Hooray For The Little Guy!

Orbital travel start-up SpaceX just picked up a major NASA contract worth a potential 3.1 billion, beating out Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. You can read their press release here:

SpaceX Press Release

Good for them, nice to see NASA shrugging of some of its old boys network and giving some of the new guys on the block a chance. If only I had money to invest in SpaceX right now...

Suborbital Flight Article Up On ORBITAL VECTOR

Just posted an article on Suborbital Passenger Flight on OV. here's the link:

Suborbital Passenger Travel

Found out a bunch of interesting things when researching this article, including the existence of the antipodal bomber, something I had no idea that both Nazi Germany and the Cold War Era US had actively researched. i always look at those innovations that were actively pursued back then, and how different our world would be if even a fraction of them had been followed trhough on.

The Coolest Resurrected City You'll Ever See

http://gizmodo.com/5079790/a-city-thats-built-at-the-bottom-of-a-lake

So far its just in the planning stages, but is as cool a concept as Dubai's artificial Palm islands, and I hope Bulgaria goes through with it. It will involve the construction of a 65-ft high circular dyke over a mile in circumference in order to expose the ancient city of Seuthopolis, which was flooded over when a dam was built nearby in 1954.There are of course a great deal of technical hurdles to overcome, but when complete it will be a tourist destination unlike any other. Not only do I want to visit when its done, but the idea sounds like a very cool location to use for a story or some artwork...

There are of course a great deal of technical hurdles to overcome, but when complete it will be a tourist destination unlike any other. Not only do I want to visit when its done, but the idea sounds like a very cool location to use for a story or some artwork...

Orbitalvector.com Reaches 10,000 Unique Hits

I know its been ages since I updated this blog, but I created it mere days before a medical problem hit unexpectantly. That's still ongoing, but things have settled out a bit and I cna get back to business.

Anyway, I had created this blog as a supplement to my Orbital Vector site ( www.orbitalvector.com ), which focuses on speculative and science fiction technology. The big news is that it passed the 10,000 hits mark this past week. I do consider this an accomplishment, considering that its a niche website with limited mainstream appeal.

The newest article is on Force Fields, those weird, ubiquitous devices that have almost no connection to real life science. While there are some technologies being researched that are kind of similar (like elecrtomagnetic defense fields and plasma shields) force fields like you see in science fiction are as much fantasy as Harry Potter's wand.

Upcoming is an article on suborbital flight, plus some other fun stuff.