7:54 AM Mr. Brown
I saw something on TV about a cosmonaut who sent a message back on one mission that they needed to bring them home. “I am not going to work with this corpse anymore.”
So he was ready to kill his fellow cosmonaut.
LOL
Big trouble.
That was the other problem they were looking into: The psychological aspect of the whole trip.
If astronauts go crazy before they get to Mars, it doesn't matter if all the equipment works or not.
8:02 AM Mr. Silver
Yeah...being prone to space madness is not a good qualification for an astronaut.
8:04 AM Mr. Gray
Space...MADNESS!!
8:04 AM Mr. Brown
8:35 AM Mr. Brown
Do you think they would have actually sent men to die in space just to get ahead of us.
8:36 AM Mr. Gray
Yep.
8:36 AM Mr. Brown
So there could be dead men floating around in space right now, or even on the Moon.
8:36 AM Mr. Gray
Back then the risks were great, but both countries were pushing hard.
It wouldn’t surprise me; the Soviets kept everything very hush-hush on even Gagarin's flight.
Details weren’t released until after he landed, for the most part.
8:39 AM Mr. Brown
I know there are definitely dead dogs out there.
And mice
Rats
Monkeys
9:17 AM Mr. Brown
Speaking of lost cosmonauts: Hi Mr. Blue.
9:33 AM Mr. Silver
"And then in 1962, a French amateur radio operator purportedly recorded another Russian cosmonaut reporting in American English, strangely, that he hadn't been born yet and that he'd like to come down please."
9:34 AM Mr. Silver
"The so-called 'Mr. Blue' tapes continued from this initial report over a span of the next 5 years."
9:38 AM Mr. Blue
Heheh
9:48 AM Mr. Silver
"Some several of the entries were quite short, including 'WTF!', 'Hello-oooo!' and 'JE-bus!'."
9:54 AM Mr. Brown
"At one point the radio enthusiast received a transmission saying 'This crazy guy up here thinks we can go through the center of the Sun, please bring us back.' "
10:01 AM Mr. Silver
Eek
Those fiendish Soviets!
10:03 AM Mr. Brown
10:11 AM Mr. Silver
"Indian scientists discover earthworms with bones."
Weird beasties...
10:11 AM Mr. Brown
They lay eggs too. Strange.
10:12 AM Mr. Silver
Well, they are amphibians...so yeah, they lay eggs.
10:12 AM Mr. Brown
Its the Mongolian death worm! Aaaaaaaa!
No wait, its his cousin.
10:13 AM Mr. Silver
"The Mongolian Passive Worm-like Thing!"
10:13 AM Mr. Blue
“Big deal, I lay eggs.”
Mr. Silver
Repo from Mr. Blue:
I like the picture that they chose for an article about serious head injuries in NASCAR:
“Officials suspect that drivers leaving their helmets on the dash and performing ’The Happy Dog’ is a contributing factor.”
10:15 AM Mr. Blue
"I don't know how many concussions I've had in my career.. After my 10th concussion I stopped being able to count past the number 10."
10:24 AM Mr. Brown
Another contributing factor: Celebrating too early by removal of helmet at 200mph while yelling “Yahoo!”
10:24 AM Mr. Blue
Heheh.
Steering with crotch/genitals.
Celebrating victories by smashing glass milk bottles over one's head.
10:25 AM Mr. Brown
Another contributing factor to the head injuries of specifically the winners is the throwing of the checkered flag to them. The drivers are not always able to catch it, and get hit on the head with the pole.
10:26 AM Mr. Blue
"Controversial new NASCAR policy says all non-finalists will be cold-cocked in the jaw by Mike Tyson."
10:30 AM Mr. Brown
"More news on head injuries in racing: More celebratory backflips going awry"
10:33 AM Mr. Brown
"also reported in racing are more and more losses of middle fingers during the race."
10:35 AM Mr. Silver
"NASCAR officials are reconsidering the 4.5' high 'Celebration Steel Bar' across the finish line at the end of every race."
12:33 PM Mr. Blue
12:35 PM Mr. Brown
They thought James Bond was on the flight and destroyed it.
