My understanding was that the issue with the osprey was a pretty easy fix. namely, they were for some reason really susceptible to a kind of vortex that actually shoots air up/forward around the middle of the prop, (Can’t remember the term) and that it causes crashes because the solution is to do the opposite of what…

yeah. I’m fine with banner ads, pre-video ads, sidebar ads, whatever. Hell, sometimes they even show me something i end up buying...but pop-up ads? loud video ads? animated ads? ads that make noise when you scroll over them? Those need to die.

you had me at steering yoke.

and the depreciation will kill you

I hate Maxim, but anyone who thinks Maxim is any worse than Cosmo is an absolute moron.

what if: instead of heat radiators or solar arrays, those big panels are actually big rectenas for receiving power beamed from the mother ship? as short range fighters it would make sense, and it would fit within the obvious “build them light and cheap” mentality that clearly underlies the TIE fighter design.

Wow, way to be high brow Gawker. remind me again why The whole Jennifer Lawrence picture scandal was so horrible.

more importantly, it can’t take off. it’s more like a paraglider than an airplane. Hell, it’s way bigger than a paramotor, and those can actually lift off. on their own. Mine fits in the back of my Toyota Matrix.

thank you. Tesla was brilliant, and like a lot of brilliant minds, his eventually worked itself mad. he made a lot of unsubstantiated claims that now through a combination of legend and reverence for his skill, have been taken be far too many people to be legitimate. the so called “Tesla Turbine” is another perfect…

True. I’m still curious how they autonomous cars makers are going to solve the issue of obscured lane lines and unpredictably slick roads.

The real benefit of a lifting body is on the return. You can have better control of your reentry deceleration. First and foremost, this lets you reduce the forces your passengers and sensitive cargo experience. However, just as importantly, you can use this to put a LOT less stress on your heat shielding, and as a…

for the X-33 they had an aluminum Tank ready as an alternative (wouldn’t have worked for the full sized venturestar but still) but for some reason the weren’t allowed to use it.

you know. what killed the Venturestar was the composite tanks. They kind of barely missed the boat. Composites have come a long way in the last decade. I’m willing to bet that if the air pentagon went to lockheed and told them to re-launch the X-33 program, we could get some legitimate spaceplane goodness going pretty…

“with the majority of the dollars going to SpaceX.”

No. The majority of funding went to Boeing...again...despite lagging behind both SpaceX and Dreamchaser in spacecraft development...SpaceX got the second biggest payout, and Dreamchaser got screwed.

Was the Buran a better system? probably. We’ll never really know how it would have performed in the long haul, but I there is a compelling case to be made that it was a more capable launch system. (Though putting the engines on the orbiter was done to preserve the engines for re-use, which Nasa thought, at the time,…

Bullseyeing some Wamp Rats

You know, I’d actually be totally cool with this if their data mining worked better. like “Yes google, I was actually considering buying one of those, How did you know? and you say this site is having a sale! Thanks Google”

However, lately I’ve been getting a lot of ads in Spanish. Now, I have nothing against Spanish,…

yeah. In Minnesota, summer is 100 and humid...winter is below zero, and spring lasts 3 days and consists of 30 different kinds of mud. You shut your face about Fall.

Chevy Volt. Hear me out: I didn’t expect it, but the flat torque curve from that electric drive-train sneaks up on you. Plus the heavy batteries in the floor had the thing just clinging to the road when I drove one.