Telstar Logistics

NASA Boss to Obama: "Red Alert! Set Shields to Maximum!"

NASA administrator Mike Griffin is so worried that Barack Obama might cut funding for the Constellation moon/Mars program that he's put America's space agency on red alert and raised the deflector shields to maximum — all in hopes of preventing the new administration from reconsidering NASA's funding priorities. The Orlando Sentinel's blog reports the whole story in superb detail, but here's a condensed snippet:

In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.

In addition, Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency’s moon program, sources said. [...]

The tensions are due to the fact that NASA’s human space flight program is facing its biggest crossroads since the end of the Apollo era in the 1970s. The space shuttle is scheduled to be retired in 2010, and the next-generation Constellation rockets won’t fly before 2015.

Nearly four years ago, President Bush brought in Griffin to implement a plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 as a prelude to going to Mars. Griffin and his team selected Constellation, with its NASA-designed Ares I rocket and Orion capsule, as cheaper and safer than existing rockets. Constellation – especially Ares 1 -- is the center of what Griffin sees as his legacy to return humans to the frontiers of space.

LINK:

NASA Has Become a Transition Problem for Obama (Orlando Sentinel blog post)

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Tomorrow's Astronauts Will Fly Economy Class to the Moon

NASA's Moon Truck Goes for a Test Drive

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For Sale: One Aerocar; Half Car, Half Airplane

Speaking of strange hybrids... ever heard of the Taylor Aerocar?  We were fascinated by them during our early years.  Built by an American entrepreneur named Moult Taylor after World War II, the Aerocar was a road-ready automobile that could be converted into an airworthy airplane by attaching a set of wings. The Wikipedia sketches out the rest of the tale:

Taylor's design of a roadable aircraft dates back to 1946. During a trip to Delaware, he met inventor Robert E. Fulton, Jr., who had designed an earlier roadable airplane, the Airphibian. Taylor recognized that the detachable wings of Fulton’s design would be better replaced by folding wings. His prototype Aerocar utilized folding wings that allowed the road vehicle to be convertible into flight mode in five minutes by one person. When the rear licence plate was flipped up, the operator could connect the propeller shaft and attach a pusher propeller. The same engine drives the front wheels through a three-speed manual transmission. When operated as an aircraft, the road transmission is simply left in neutral (though backing up during taxiing is possible by using reverse gear.) On the road, the wings and tail unit were designed to be towed behind the vehicle. Aerocars can drive up to 60 miles per hour and have a top airspeed of 110 miles per hour.

Civil certification was gained in 1956, and Taylor reached a deal with Ling-Temco-Vought for serial production on the proviso that he was able to attract 500 orders. When he was able to only find half that number of buyers, plans for production ended, and only six examples were built.

As one might expect, the engineering compromises required to create a car that could fly and a plane that could drive meant that Aerocars suffered from a variation of the Mermaid Problem — that is, with a mermaid, when you want a fish you get a woman, and when you want a woman you get a fish. Awwwwkward.

Much like mermaids, Aerocars may not be practical, but they continue to fascinate. The second of the six Aerocars, tail number N103D, built in 1956, is now for sale, and via eBay, no less. Fidel Castro's brother Raúl once flew this vehicle around Cuba, and it later logged more than 1000 hours in the air doing traffic reports for KISN above Portland, Oregon. The bidding on eBay starts at $3.5 million, and the buyer is responsible for transporting the vehicle from Grand Junction, Colorado.  Fly or drive — it's your choice.

(Tip of the flight cap to Dr. MOZ)

LINKS:
Aerocar N103D Flying Plane Car Single Engine Auto Fly (eBay Auction listing, expires 16 December, 2008)

This excellent newsreel from the early 1950s shows an Aerocar taking off from San Francisco International Airport:

This contemporary video has a Spanish narration, but it shows Aerocar No. 4 on the road, transitioning for flight, and in the air:

PREVIOUSLY:

It's an Amphicar! It's an Amphicar!

An Amphicar Sighting in New Jersey

(IMAGES: Photos of N103D from aerocarforsale.com)

Hybrid Shark Attacks Inland California Town

We spotted this menacing shark recently while driving through Sebastapol, California, a small town 13 miles from the Pacific Ocean.  We don't know how it got there or how it managed to swallow an old International-Harvester pickup truck, but one thing is clear: We're gonna need a bigger boat!

UPDATE:

Our friend Scott Beale from Laughing Squid alerted us that the Shark Car was created by Sebastapol artist Patrick Amiot. Check out Scott's write-ups about Amiot's previous work here and here.

PREVIOUSLY:
Art Cars Invade Northern California

Video: How to Land a 747 at San Francisco International Airport

The video below, taken from the cockpit of a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 making a final approach to Runway 28L at San Francisco International Airport, was filmed with official sanction, so the production quality is excellent. If you’ve ever wondered what’s going on in the front of the plane as you prepare to land at SFO — or if you’re just a fan of air traffic control chatter, NASA-style checklists, and clipped British accents — this will be very satisfying:

Still craving more? Not to worry...  you can also watch the pushback sequence on the other end of the same flight as it departed London Heathrow, along with with the final segment of the pre-takeoff.

