It's not rocket science
A couple of good stories appeared today in anticipation of some major milestones expected in the commercial spaceflight business this year. This has perpetually been “two years away” for a long time, but it looks like big things are finally about to start happening.
At least not in this kind of style. Not yet. 
We obviously have a long way to go before the kind of technology speculated about in Perigee comes to fruition. Aerospace geeks might remember the X-30 “National Aerospace Plane” project from the Eighties; it never got off the ground (literally) but still led to ways around some important technological barriers. Roger Launius writes about it here.
And just for grins, he also speculates about going a little ways beyond low Earth orbit. Hang on to your seats. Continue reading “Can’t Get There From Here”
Wicked cool stuff like this, for starters:
The upper reaches of the atmosphere are still not as well understood as the rest underneath. That’s because while it may technically be “space”, there’s still too many trace molecules to orbit any satellites up there, and sounding rockets can only peek at it for a few minutes at a time. As civilian suborbital flights become more routine, expect us to find out a lot more about the fringes of our atmosphere.
And though what’s “out there” is fascinating, I’ve always been much more interested in the big noisy machines we use to get there. Which is also why I dabble in high-power rocketry (I say “dabble” because we only get out to launch maybe once or twice a year). Here’s my own version of the Black Brant X sounding rocket seen in the photo above: 
At about 1/3 scale, it’s a little over 5 feet tall. This was launched in southern Ohio, near the WV border. The sound of that motor echoing off the foothills made it all the more impressive. This is a small rocket compared to some of the stuff I’ve seen at club launches.
Stories of Aurora sightings have been around the web almost since before there was a web. Most of them have been relegated to the category of Bigfoot hunters or UFO stalkers outside Groom Lake (Area 51 to those of you who only know about it through Discovery Channel).
But when an editor of Flying magazine posts a story about another “donuts on a rope” contrail sighting, it tends to get my attention. But I think he’s wrong, and have to wonder if it wasn’t put out there as troll bait. It probably would’ve made a better April 1st story, if youknowhutImean. Continue reading “Time to Buy that Tin Foil Hat”
Yet another awe-inspiring time lapse video from the International Space Station. It’s about 1 frame per second, which is apparently close to a real-time view.
So watch, and imagine you’re chillin’ in the observation cupola of the ISS. Which, by the way, looks an awful lot like the windows on a Star Wars TIE fighter: 
Or, you can imagine you’re watching this from the flight deck of the Austral Clipper. And by the way, the hard-copy proof of Perigee finally arrived in the mail today. If I can’t find any problems with it, look for it to be on sale this weekend…wOOt!
That’s right, everyone’s favorite four-letter word: F-R-E-E.
I’m running a promotion, today only, where you can download Perigee for your Kindle for exactly $0.00. They say stuff is worth what you pay for it, but in this case I think you’d be getting a whole lot of value for nuttin’. You can find all that high-value/low-risk goodness right here.
And for those of you waiting on the paperback version, don’t worry. We’re in final review right now and so far it looks excellent. But weird things can happen when a professional imports a Word file into more serious software, like italics and paragraph returns going crazy. That means a line-by-line edit of what will be about a 360-page novel. That’s a lot of headache-inducing work.
So here’s a shout-out to my cousin Suzanne’s company, Fresh Ink Foundry. She did a terrific job on formatting the e-version and is turning out a Big Publishing-worthy paperback.
So yeah, I’m working on it. We should still have it ready to go by the end of the month. In the meantime, enjoy the e-version. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download a free Kindle reading app from Amazon that works on iPads, PCs, and laptops.
As always, I humbly request that once you’re finished to please consider posting a review on Amazon. Enjoy, and thanks for reading!
UPDATE: The promo’s a little over halfway done, and Perigee just hit Number One on the Amazon Sci-Fi list! Okay, it’s the “free” side but I’ll take it. Hopefully this translates into actual sales tomorrow when the promo’s over. At least that was the idea. Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy!
The plug from Instapundit didn’t hurt either. Thanks Glenn!
It must be hard to get any actual work done on the space station when they’re treated to views like these.
This is why bazillionaires will pay $20 mil for a week’s stay up there.
…and other great curses in Chinese from Firefly, the best show that I had never seen until a few months ago.
If you’re wondering about the blog post title, it’s the #1 cuss-out. It’s almost, like, destiny that I stumbled into this on a Tuesday. Can’t argue with fate.
I know, there hasn’t been much to speak of here lately. Been busy prepping the paperback version of Perigee with my cousin’s company, Fresh Ink Foundry.
In the meantime, here’s a good story from the BBC on a related subject: Could Hypersonic Flight Become a Reality?
If you want to know more, check out the company working on it: Reaction Engines.
A revolutionary spaceplane is stranded in orbit with no way home before the air runs out.
At hypersonic speed, Polaris AeroSpace has become the premium choice for rapid travel around the globe. When a veteran crew is marooned after a series of baffling malfunctions, they must try to stay alive knowing that help may never arrive.
As they struggle with dwindling life support and increasingly desperate passengers, their colleagues scramble to mount an audacious rescue. Racing against time, they will face shocking betrayals in a fight to save their friends and their company. As they unravel a web of industrial espionage, the truth will reveal itself to be worse than imagined. And one man will discover that escape may demand a terrible sacrifice.
PERIGEE is a novel of the next generation of travel in air and space. Look for it now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other e-book distributors.
Here’s the link, to make it easy for you: http://www.amazon.com/Perigee-ebook/dp/B006PNL48I/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324741340&sr=1-5
The Chiles Files 