The Shuttle Fight Begins!

Its all about politics. How else can you explain New York City getting a space shuttle to sit on top of a aircraft carrier and Houston - home of the Johnson Space Center; gets nothing.

New York?!

New Frackin' York?!

President Obama must have been paying back something to Senator Charles "Chucky" Schumer(D) for New York to get the shuttlecraft Enterprise.

Right now, the Enterprise is in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

To read the NY Daily News article about efforts underway to change this out come, the senator said, "Fughgeddaboutit." Actually, the NYD News said in the opening paragraph of their news article the following: "A peeved Utah Congressman, joined by a bunch of poor-loser Texans, is mounting a campaign to yank the NASA shuttle Enterprise from the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum."

Republican Rep Jason Chaffetz of Utah is pushing a bill that will reshuffle the final resting places of the shuttle fleet. Namely, one of the shuttles (either Enterprise or Endeavour) will go to Houston, Texas. The space shuttle Discovery will replace the Enterprise at the The Smithsonian Institutions National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar facility-in Hazy Center, Va.. Cape Canaveral/ Kennedy Space Center in Florida, gets to keep the space shuttle Atlantis. And the California Science Center in Los Angeles would get the remaining shuttle.

As for this Texan. I am somewhat resigned to the fact that Texas will not get a space shuttle do to the fact that our state did not - and still doesn't support President Obama very much. But Obama can and does expect New York to carry his waste water with loving care at his beck and call.

While the Enterprise never made it up into orbit - it was only a prototype test airframe to prove the shuttle concept. To leave Houston out of the picture was the most disturbing thing about this sorry mess. To my fellow Star Trek fans - don't jump the gun too fast next time when it comes time to name another spacecraft after a famous fictional spacecraft.

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Ref.

1. NY Daily News. "Star wars: Rep calls for Houston to get NASA shuttle, not Intrepid; Schumer says 'Fugheddaboutit'" by Richard Sisk. April 15, 2011. (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2011/04/15/2011-04-15_rep_calls_for_houston_to_get_nasa_shuttle_enterprise_not_intrepid_schumer_says_f.html)

2. photo is AP/Lisa Nipp.

Rare Battle of Britian Discovery Made

Yahoo news reported on a discovery yesterday that was made two years ago and reported in the British newspaper, the Daily Mail in back in 2010.

It appears that a rare Dornier 17, known as the "Flying Pencil", was discovered in a sand bar when a fisherman's net caught on it.

Buried under a sandbar for decades in Goodwin Sands-a ten-mile long sandbar off of Deal, Kent, UK.

The RAF museum announched planes to try and recover this rare find for display. Air Vice-Marshal Peter Dye, the Director General of the RAF Museum told reporters "The aircraft is a unique and unprecedented survivor from the Battle of Britain. It is particularly significant because, as a bomber, it formed the ehart of the Luftwaffe assault and the subsequent Blitz."

Work on the wreck will be undertaken at the RAF Museum's conservation center in Cosford, Shropshire.

The Flying Pencil attack some airfields in Essex on August 26, 1940. It was hit by RAF fightercraft and the German pilot, Willi Effmert, attempted to do a wheels-up landing on Goodwin Sands. But the aircraft flipped on landing and Effmert and one other crewmember were captured. Two others crew members died in the bomber.

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Ref.

(1). Daily Mail. "Up and away: Rare German wartime bomber found in Kent seabed to be raised for museum display" September 3, 2010. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308589/Rare-German-wartime-bomber-discovered-Kent-sandbank-recovered.html). images come from same article.

S-97 Aurora by Sikorsky

Wow! Happened to come across this article and the picture with it! Looks like it should appear on that old tv show Airwolf!

A company by the name of Aurora FLight Sciences announched that it had been selected by old granddaddy helicopter giant Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation to design and build some prototype airframes for the S-97 Raider project.

The S-97 Raider program is based off of Sikorsky's next-generation X-2 Technology rotary wing demonstrator aircraft, which features twin coaxial counter-rotating main rotors and a pusher propeller.

NASA selected the X2 Demonstrator as the recipient of the 2010 Collier Trophy. The S-97 can fly nearly twice the speed as other conventional helicopters with greater maneuverability, greater endurance, reduced noise, and fly at higher altitudes.

Now Aurora Flight Sciences designs and builds robotic aircraft and other advance vehicles for scientific and military projects and they operate out of Manassas, VA.

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Ref.

1. Verticalmag.com "Sikorsky Selects Aurora for S-97 RAIDER" by Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. April 4, 2011. (http://www.verticalmag.com/control/news/templates/?z=0&a=16627).

2. (www.aurora.aero).

There was once a British Royal Navy

This blogger came across this bit of cheery news on the cdr salamander blog. He posted this picture of two of Great Britain's two S/VTOL aircraft carriers.

And its sad that the UK will not be preserving HMS Invincible as a mermorial ship. This warship took part in the Falklands War in 1982. In the background of the picture, was the HMS Ark Royal at her Portsmouth berth - waiting for a new owner or the scrapyard.

Twenty Sea Harriers of the Fleet Air Arm and backed up by some RAF Harriers was the only means for the Royal Navy to provide air cover against what the Argentian's Air Force and Navy Air Armanda could throw at the British.