(IMAGE TOP: A United Airlines 747 holding at SFO's Runway 28L. Photo by Telstar Logistics.)

What's Wrong with the British Army's Land Rovers?

Remember the controversy that engulfed the US military when it was discovered that American troops were suffering significant combat losses because they were patrolling Iraq in lightly armored HMMWV vehicles that were vulnerable to roadside bombs?  A similar controversy is now unfolding in the United Kingdom as a result of combat losses stemming from the use of lightly armored Land Rover vehicles.

CNN reports that the commander of British special forces in Afghanistan recently "resigned in disgust" because military leaders and government officials ignored his warnings about the safety of so-called SNATCH Land Rovers used by the British Army in Afghanistan. And as any armchair off-road enthusiast can tell you, the SNATCH Land Rovers are based on the civilian Land Rover Defender platform. Defense Industry Daily explains:

The lightly-armored Land Rovers were originally designed for service in Northern Ireland. Protection levels against small arms fire are lower than the USA’s up-armored Hummers, and they suffer from flat, un-armored bottoms that make them little better than a civilian car against underbody land mine blasts. Worse, their off road capability in terrain like Afghanistan’s is considered rather limited, forcing them onto roads as obvious targets.

These characteristics have made the Land Rovers a target of controversy for some time now. To date, 34 British troops have been killed in Land Rover Snatch vehicles while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan – 1/8 of all British casualties in those theaters.

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No BULL: The Ultimate Anti-Smokey Convoy Truck

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The Mystery of the Miniature Stealth Fighter Jet

A few weeks ago Telstar Logistics took our junior executive-in-training to visit the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California.  While we were there, we noticed an odd machine tucked away in a remote part of the museum grounds.  It looked a lot like a miniature version of a F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter. Hmmmmmm...

The aircraft was scaled perfectly for use by a child, but it was no mere plaything -- the attention to detail was extraordinary, and we couldn't help but notice that the landing gear struts looked fully functional. What was it? A remotely piloted test vehicle?  A radar cross-section test platform?  A prototype from the Lockheed ShrunkWorks? An escaped carnival ride? To provide some sense of scale, here's another photo of the mysterious plane, as it looked while our junior executive performed her own investigation:

Upon returning to our headquarters, some online sleuthing identified the likely creator of the unlikely machine: one Mr. Henry Rosales.  We immediately fired off an electronic mail message to the gentleman, and soon received a reply.  Bingo!  Mr. Rosales wrote:

"Yes it looks like you did see the stealth at the Hiller museum. I've wondered where it ended up. I built it in 1991 and used it at air shows to sell pictures of kids in it for five bucks a pop. I then donated it in 1994 to some FAA people who had been borrowing it occasionally to take to schools. Around 1995 they told me they had donated it to a museum and asked if I could help remove the landing gear. I was unable and lost track of its location. Thanks to your inquiry I can now tell people where it is because I get a lot of questions about it even today as I work for Lockheed Martin.

It had noise, lights, and a joystick which operated the nosewheel steering, the steering also ran to the back where I had a tiller for "parental guidance" as on more than one occasion the kid in front would head for cars or pedestrians. It was featured in Air and Space magazine back around 1992."

Sounds impressive, but we also found corroborating evidence in the form of a short video that shows Henry Rosales's mini stealth fighter in action.  Check out what happens when an aerospace employee sets out to build the coolest kiddie toy on the block:

This Way to Cathay: A Pan American Airways Brochure from 1937

In 1936, Pan American Airways inaugurated the world's first commercial air service between the United States and China.  Departing from Alameda, California aboard a Martin M-130 "China Clipper," passengers reached Asia by playing hopscotch across the Pacific, stopping along the way for rest and refueling in Hawaii, the Midway Islands, Wake Island, Guam, and Manila before arriving in Hong Kong. 

With a cuising speed of 150 mph, the Martin M-130 made the 8000-mile journey to China in five and one-half days. Tickets cost $1600 per person — roughly $10,000 in contemporary dollars.

All that background comes by way of explaining why we were so excited to find a Pan American Airways brochure at a flea market in San Francisco last weekend. The booklet promotes the airline's flights to China aboard the M-130, and based on a few clues — the emphasis on the M-130, as opposed to the Boeing 314 which didn't enter service in 1939; the absence any mention of Treasure Island, which became Pan American's San Francisco base in 1939 — we estimate that it dates from 1937 (give or take a year).

As the brochure explains:

Who has never dreamed of seeing China—the treasure-house of travel wonders that no one who lives upon this world should ever fail to see. Once these were so far away that few could ever hope to reach them. No longer!  The travel adventure of a lifetime is there for the taking.

We scanned the whole thing, so if you want to learn more about travel marketing in the pioneering days of intercontinental commercial air service, feel free to thumb the virtual pages.

LINK:

Pan American Airways Transpacific Service (Complete scans of original 1937 brochure, by Telstar Logistics)

PREVIOUSLY:

"Flight thru Instruments" and the Fine Art of Instructional Illustration

The Intimate Industrial Illustrations of Frank Soltesz

(IMAGES: All images photographed from the original brochure by Telstar Logistics)