Hubble to be abandoned

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

And it's the event that starts the clock ticking on the Soyuz operational
lifetime, so best to do it in Guiana, rather than in Russia...


Wait a second...we both forgot something (at least I did)- the
RD-107/108 motors of the booster use hydrogen peroxide to drive their
turbopumps- which means that this fueling capability also exists at the
space center in Guiana.

Pat

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 22:28:33 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

This is a job for MAJOR MATT MASON!
http://www.fullyarticulated.com/MATTPAGE.html

....God, I hate seeing pages like this. I had most of the MMM
collection when I was a kid, and bought my first MMM the day it hit
the dime store (*) next to my Pop's cafeteria. I got two more and
created my own "Sgt. Storm" before the Sarge got drafted with the help
of a big red Marks-A-Lot. I picked up most of the accessory packs
except for the "survival shelter" (which never did show up at the
store) and the "space sled" because it came with the figures anyway.
That Chrisnukkah, under the tree from various family friends were
presents that the "kid genius space nut". Since those families didn't
interact with one another, they had no way of knowing that all five of
them were buying the same Super Colossal All-Toys-In-One-Big-Box
Collector's Set.

So, on that fateful morning of Christmas Day 1966, I constructed a
Space Station as tall as the tree, with five Space Crawlers underneath
it. Somehow, the pictures of that feat disappeared to the ages...

....I picked up some of the other expansions after that, although I
never did buy the Captain Lazer oddity. The black figure never did
show up on the shelves down here in Texas, and the power lifter and
XRV-1 glider also somehow missed getting down here. I also added two
more stations when my Mom found them at a garage sale, although they
were missing several parts, natch. In the end I wound up with 11 MMM
figures, 2 actual Sgt. Storm figures, one Callisto, one Scorpio, and
one Doug Davis with both arms broken. Add to that essentially 12
stations, five crawlers, 8 jetpacks and space sleds, 8 CAT tracks,
five satellite launchers, five probe launchers, two reconojets, one
astrotrack convoy set, two star searchers, and a firebolt space cannon
that never did fire those "poke yer eye out" bolts worth a ****.
There's a few others I've forgotten - some squirt gun accessory and
something called a "gamma ray guard", among others - but for your
average kid circa 1966-1969, that was an excessive amount of toys from
the same toy line in that day. Come the arrival of the GI Joe 3.5"
"Delta Force" relaunch/reimaging in the 80's, not having 20 or more
figures would be considered a sign that your parents were poor :-P

....As I grew older, I stupidly outgrew those MMM toys and tossed them
in a big box to collect dust in the garage. When I hit Junior High, I
sold all those toys to a local collector and bought my first CB Radio,
base antenna, and 50-watt linear amplifier. In retrospect, I probably
got the short end of that stick, even if the antenna was a 3/4 wave
:-(

....If anyone at Mattel had a clue, they'd jump on this new NASA
initiative like white on rice and do a new MMM line. Something more
updated, in the 4" poseable size, using those NASA concepts as a prime
source, and even including the Russian and Chinese designs as well.
But again, it would require the Mattel higher-ups having a clue.

(*) Yes, kids, there were things called "Dime Stores" back then, which
was a term that was shortened due to inflation from "Five & Dime",
which referred to the concept that everything in the store cost either
a nickel or a dime. Nowadays they're called "99-cent Stores".

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 21:02:19 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Brian Thorn wrote:

And how would you dock this thing to Hubble?

You would have to mount some sort of compatible gear on the nose of the
Soyuz

....And here I was thinking just lassoing the damn thing, which would
require that the Cosmonauts go through rodeo training.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

OM wrote:

So, on that fateful morning of Christmas Day 1966, I constructed a Space
Station as tall as the tree, with five Space Crawlers underneath it.

Naturally (I hope), you explained to your assembled relatives that in practice
such a feat would be simple given the moon's lower gravity, then backed up the
assertion with some BoTE engineering calculations :-)

...If anyone at Mattel had a clue, they'd jump on this new NASA initiative
like white on rice and do a new MMM line. Something more updated, in the 4"
poseable size, using those NASA concepts as a prime source, and even
including the Russian and Chinese designs as well.

After seeing a JFK "GI Joe" in the stores this Christmas (complete with
hollowed out coconut!), it became very obvious to me that toy manufacturers
pitch their products at parents, aunts, uncles, etc. as much as to the kids!

--
Dave Michelson

OM wrote:

...God, I hate seeing pages like this. I had most of the MMM
collection when I was a kid, and bought my first MMM the day it hit
the dime store


I had about 1 of each of the gizmos you mention; a couple of days ago I
was out at Walmart and saw the toy I really want- the radio control
1/6th scale Stuart tank! But I settled for a diecast 1/64th scale
1930's Batman's Batgyro due to budget concerns.

Pat

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 00:43:01 -0600, OM
om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org
wrote:

You would have to mount some sort of compatible gear on the nose of the
Soyuz

...And here I was thinking just lassoing the damn thing, which would
require that the Cosmonauts go through rodeo training.

If you see the cosmonaut on ISS start practicing zero-g lassoing,
you'll know something's up...

Brian

Jorge R. Frank a écrit :


There are no plans currently for the Soyuz pad at Kourou to support manned
launches.

Jorge R. Frank a écrit :


There are no plans currently for the Soyuz pad at Kourou to support manned
launches.

I'm not sure we'll ever see a Soyuz launched from Kourou (The final
decision is blocked by some ESA member states), but in any case, the
Soyuz launch pad studies done by ESA do take in account the possibility
of launching manned flights from French Guyana. There are some
difficulties, such as pad safety standards being very different in
Kourou compared to Baikonur or Plesetsk, but it's being done. There
isn't much publicity made about it because ESA is very shy when talking
about manned spaceflight in general.
Cyrille

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 20:36:37 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:



Darren J Longhorn wrote:

Absolutely. I'm still working on my flying model. My current plan is
approximately 1/7.5 scale, though I've been considering boosting the
scale to 1/6 so I can include a pilot. Want to share anymore of the
material you have?


These should help: http://petespilots.mysite.freeserve.com/
...as they are designed for us with RC aircraft, they are light in
weight also- a benefit to model rocket design.

Actually, I was thinking of using the Revell Gemini astronaut. Or the
one that comes with the MMU, I think it's the same astronaut. Although
floating, it's pretty close to seated.

Granted, the shuttle needs to go. But we should have been better prepared
for
this eventuality.

Yes, but there is this (at least):

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/new..._story.jsp?id=
news/con01164.xml
BRBR


Well, that's something at least. But one wonders if this Space Plane tech can
be force fitted into the CEV. And again, will the money be there to get this
thing done?

I still wish something could be done to save HST, but I guess that it's
destined to be my generation's Skylab. Look out, Sydney, we got another bomb
from the sky headed your way!