Jason Thompson

All mission objectives were met and the Little Joe II test programme for Apollo came to an end. The next Apollo spacecraft would be launched on a considerably larger rocket...

Human Spaceflight: 20 Jan 1966. The final Little Joe II Apollo test flight, A004, is launched. This was to test that the system could stabilise a tumbling command module during the abort phase and that the spacecraft could withstand the highest pressure and loading likely to be experienced.

Just for fun, here's a picture of the actors Filmation used to get the movements and basic character model outlines for He-Man, Teela and Skeletor. Some makeup accentuates muscle features and they have lines on their faces to aid in animating them at various angles.

Though it should never be done as a drinking game or a single episode of anything they did would kill you with alcohol poisoning! The benefit of this was that they could turn out a lot of material very quickly and had more resource for writers and so on.

Not sure it's comparable. Filmation did a great deal of work in rotoscope, so their characters had natural looking movements in many cases, and they just built up a library of shots. A fun game with Filmation stuff is spotting all the re-used animation!

Star Trek TAS - GIF'ed To The Max, Everywhere!

I found TAS surprisingly good when I finally got round to it. It's basic Filmation animation, but that's not a bad thing, and even in that basic style the characters are instantly recognisable.

When you're done, @sihart.bsky.social and I had some thoughts...

open.spotify.com/episode/33AQ...

a cat is peeking out of a box with the words `` hug coming your way '' written on it . ALT: a cat is peeking out of a box with the words `` hug coming your way '' written on it .

Good grief, you've had FAR more important things to focus your attention on. As long as you're OK and taking care of yourself.

Ah, the episode that earned the VHS release a 15 certificate, which in turn necessitated a pointless little post-credits shot of Starbug in the snow to justify re-certification so the DVD set could get a 12 certificate…

We both send hugs.

What? That Joe Ford bloke is in EVERY episode of his own podcast?! I can't believe this! This is crazy! Thank heaven people like this are around to warn us or we'd never have realised without listening to every episode....

*Disengage sarcasm mode...*

THUNDERBIRDS ARE... FRANCHISED?
In which I learn about L points, and remember my first encounter with the concept of Intellectual Properties

The whole base is absurdly oversized, and there's no reason it should have long empty corridors and ten feet of steel anywhere on it (that's a massive amount of weight to lift to Mars). The 'first Mars base' would be a much smaller affair. Nor does the idea of a nuclear bomb on it make sense.

Human Spaceflight: 14 Jan 1966. The year gets off to a bad start for the Soviet space program as 'Chief Designer' Sergei Korolev dies, apparently after some botched surgery. He was instrumental in the Sputnik, Vostok and Vokshod programmes yet his identity was only revealed after his death.

A repost for the evening crowd.

Nala and I hope all goes well for you this evening.

RIP John Woodvine.

“Who are you and how did you get in here?”

“I’m a locksmith, and I’m a locksmith.”

@quiteamess.bsky.social and I head into the far distant future of 2086 to see how rescue technology concepts are challenging the impossible!

And because experiments on the effect of long space flights on the human body were part of the plan, the crew had fixed meals and had to store every bag of urine or faecal matter they produced for return to Earth! No glamour in space flight. They taped a bag to their behinds to poop into!

Two weeks may not sound like a long time but imagine, you only have as much space as if you were sat in the front of a small car, and in that space, with another person next to you at all times, you have to do everything, including eating and the inevitable follow-up activity...

Human Spaceflight: 18 Dec 1965. After a record-breaking 14 days in space, Gemini 7 splashes down. The crew are tired and in need of a shower but are in relatively good health. Several medical experiments had been completed, and of course the rendezvous with Gemini 6.

Yes, that was spectacular in VI (one of my favourite ever in any Trek, with only the destruction of the Enterprise in III topping it for my money), but cheap in VII.

I just think that, since they were actually destroying the D with no plans to use it, they could have done something similar for it.

Human Spaceflight: 16 Dec 1965. Their mission completed, Gemini 6A prepares for re-entry, but not before a festive 'gotcha' as the crew reported a UFO in polar orbit about to re-enter, then played 'jingle bells' on a harmonica and sleigh bells they had carried aboard in their personal allowance!

… just that in the series. Also, it’s handy that the star’s destruction alters the path of the nexus but has no such effect on the planet’s position apparently. Still, it’s a fun two hours.

Oh the whole film fails on a conceptual level. Soran can’t fly into the nexus in a ship because ships get destroyed, but that’s how he went there in the first place on the Lakul. The Enterprise is destroyed because nobody thinks to remodulate the shield frequency despite the many times they did…

Yes, I love that too! So many times on TV and film things are falling down when they explode in space. Filming from below is a (relatively if you have the right setup) simple way to avoid this.

Ah, that would make sense. It was ILM that did the effects for Star Trek III wasn't it? If you do find it I'd love to know where this one originated. Probably crops up in all sorts of places.

Yeah but it was that or release a film test audiences hated (Kirk dying by being shot in the back? Nah!). The sailing ship really wasn't needed though.

I'm amazed they had the gall in VII to re-use the Kilingon ship explosion from the previous movie without even trying to disguise it.

Yeah, I've always found the explosion of the stardrive section disappointing. I know they did the big crash sequence for the saucer, but they could have done something other than overlay a stock bang to represent the destruction of half a ship we've known for seven years on TV at this point.