Photo credit: Popular Science
The scientists are coming up with new and better (and safer for the people involved) methods for mine clearance. In this case, it adds one more use of the FA-18 airframe to find itself almost completely “unkillable” from a programmatic standpoint, while making mines laid at the beach, and in the surf zone in an effort to stop our Marines, much more killable.

Beach Cleanup
A naval strategy to detonate 70 million mines calls for high-tech showers of darts

By Bjorn Carey | April 2007

Since 2001, more than 13,000 American soldiers have been killed or maimed by landmines or improvised explosive devices. Civilians included, landmines kill or injure an estimated 20,000 people around the world every year. To blaze safer trails, the U.S. Office of Naval Research is developing a system that uses thousands of chemical- and explosive-packed darts to snuff out landmines. “It’s one of the most successful systems we’ve tested so far,” says project leader Brian Almquist.
[…]

HOW IT WORKS

1. A plane drops a bomb packed with darts. Once it reaches 1,000 feet above its target, the bomb ejects a seven-foot-long tubular canister.
2. A corkscrew pattern carved into the bomb’s interior spins the canister as it slides out, like a bullet leaving a gun. The rotation and small explosives jettison the canister’s panels and expose 6,500 darts stacked several rows deep. The mass of darts is also spinning, which uniformly disperses them.
3. Each seven-inch dart slams into the ground at 1,200 feet per second. Its blunt nose helps it carve a channel in water or sand, a process called cavitation. This reduces friction on the body of the dart and allows it to pass through two feet of sand and more than seven feet of water.
4. Darts inject the mines with one of three substances: a chemical that safely burns the TNT, a reactive powder that breaks apart the mine by increasing internal pressure, or a small explosive that detonates the mine on impact.

After the indignant post by Neptunus Lex about “pimping his ride” to make “Electric” FA-18s, I wonder how he’ll react to his community becoming MCM types….

Let me get this straight….over 7 minutes of freefall, supersonic speeds (with no source other than gravity for power), a face full of plasma for a light show part of the way down, and then landing at the DZ….So where do I sign up? I’m really not interested in what’s in it for me, but I’m all about being a “Test Diver” so future astronauts can leave their fragile flying/gliding machines (you know, “who would ever jump out of a perfectly good space shuttle?”) with he confidence that I, and other brave souls like me, had risked it all to plummet from space to make sure the suits and parachutes were safe and reliable in the event of an emergency.The article isn’t online. You actually will have to pull yourself away from the keyboard, hike to the local magazine rack, or library, and put your hands on the dead tree version to see what it’s about. There are three men who are working together on this idea. One is a retired Navy Flight surgeon (and I believe the spouse of one of the astronauts lost on Colombia, another guy and John Carmack (yes, the guy of “Doom” fame) from Amradillo Aerospace.
Armadillo Aerospace plans to use the DC-X vehicle to do the transport of the diver to space. Who says computer games are bad for us? Look what it funded?So…now they have to get the guy from Finland with the Jet Cat booties and really come up with something swift!

embedded by Embedded Video

Also, from the Popular Science website:

Toughen up those neck muscles! 6 pounds balanced on your noggin will get you some cool virtual reality (like real reality isn’t scary enough sometimes!)!

Is this the future of the home theater?

No, it’s not a prop. This six-pound helmet monitor is a real prototype, built to demonstrate next-generation television-watching technology. Modeled here by one of its developers (the regular TV is shown only for comparison), the device was built by Toshiba and unveiled in September at an academic conference in Osaka, Japan. Equipped with a built-in projector and a dome screen, the monitor plugs directly into a DVD player or computer and provides an immersive experience that surrounds the wearer with the action of the program—think of it as a portable IMAX theater. Although the invention was popular among testers, who reported that it rests easily on the shoulders and is comfortable enough for a two-hour movie, Toshiba has no solid plans for commercialization.

I’ve been pondering this issue for a few weeks now and will get busy on posting my thoughts on the topic, figuring there are many issues associated with our current mania with all things green. I’m not against it, and because I was thinking of a title for such postings, my thoughts moved to another plane, that of the world-wide issues, but unlike those being discussed. Maybe I just haven’t tripped across those editorials yet, but…going “green” has far ranging implications for the entity at the top of the food chain, some good, some potentially very, very bad.

I suspect Al Gore and company hasn’t thought them through yet, or he may not have ever made his movie.