12:35 PM Mr. Silver
I expected to see the jet in a tuxedo with a Walther PPK taped to a wing tip.
12:42 PM Mr. Blue
Every airline disaster Wikipedia article is so detailed.
12:44 PM Mr. Silver
Well, the accident reports put together for those things tend to run into the 10s of thousands of pages...There is plenty to put in a wiki.
12:44 PM Mr. Blue
Yes, but someone is reading those 10,000 pages and condensing them into very detailed and tense articles.
12:45 PM Mr. Silver
Yup. Aviation accident geeks.
I knew a guy that was both a train geek and camera geek.
12:46 PM Mr. Silver
One evening he treated the family to hours of slides of the time the Soviet Union let him in to ride across Russia.
Having no passion for either subject...well...maybe it was 20 minutes not "hours".
12:47 PM Mr. Blue
Heheh.
12:53 PM Mr. Silver
I took away from the experience that the USSR gave people jobs sweeping snow, jobs that consisted of stepping out one's hut to wave at the passing trains and then go back in, and that at at least one border they had to take all the trucks off the cars and change them to a different rail gauge standard to continue the trip.
12:54 PM Mr. Blue
Heh, on the Trans-Siberian?
12:54 PM Mr. Silver
I believe it was, yes.
1:56 PM Mr. Blue
2:01 PM Mr. Brown
Hmm. Balloons. Wouldn't last that long.
LOL
I bet they were a good target if the opposing force was close enough.
2:04 PM Mr. Blue
I don't know if muskets could shoot that high or accurately enough.
Even if they did, a couple dime-sized holes isn't going to bring one down right away.
2:04 PM Mr. Brown
You would still try to shoot it though, or the guys in the basket.
2:05 PM Mr. Blue
I’d shoot at the people shooting at me, first.
2:05 PM Mr. Brown
Did they use them to drop bombs?
2:05 PM Mr. Blue
Yes, in 1794 they dropped bombs.
They probably just had the balloons tethered to a certain point with a decent vantage of the battlefield.
2:13 PM Mr. Silver
For that period and for a long while after, they were only good for reconnaissance.
There is no effective weapon from a balloon like that.
Military air corps didn't even arm airplanes until partway into WWI, and they could actually select and move towards a target.
2:15 PM Mr. Brown
They had zeppelins at some point.
2:16 PM Mr. Silver
Yes...the first heavy bombers.
2:21 PM Mr. Silver
They were better as a psychological weapon, though.
A zeppelin payload was big compared to anything else of the day, but it was still tiny. Add that they weren't particularly easy to navigate, and had a tendency to deflate or burn.
2:27 PM Mr. Silver
They were safest when too high for defensive aircraft to shoot at them, but that was also too high to effectively bomb a target, so they'd go at night and navigate by comparing maps to collections of lights down below.
They'd drop their stuff, hope for the best, and try to get home the same way.
2:28 PM Mr. Brown
Night bombings. Always a surprise.
2:28 PM Mr. Silver
Hehe
Especially when they got home to learn they hit the wrong town.
2:29 PM Mr. Brown
“I think that might be the factory. Let's go down and ask for directions.”
2:33 PM Mr. Silver
I don't know if you ever ran across the bit with a zeppelin where they cranked down a guy with a phone in a little gondola to tell the bombardier when to drop a bomb.
That was done at least once, and was successful.
The main problem was the shrapnel hitting the gondola.
The guide said he could hear the soldiers on the ground talking. "There was one right below me, looking up. He couldn't see me, but he was so close I heard him say to his buddy "Where ARE they?"
I wanted to say "Right here" but I was too scared.
2:39 PM Mr. Brown
That would be crazy.
Mr. Gray
I'm just all blah. My car still isn’t inspected, all plans for the weekend fell through, so I've got nothing to do...blah.
9:25 AM Mr. Silver
(Pictures Mr. Gray in the "Is There Anybody Out There?" scene from "Pink Floyd - The Wall" by about 7pm Saturday night.)
Will you be needing chicken bones and smashed guitar parts this weekend, Mr. Gray?
9:35 AM Mr. Gray
Yes please.
No comments:
Post a Comment