parking orbit before departure, each carrying two tactical ships as riders. Thanks to NASA for the planet in the background.
A fairly schematic view of a ship carrying 12 standard passenger pods and 18 cargo pods (each pod 10 x 5 x 5 meters). The shuttle looks more like a present-day cargo plane, and is there mainly for size reference, as are the spacewalkers scattered about. :-) The lower part of the image shows an isometric cutaway of a passenger pod ... and yes, it does look like an Amtrak Superliner sleeping car!
Starship Specification Spreadsheet An Excel workbook for spacecraft mass, propulsion, fuel, etc. The filename says "space warships," but it can be used for civil cargo/passenger ships as well.
"Captain Lord Herrick" kitbashed this drawing of a Terentrian heavy cruiser, and I made a few minor additional changes. Follow the Saga of Tarrantry link for more.
In the continuing evolution of this site - survival of the easiest - I started these two sections for new material, then stopped using them. But they're still part of my archive, with material from between May and September of 2001.
Visit the topical-section pages for earlier articles. |
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