So, that being stated as the opening salvo, here’s a short run down of some of my installed filters: BS – Biology, emphasis in marine and botany regions of the science. Degrees in International Relations and Strategic Studies. Lived on two islands in the Pacific and spent a lot of time swimming the reefs. Post military career, spent 4 years in electronic recycling sales, in a small operation, where I was involved not just in making the sales of what came out of the “waste stream,” but helping sort through large and small loads of “hazardous waste,” to see what was there, and also worked contact proposals, so I had to describe the processes involved in proper disposal techniques and get a reasonable understanding of current HAZMAT practices as it related to electronic waste.

My original title was going to be something like “Go Green – For National Security.” The premise was you can hate the junk science, or embrace it, but it still had value at that level. Certainly from a national level, going green in regards to reducing our oil consumption provides a variety of benefits in the short run. If we could create the technology, affordable and effective, to replace basic petroleum based fuels with any combination of alternative energies, we would have a tremendous impact on the World’s complaint about how we use 25% of the energy for less than 5% of the World’s population. The tyrannical and theocratic nations of South America and the Middle East would have to back off on how we were “stealing their oil” (as a side note, we’re stealing at a competitive price!) and come up with a new “slogan” to make the World hate us. We’d have much more control of some of the more contentious issues worldwide along those lines. Overall, a real plus.

I have often pondered pulling up John F. Kennedy’s speech about going to the moon and re-writing it on the topic of energy independence. If we actually had plenty of “home grown” engineers, the sleeves could be rolled up and I bet some amazing results could be achieved. Not having a lot of real scientists and engineers coming out of the colleges and universities to support this is an entirely separate, yet tightly linked subject for discussion at another time.

If we did “go to the moon” in developing methods and techniques such as you might imagine, we certainly would export it, creating entirely new companies and corporations around the globe, all the the benefit of mankind.

But…..I’ll get to my thoughts in a few paragraphs.

From my view point in the recycling company (still going strong, BTW), the two owners were not tree hugging liberals. In fact, despite their penchant to vote for the Democrats, at the “local” level, they were very much capitalists to the core. They did enjoy their success, and not a word was ever spoken about how they were doing any of this to “save the planet.” They were two smart business guys. Rough cut, from a contract proposal response: In three years, they went from $3M to $12M in gross revenues, with about an average of 25 people a new forklift and some building additions, totaling maybe $100K during that period. Most of what was taken in was paid for in the collection fees, and I was the one getting unbelievable money for what some would consider obsolete equipment in unknown operating condition, that was still needed by companies “stuck” with a requirement to maintain what they had in place and could not afford to wholesale replace. In many cases, on the equipment I sold, we came close to, and exceeded in some cases, a 100% profit margin. And, readers, that was but one of seven such companies within about 50 miles around us.

Taking a jump to the tree-hugger side of that same story, I was amazed at just how many different components were recycled, saving further mining of metals and also reducing the energy needed to make new product, as some of the “front end” of some manufacturing processes were shortened by feeding recycled material into the production lines. I also was amazed at how much truly functional equipment was just disposed of due to age. About the only thing that we paid to get rid of was the plastics, which we had made a decision to not separate the types (like defined by the number you see on the bottom/side of plastic items), so we had to pay to have that hauled off.

Summary: You can make a handsome living in electronics recycling, if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty and learning some EPA (Federal and local) regulations and complying with them and it does, in fact, benefit the environment.

Back to the issue of petroleum based fuel replacement and how we must consider carefully how we do this:

• Bio-Fuels. A few weeks back, on some talk show, a caller said “You think they hate us now? Wait until we take their food to drive our cars!” Precisely! I have read in several places, since the push to burn ethanol has become a life of its own, that They already have! Its hitting our bank accounts already. Add to that that estimates I have seen say our total corn output, if only used to make ethanol, would only replace between 12 and 15% of our oil consumption in vehicles. In other words, we can’t reach “escape” velocity” from the dead dinosaur addiction. So, you say we can use sugar cane, and beets, and soy beans. Yes, we can. And those are all used to produce food, too. You’d have to have someone regulating the balance between food and fuel production, similar to the market for fuel oil and gasoline that changes gas prices each fall. The bottom line: Is it food, or is it a way to get to the mall?
• Wind/Solar/Hydrogen: I have hopes smart minds could make it happen, so we could thumb our noses at the people who pull the fuel from the ground, but here’s the rub, economically and, therefore strategically: The nations that sell us the oil, for the most part, have never developed any other industry that would allow them to “live in the manner to which they are accustomed.” See where this is going? They hate us now for buying their product, screaming in the streets and at international conferences about how wasteful and greedy we are (as they count our money. Now, when we get serious about listening to their criticisms and do something about it, the cash flow will no longer head to them and they will holler loud and long, about how America is screwing them. That metaphor is already being used to recruit terrorists around the world and on our own streets. Can’t win for losing, you see, and those people, with the oil reserves, have not had the foresight to “diversify” their revenue producing capability. As our nation leads the way in innovation, and freedom, no one else seems to get that those are the very mechanisms that have allowed this upstart of a nation surpass all other economies in human history.