It's sad to see the Invincible in the shape it was in -being towed by tugs, paint on the island flaking off. The bold black waterline marking all but gone. In the picture, one can see both ship's famous ski-jump ramp.

Its just a sad picture of a former Navy power going into the dustbill of history. Her citizens have decided that they need more government programs and give aways than actual national defense. And this blogger is waiting for the same thing to start happening here in the US of A..

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Ref.

1. cdr salamander. "Royal Navy's decline in a picture" March 28, 2011. (http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2011/03/royal-navys-decline-in-picture.html). Picture by Mike Walker.

2. Naval-History.net. "BATTLE ATLAS of the FALKLANDS WAR 1982 by Land, Sea and Air"by Gordon Smith (http://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1982FALKLANDS.htm).

3. History of War Online.com. Falklands. (http://www.historyofwaronline.com/Falklands.html).

Devon England UFO Video

Discovered this bit of YouTube footage from a article on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory tonight.

Incident suppose to have taken place on March 5, 2011, and the video was hot by a 72-year old farmer who was out walking his dog in Devon, England. As one can see, the disc moves behind some trees and then disappears from view.

On YouTube, the video was posted by someone going by the handle "whatintheworld10", real name of Patricia. I quote what Patricia wrote with her video posting:

"Filmed in Devon England. 5th March 2011

Ok, there are already a lot of rumours floating around about this clip, and unfortunately most of you wouldnt know real if it hit u in the face.

1. filmed by a 72 year old farmer friend of mine (next time I will ask him to say a few words for u all so as to make it a little more realistic)

2. WIND. u all know what it sounds like when u get a light oncoming breeze into the mic on your phone. sorry if you believe that this is not right in any way. it only goes to show you are wrong.

People create their own stories according to how it should be to them. and if it doesnt fit in with your idea, You wont accept it either way. Some of you really are convinced that you think you KNOW. If you were in my shoes, you would see you didnt KNOW after all. The only people who know, are the ones involved.

Here's a very important point i feel i should make. the only way anyone will believe anything, is if they experience it themselves. until then, it will always be a no go."

end quote.

Now, real or fake; I think this is a good UFO video, period. Again, I do have problems with sizing the vids, so you can just click on the video above and watch it on YouTube directly.

Evidence of Alien Life on Meteorite Claim

That alien life form is/was very similar to a known giant bacterium known as Titanospirillum velox. An organism found here on planet Earth.

So claims Dr. Richard B. Hoover, an astrobiologist with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. He has traveled to very remote areas on Earth such as Antarctica, Siberia, and Alaska for ten years now collecting meteorites. His report, which was published in the March edition of The Journal of Cosmology.

Dr. Hoover been tracking down the very rare class of meteorites, called Cl1 carbonaceous chondrites. There are only nine such meteorites that have been recovered on Earth. Inside these meteorites are fossil evidence of bacterial life within such rocks. This, by extension his report suggests; that we are not alone in the universe.

quote: "I interpret it as indicating that life is more broadly distributed than restricted strictly to the planet earth. This field of study has just barely been touched -- because quite frankly, a great many scientist would say that this is impossible.” end quote.

For more details, please use the link below in the Ref section.

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Ref.

1. Foxnew.com. "Exclusive: NASA Scientist Claims Evidence of Alien Life on Meteorite" by Garrett Tenney. March 5, 2011. (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/05/exclusive-nasa-scientists-claims-evidence-alien-life-meteorite/).

Boeing Tanker Won over EADS's Tanker

Well, I am surprise by this announcement. I thought for sure that enough lobbyists from both sides had enough congressmen and senators paid off that the final decision would be a split purchase between the two companies.

And going by what one article said, that may still be in the works for a future purchase after these first 176 KC-46As are purchased. Price tag is $30 billion plus. EADS version of its Airbus A330 plane to be converted over to a tanker would have been called the KC-45A.

Problems with the F-35 keep on taking place along with the price tag keeps on going up. The USAF is rapidly retiring many of its legacy fighter aircraft such as the F-15 and F-16. Just to try and keep the wonder plane (i.e F-35) on track.

As a smaller aircraft, the KC-46A is expected to burn less fuel in absolute terms than the KC-45 over a 30 year lifespan for the airframe.

Boeing has to deliver the first 18 KC-46As within six years of the contract award date. The production spans over 13 years for building all 179 aircraft. And Boeing has confirmed that first flight for the KC-46A is scheduled for 2015. So, we should see a KC-46A flying by February 2015. I won't hold my breath. Something ALWAYS happens to screw up the production schedule. Then Boeing has to go to Congress to get more funds, etc., etc.

Now its a race against time. The USAF has 400 really old KC-135 Stratotankers that have to be replaced. Many of them are 50+ years old.

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Ref.

1. ELP Defens(c)e Blog. "Boeing KC-46A air-refueling tanker for the USAF. Now what? #military" by Eric Palmer. February 24, 2011. (http://ericpalmer.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/boeing-kc-46a-air-refueling-tanker-for-the-usaf-now-what-military/).

2. Flight Global.com. "USAF selects Boeing for KC-X contract" by Stephen Trimble. (http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/02/24/353642/updated-usaf-selects-boeing-for-kc-x-contract.html).