Month: March 2001

it’s not just me then. big hugs to Marcia.

I’ve updated the “about” page so that it now matches the main page and archive in style. Will do the same for the “CV” page and also “meetlinks” in the next few days. Incidentally, if anyone has any new meetlinks links to add, let me know.

Joseph Cyril Bamford dies. Wouldn’t it be great if, in fifty years time, something was known to all and sundry as a GHS? That would be quite cool.

NASA scales down plans. Which is rather sad – just when it looked like we were getting into the most exciting phase of space exploration in years.

Stephen‘s posts from the last couple of days have elevated him to “preferred blog” status at this site. Welcome to the permanent link list, mate.

Meg inadvertently posts a link to a site about the XB-70. I’ve been fascinated by this aircraft for years (reaches for anorak) – designed at the height of the Cold War, it flew at supersonic speeds by riding on top of its own shockwave (the wingtips fold down to ride on the cushion of the shockwave), the intention being that it could “deliver” a nuclear bomb to Moscow from very high altitude, and yet be halfway back to West Germany before it hit the ground. Awesome. But what is most fascinating is that there was a passenger version planned, which would have been around three times faster than Concorde (if my memory serves me well, around 2000mph!) and quite a lot bigger.
Of course it was scrapped, for three reasons – the tragic accident that is documented at the site, the fact it was costing billions of dollars (probably enough to feed the entire third world for a year) and also the advances in missile technology which allowed a small, disposable “vehicle” to do the same job at a fraction of the cost.
The remaining aircraft is in a museum in Dayton, Ohio, and apparently is still capable of flight – now that would be something to have a go at!