So here if the conundrum, economically, geo-politically and strategically: We go “green” to save the planet (the < 5% of us on the face of the planet), with other sneering at us, saying it’s all our fault that they now have no money, so all the more reason to attack us, sooner, while there still is an oil producing infrastructure to make things go, rather than later when there’s no oil to make things go and they can’t afford the new technologies to get around.

Our economy is tightly intertwined with the rest of the world. for all we bring to the table for humanity to use, we are accused of using more than our fair share now. We will be accused of not using any in the possible future. It appears that keeping our wallets open to economic blackmail may keep us more stable than if we invent better ways to get around and thereby clean up the air globally.

I think it’s a dangerous minefield we have wandered into, yet I don’t know if others have yet looked at this endgame.

So, what do you think?

How will you die?Accidental death You take to many risks, and they could be your downfall. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

So…there I was, Officer of the Deck for the 04-08 watch on a Sunday morning in the spring of 1979. It’s now about 0430 and, I, seasoned by the first operational deployment, am relatively comfortable with my assignment. Combat (Combat Information Center, or simply “CIC”) has just reported a Skunk (Unknown surface contact) Bravo, slightly off the port bow several miles out. I check in the AN/SPA-4 RADAR repeater, using a grease pencil to mark on the plotting head (lighted fixture over the actual CRT of the RADAR display). From there, I move to the port bridge wing to sweep the dark seas ahead of the ship for lights. There are none, other than those of the ships of the USS SARATOGA (CV-60) battle group, enroute the States.

We are roughly half way home, somewhere in the Atlantic. In company are the USS SARATOGA (CV-60), USS MT BAKER (AE-34), USS BIDDLE (CG-34), USS SPRUANCE (DD-963) (her maiden deployment), the USS CONYNGHAM (DDG-17), the USS JOHN KING (DDG-5) and a few other vessels that time has scrubbed from my memory cells. We (USS MILWAUKEE (AOR-2)) are assigned as the guide of the formation, steering the base course and running at the signaled base speed. All others of the battle group use us as the reference point for their formation stationing assignments.

No longer am I the CIC Officer, that job was handed over to LTJG Mike Tyner just before the cruise began, and I assumed the duties of Communications Officer from LTJG Tom Hartman. The Operations Specialists in CIC worked for me for almost 18 months prior to that, so I am pretty well in tune with their capabilities.

Skunk Bravo is not making much speed that we can discern, and the plot on my scope shows her passing close aboard to port on our present course.

I make the required call the CAPT Art Page, informing him of the situation with this unlighted contact closing us due to the relative motion of the two of us. He acknowledges my call.

About this time, maybe 0500, CIC reports Skunk Charlie on the port bow, with a track that will put her passing not far ahead of us. I look out and see range and masthead lights in the vicinity of USS BIDDLE stationed on the port bow of the formation and hear BIDDLE calling the merchant on Channel 16 on Bridge-to-Bridge radio. I got to concentrating on the (lack of) movement of Skunk Bravo. The CO comes to the bridge. Eventually, we see nothing, even when the RADAR contact shows Bravo passing between our ship and the SARATOGA (stationed on our port beam a few miles). The CO asks me if there’s anything elseand I reply “no.” He heads below to get back to sleep.

About this time, OS2 Tom Mazzula calls up from CIC on the 21MC and asks “What are your intentions with Skunk Charlie?” MY answer is “I saw her turn to pass astern of the formation.” I had seen range and masthead lights moving to show a vessel had made a radical turn to starboard earlier, which looking for the unsighted Bravo. I looked at my plot on the RADAR scope and was satisfied I had kept track of the situation, but something told me to listen to CIC. I stepped out on the port wing, raised my binoculars and saw a merchant hull standing on with a target angle of about 035 degrees (meaning if I was looking at my ship from them, what was my bearing – in this case on the starboard bow). I called CIC and informed them it must have been the BIDDLE I saw turning, as the merchant’s lights showed her steaming towards us. Tom concurred. I called the CO, he came right back to the bridge.

The CO and I stood on the port bridge wing, me at the pelorus, he with binoculars. CIC Was reporting a close aboard “CPA” (Closest Point of Approach). The CO asked what would happen if we slowed down some. I replied the ship would pass ahead of us at about 1/2 NM (100 yards). He ordered me to slow. I passed the direction to the Junior Officer of the Deck, who had the Conn. John slowed us 5 knots. After a few moments, CIC refigured the CPA and it was still close. I tried calling the merchant on Channel 16…no reponse. I went to the bridge wing and called up to the signal bridge for Sigs to flash the international code for “You are standing into danger!” They did, through through the night filter. No response.

