Nov 12 2009 You Fools!: Government Convinced Martians Were Going To Make Contact In 1924
In 1924, during Mars's opposition (when Earth, on its inner orbit, passes between the Sun and Mars) the US Navy sent a telegram alerting all its stations to be on the lookout for possible alien contact from the red planet. WOW!
Turns out that during the 1924 Mars opposition--when Mars would be closer to Earth than it had been since 1804--the secretary of the Navy sent a telegram to all naval stations asking them to "COOPERATE ASTRONOMERS WHO BELIEVE POSSIBLE THAT MARS MAY ATTEMPT COMMUNICATION BY RADIO WAVES WITH THIS PLANET WHILE THEY ARE NEAR TOGETHER."
BWAHAHAHAHA -- Martians! Like, aliens from Mars! BWAHAHAHAHAHA! I've got news for you: there aren't any aliens on Mars. Pluto, yes, but they're so pissed off we reclassified their home as a dwarf planet they don't have anything to say to us.
UPDATE: I lied, turns out they do have something to say: "F*** you -- have fun with the global warming".
Navy was ordered to listen for Martians in 1924 [scifiwire]
Thanks to junkyard dog, who eats scrap metal and tires and shit because that's what junkyard dogs do.
Jun 15 2009 Raytheon Gets Contract For Laser Weapon
Raytheon, a company best known for my brother and I both swearing we saw an airplane land on top of one of their buildings in Huntsville, Alabama, has received a Navy contract to draw up the initial design of a powerful burning 100-kW Fee Electron Laser (which may or may not look like an automotive engine) to be mounted on seagoing vessels. Pew pew? No. PEW PEW!
Once designed, the naval operators could adjust the wavelength of the laser, which wasn't possible with conventional lasers. This helps compensate for the varying humidity associated with ship-borne situations.
The laser beams could be used against missiles, airplanes, or even boats.
I need one of these for my car. Seriously, I'm tired of sitting in traffic. And let me tell you, I don't just road rage, I road man-rage. You ever seen a guy tear off his own steering wheel, jam it down an air-conditioning vent and then sob uncontrollably? If you've ridden with me you have.
Navy/Raytheon working on 100kW weaponized laser: cue the 'pew-pew' sound effects [dvice]
Feb 24 2009 FREE: Navy Giving Away Stealth Ship & Dock
And I want them!
One is called Sea Shadow. It's big, black and looks like a cross between a Stealth fighter and a Batmobile. It was made to escape detection on the open sea. The other is known as the Hughes (as in Howard Hughes) Mining Barge. It looks like a floating field house, with an arching roof and a door that is 76 feet wide and 72 feet high. Sea Shadow berths inside the barge, which keeps it safely hidden from spy satellites.
The barge, by the way, is the only fully submersible dry dock ever built, making it very handy -- as it was 35 years ago -- for trying to raise a sunken nuclear-armed Soviet submarine.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? A floating safe-haven from the robots! So this is what we're gonna do: pack that vessel chock-full of grade-A seamen and head out on the open ocean. Why, you ask? Because the majority of robots are land-based (we'll still have to watch out for these guys though). Now who's with me? C'mon -- we'll bang mermaids! Heads up though: stay away from Poseidon's daughter. Dude caught me messing around with her in highschool and tried to suck me down the bathtub drain.
Hit the jump for two more of the giveaways.
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Feb 1 2008 Navy Tests New Railgun, It Looks Promising
The Navy is hoping that their newest 10 megajoule railgun (topping their old pathetic 9 megajoule) will replace the standard 5-inch guns on most of their ships. Projectiles fired at this energy level reach about 5,600 mph, but the Navy isn't stopping there. They have their eyes set on a 64 megajoule system capable of shooting at over 13,000 mph and hitting 5 meter targets from 200 nautical miles.
To give you a sense of scale, an 8 megajoule test shot has an impacting force that the Navy describes as being the equivalent of “hitting a target with a Ford Taurus at 380 mph.”
I don't know about the whole Ford Taurus comparison, what I want to know is whether this level of energy is in excess of the 1.21 jigowatts needed to power my flux capacitor. Somebody please do the math. I'm trying to time travel here people. I'm stealing electricity from both my neighbors but I'm still nowhere close to 1.21 jigos. I'd do the whole lightning bit, but frankly it scares me. As an added bonus anybody who helps me break in and steal this electricity (if it's enough) gets a free historical figure's autograph or pet dinosaur, your choice.
Two wicked videos of the gun in action after the jump.
Continue Reading " Navy Tests New Railgun, It Looks Promising "
