benzman

I see that your book is printed by the Viking Press in New York. My book is printed by Purnell and Co. in London in November 1950. it's one of my treasured books.

I have a copy of that book that still has a rather damaged dust cover. The title page is quite different. It says 'copyright 1950, reprinted 1950'. What is the print date of your book?

I have the book 'The Conquest of Space' by Willy Ley , published in 1950 with many paintings by Chesley Bonestell. I have not seen your posted picture before, but it is quite beautiful, even though the sky colour is quite wrong!

It's a real bummer when a robot can dance much better than me!

Dawn Wells, the stunningly pretty girl-next-door in Gilligans Island has passed away from complications from covid19 aged 82.

Not interested in space combat, although given humanity's record up to date it is probably inevitable.

I have a soft spot for the Gemini. Take two hot-shot test pilots and put them into a spacecraft that can be hand flown; what could be better? When the Shuttle was launched to dock with the ISS it would take nearly three days to dock. Gemini guys have been known to dock with their Agina target on the first orbit!

As I recall, bendy wings allow an aircraft to more comfortably ride out turbulence by allowing the wings to flex without jolting the fuselage and hence the passengers. Incidentally, in the 1980s I did quite a bit of flying in sailplanes. The modern, fiberglass open class single-seaters have very long, narrow wings and they can bend their wings like you would not believe!

This is why I have little faith in the idea of time travel. Even if we ever did find out how to do it, how could we determine where we were going to end up? If we reappeared exactly where we started, the earth would have moved and we would find ourselves in deep space.

Juliette Greco passed away on he 23rd of September. Possibly the last of the immediate post-war Parisienne left-bank identities.

Tricycle undercarriage makes an aircraft much easier to land. After the main wheels touch and the nosewheel starts to come down the wing angle of attack lessens and the wing develops less lift. So a nosewheel aircraft has a much less tendency to bounce back into the air as the wing can no longer develop enough lift to allow the aircraft to fly. Once a nosewheel aircraft touches the ground it tends to stay there.

As far as I know, (I am too set in my ways to write AFAIK) when a cat first starts to fall it turns its head to face the floor and then twists its body while using its tail as a counterweight to turn itself until its feet are below it.

Mentioning Galaxy Quest reminds me that Starship Troopers was also a real hoot!

I have a book called Bad Astronomy by Philip Plait. Some of it is quite funny. Some of can make you weep at the gullible stupidity of some people.

I have tried to read Dune a couple of times but give up after twenty pages or so. I guess that sort of thing just does not float my boat.

They may or may not make a reasonable job of remaking a classic movie, but I bet the music won't be anywhere near as good as the original.

Sorry. Bit of a Freudian slip.

I recently watched 'the astronauts' , based on a very early balloon flight. They took a wind indicator that was showing a constant breeze! You can't feel a breeze in a balloon. I also saw the Armstrong movie recently. I feel quite strongly that the American space program does not need any sort of fictional dramatics. The true story can easily stand on its own. I just watched that trailer for 'Away' and had to fight down waves of nausea.

Olivia de Havilland, aged 104.

Stunning! Even to an untutored layman like me there seems to be any amount of evidence of past water on Mars.

who could ever forget the music in Sergio Leone's westerns? Remember The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Once Apon A Time In The West and, of course, The Mission.

I have no faith in talk of terraforming other planets. The only planet that we have any experience of terraforming is the Earth, and that has not gone well.

I didn't ask you why you THINK that, I asked you how you KNOW that. This is a line that often comes in handy when dealing with irritating, know-it-all people.

How did you get here? every one has to be somewhere.