The CO asked for the bearing of the contact. I read it through the alidade. He hollered into the pilot house “Range to the contact?” No response. “RANGE TO THE CONTACT???” No response. He and I ran to the bridge wing door to see the JOOD, back to the front windows, at the back of the bridge, talking to the Boatswain’s Mate of the Watch. The CO said: “This is Captain Page, I have the conn!” I kept the deck. I ordered the signal bridge to take the night filter off the signal lamp and flash the ship again. The white light shot across the sea with it’s staccato message. The merchant sailed on.

I called to Main Control to the Senior Chief Machinist Mate standing Engineering Officer of the watch, telling him if he got an emergency back bell, it’s wasn’t a joke and to be ready to answer it. He relied in his gruff voice “Aye, aye, sir!”

The Captain slowed another 5 knots. CIC informed the formation on Tactical radio circuits of our speed. They all slowed with us, but no one ever took the guide duties from us. The sun was coming over the horizon behind us now, lighting the merchant vessel. It was a large bulk cargo carrier, flying an Irish flag. Still, we had no indication that they saw us.

Under the circumstances, we were headed for extremis. I directed the BMOW to sound 5 short blasts of the ship’s horn. It was about 0530 now. He carried out the order quickly to signal the other ship by yet another means. Our plan, as the CO and I discussed, was to turn starboard, the proscribed maneuver in such circumstances.

The XO, CDR Al Lightly, clad in khaki trousers, flip flops and a white t-shirt, appeared on the bridge, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He asked “What’s going on?” I barked “GET OFF THE BRIDGE!” He sleepily complied. The Navigator, LTJG Harry Watkins, III showed up also, moving out of the way and to the chart table, keeping quiet.

Our two hulls, us being about 40,000 tons of displacement, and the merchant, certainly heavier slid towards each other, intent, with present course and speed, to occupy the space piece of water at the same time. The CO looked at me and said “We have to turn right.” I nodded. He ordered “Right Full Rudder!” “Right Full Rudder, Aye, Sir – My rudder is Right Full!” was the rapid response from the Helmsman. Then the CO said: “Shift your rudder!” as the merchant’s bow crossed ours and he also ordered “All Back Emergency Full!” The ringing of the engine order telegraph assaulted our ears three times before stopping at the “Astern Full” mark. I paralleled the order by voice on the 21 MC.

The merchant, slid across our bow at about 200 yards. Seems like a lot? Not when you have two vessels of such size that close together. Had we turned to starboard, with the merchant standing on, wrong as he was, the “transfer” (sideways distance the ship would go before attaining the ordered course would have carried our port side into hers. Relative speed would have been the slowest of the possible geometries, but still, a career ending would have occurred. Had we and the merchant turned starboard, the collision would have raked our port sides the length of each other, with greater relative speed, and therefore greater damaging forces involved.

By turning port, Captain Page set up a situation where we would pass under her stern, or she would have had her transfer in a starboard turn, take her clear of our starboard side. It was the perfect solution. Captain Page was quite a ship handler. We resume the base course and speed, watching from the starboard wing as the merchant proceeded northward, never seeming to realize the escape from bent metal and admiralty claims.

Now, breathing a sigh of relief, I took the conn from the CO, he said to me, as he was about off the bridge: “Get back on station.” “Captain, we are the guide.” ” I know, get back on station.” “Captain, we are on station.”

He looked at me like I was undermining his authority before the little light bulb in his head went off and he said “Very well” and went below.

In the latest “Popular Mechanics”, the “Milan” computer from Microsoft, using “multi-touch” input.

More ‘gouge’ from da Man here.

Pretty snazzy…and a great coffee table replacement!

Update 6/23/2007: Kevin points out that someone has other views about Bill Gate’s great ideas…

embedded by Embedded Video

Last week, I discussed the first Naval Ship Constructor for the United States Navy, Joshua Humphreys.

This week, another name from the beginnings of our naval history: John Rodgers (1772-1838).The reason to distinguish this man by date is because his son and great-grandson also distinguished themselves in the Naval Service. John Rodgers entered our naval history as a Second Lieutenant assigned to the commissioning crew, commanded by CAPT Thomas Truxton. LT Rodgers was responsible for recruiting a crew to man the 38 gun vessel from an office at Cloney’s tavern in the maritime district of Fell’s Point near Baltimore, MD. It was a difficult time to recruit for the Navy, as merchant wages were better, but LT Rodgers managed to fill about half the ship’s compliment with his effort.The USS CONSELLATION sailed south to the Caribbean and began to hunt for French warships, and on February 9th, 1799, a lookout sighted the French Frigate L’Insurgente. CAPT Truxton gave chase and, after a brutal, well fought battle, including vicious broadsides fired at close range and boarding parties engaged in bloody hand to hand combat on the deck of the French frigate, the first US Navy victory at sea was in hand. John Rodgers, having commanded a merchant vessel at the age of 25 before joining the navy, was promoted to the rank of Acting Captain of the captured vessel and was responsible to repair and outfit L’Insurgente.Much controversy was eventually raised when the issue of paying, as was the tradition, the crew of the USS CONSTELLATION for their share of the value of the captured vessel. Detailed in “Six Frigates” by Ian Toll, were influence and maneuvering were done to try and show more value (placed at $120K) for the ship than it may have been worth. In the long run, it is a tale where a showdown between the politicians and the crew who would benefit from the payout faced off. In the long run, the final value of $84,500 was settled upon, and further possibilities of cashiering out officers suspected of inflating values was avoided.John Rodgers next appears in history as the Captain of the USS JOHN ADAMS, a light frigate, sailing with the squadron of CAPT Preble, of the USS CONSTITUTION in 1803 in the Mediterranean. From there, he rose to command USS CONGRESS, which was directed to be activated and put to sea by oder of th President Jefferson after the USS PHILADELPHIA had been captured at Tripoli. CONGRESS was assigned to the squadron of Samuel Barron. By 1810, John Rodgers was assigned as a commodore a position he held into the beginning of the War of 1812.In honor of Commodore John Rodgers, the Navy has named three ships (directly) for him. The first USS JOHN RODGERS was a lighthouse tender (1917-1919). The second USS JOHN RODGERS (DD-574), a FLETCHER Class Destroyer, was commissioned on Feb 9, 1943 and saw action at Marcus Island, Tawara and Wake Island in 1943, Kwajalein Atoll and later the Mariannas Island campaigns, then was at Leyte Gulf in Oct, 1944. After a refit stateside, RODGERS joined ADMIRAL Spruance’s Task Force 58 and participated in the assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and was one of the first ships to enter Tokyo Bay for the surrender ceremonies. Decommissioned in 1946, the USS JOHN RODGERS (DD-574) won 12 battle stars for combat action. The third USS JOHN RODGERS was a SPRUANCE Class Destroyer, hull DD-983, in honor of all three famous John Rodgers. Commissioned Sep 4th, 1979, RODGERS conducted Naval Gunfire Support (NGFS) operations off Beruit in Sep, 1983. Decommissioned Sep 4th, 1998, she has been broken up for scrap.Three vessels of the US Navy have also been named to honor John Rodgers, but also included honoring his son and great grandson, each bearing the name USS RODGERS.But by a small twist of fate, I would have served aboard the USS JOHN RODGERS (DD-983). I was in the list for orders to one of the pre-commissioning SPRUANCE Class crews, with RODGERS at the top of the list for myself and the Navy. There was difficulty in getting my relief through Communications Officer School and to the ship in the Mediterranean on time for me to join training for the Combat Systems team at Fleet Combat Training Center, Atlantic. As a result, I was assigned to USS LEFTWICH (DD-984).

embedded by Embedded Video

“Mass Media Causes Ignorance”

Amen to that!

Wisdom from This Veteran’s Life about what he learned riding the Metro in the DC area:

1. Stand to the right. Walk to the left. We are all moving in the same direction, but some of us are just trying to get there quicker. Be courteous.

2. Remember to shower. Life is like the metro. If you want people to sit next to you, then remember to shower.

3. No one wants to here about your new iPod, car, or condo. We all have had a rough day and just want to make it home.

4. Give up your seat for old people and children. We have all been children and we all will be old people. Show some grace and respect.

5. If you are lost ask for directions. If not you’ll just spend hours being lost. Time lost cannot be regained.

6. Know where you are going, or be happy with not being where you want to be.

7. Be kind to everyone you meet. We are all just trying to get by the best we can.

8. Always have exact change or else you’ll end up paying more for the same thing.

9. Take notice of those around you. They are your neighbors. They have a perspective that is different than yours. And we all have alot to learn from each other.

10. No matter how long the ride there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Great stuff. Whoda thunk you could gain that kind of knowledge just riding the rails in the midst of thousands of other people on a work day? Maybe all it takes is just thinking about “things” rather than just existing through life…