#Exploration

[the-gone-ton]

Blank walls,empty hallways, and stairs to nowhere: this is the dead half of the American Dream mall. Yesterday I posted the lively pictures from this mall, where you can see some crowds, attractions, and shops.

This mall began construction in 2004 under the ownership of the Mills Corporation, which you may know as the developer of Cincinnati Mills, Pittsburgh Mills, Franklin Mills, etc. They were gonna call the mall "Meadowlands Xanadu" which is possibly the worst name anyone has given anything.

3 owners and 15 years later, the mall finally opens as American Dream... just months before Covid. All the turmoil in development and the pandemic meant that this enormous mall perpetually feels half-finished, with aborted features and tons of retail space that has never been leased. Is this half-baked, half-dead behemoth a good analog for the "American Dream?" You decide.

[opendirectories]

[illustratus]

The Eastern Cataracts of the Victoria Falls by Thomas Baines

[thatsbelievable]

[lovehina019]

[nfasth]

[nasa]

ALT: This video shows blades of grass moving in the wind on a beautiful day at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. In the background, we see the 212-foot-core stage for the powerful SLS (Space Launch System) rocket used for Artemis I. The camera ascends, revealing the core stage next to a shimmering body of water as technicians lead it towards NASA’s Pegasus barge. Credit: NASA

The SLS (Space Launch System) Core Stage by Numbers

Technicians with NASA and SLS core stage lead contractor Boeing, along with RS-25 engines lead contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, are nearing a major milestone for the Artemis II mission. The SLS (Space Launch System) rocket’s core stage for Artemis II is fully assembled and will soon be shipped via barge from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once there, it will be prepped for stacking and launch activities.

Get to know the core stage – by the numbers.

Standing 212 feet tall and measuring 27.6 feet in diameter, the SLS core stage is the largest rocket stage NASA has ever built. Due to its size, the hardware must be shipped aboard NASA’s Pegasus barge.

900 miles

Once loaded, the barge – which was updated to accommodate the giant core stage -- will travel 900 miles to Florida across inland and ocean waterways. Once at Kennedy, teams with our Exploration Ground Systems team will complete checkouts for the core stage prior to stacking preparations.

18 Miles + 500 Sensors

As impressive as the core stage is on the outside, it’s also incredible on the inside. The “brains” of the rocket consist of three flight computers and special avionics systems that tell the rocket what to do. This is linked to 18 miles of cabling and more than 500 sensors and systems to help feed fuel and steer the four RS-25 engines.

8.8 million

Speaking of engines… Our SLS Moon rocket generates approximately 8.8 million pounds of thrust at launch. Two million pounds come from the four powerful RS-25 engines at the base of the core stage, while each of the two solid rocket boosters produces a maximum thrust of 3.6 million pounds. Together, the engines and boosters will help launch a crew of four Artemis astronauts inside NASA’s Orion spacecraft beyond Earth orbit to venture around the Moon.

733,000 Gallons

Achieving the powerful thrust required at launch calls for a large amount of fuel - 733,000 gallons, to be precise. The stage has two huge propellant tanks that hold the super-cooled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that make the rocket “go.” A new liquid hydrogen storage sphere has recently been built at Kennedy, which can store 1.25 million gallons of liquid hydrogen.

Four

The number four doesn’t just apply to the RS-25 engines. It’s also the number of astronauts who will fly inside our Orion spacecraft atop our SLS rocket for the first crewed Artemis mission. When NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover along with CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen launch, they will be the first astronauts returning to the Moon in more than 50 years.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[nomilkinmyteaplease]

Endurance in a new 3d scan by the Falkland Maritime Heritage Trust

[usnatarchives]

Matthew Henson was born in Charles County, Maryland in 1866 to freeborn sharecroppers. Both of his parents passed away before he reached the age of ten. Matthew eventually made his way to Baltimore where he found work as a cabin boy on a merchant ship named the Katie Hines.

Read more: https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2025/01/21/spotlight-matthew-henson-explorer/

[wolfbeestudio]

I love black cats, so they're great for style practice and exploration~

Which one is your favorite?

Like, comment, share, and follow for more!

NOW AVAILABLE AS KEYCHAINS ON MY ETSY!

[coolthingsguyslike]

[the-gone-ton]

Ladies and gentlemen, please offer your undivided attention to the one true mall plant. All other mall plants bow to its glory. I invite you to sit in the conversation pit and take in the view 🖤

It has a plaque, but I guess someone stole it. What did you used to say, king?

[opendirectories]

[dailyadventureprompts]

Calling all homebrewers!

Recently I've had an idea bouncing around my head that I want your help in refining: Building out the exploration pillar of the game by making the party's "camp" into a mechanic that players can interact with by upgrading it.

LOTS of RPGs give your party a home base/camp that you return to between missions and upgrade over the course of your adventure. D&D is no stranger to this, but building a base tends to be a high level/retirement sort of goal, and instead I want the players to be given a set of options from the very beginning. Think of this potential camp system like its own early game skill tree where upgrades can be unlocked with GP or quest rewards, which gives players a very tangible reason to partake in those early game low-stakes side quest.

As someone who's shifting more and more to the "one adventure per level" model, I specifically wanted this camp system to be a way to reintroduce a player driven progression back into the game. Likewise, the camp's upgrade system could give us a mechanical backbone for building out a codified exploration system, which has been something I've been wanting to knock out for a while.

Here's some of the upgrade paths and their uses I've been tinkering with:

Provisions- In addition to generally tracking how long it's going to be before the party goes hungry/needs to return to town, "enhanced" provisions are a consumable that gives the party temporary hitpoints every time they're used. Advanced provision upgrades grant more temporary hitpoints.

Supplies- Need an item in a pinch? Good thing you loaded up when you were last in town. Digging through your camp's supply allows you to retroactively have purchased an item off the equipment list below a certain GP threshhold. Upgrading your supplies means more chances to grab things, and a higher quality of item grabbed.

Shelter- Camping out under the stars can be picturesque, but not so much when it's raining. These items specifically shelter the party from different types/qualities of weather and the passive threats of the environments they're exploring.

Draft- That's right, we're playing with carrying capacity. Rather than making it a problem of individual inventory management, we keep the challenge of managing the party's encumbrance by making it simple and slot based, applying to large or bulk items (primarily loot and the camp upgrades we're acquiring). Pack animals and wagons can add to this total but limit the party's camping opportunities to roads and navigable terrain. Are they a caravan hauling house wagons and trade goods? or are they packing light to travel across rugged landscapes?

Camp Followers- NPC allies and hirelings that act as their own upgrades: a cook that makes the best of provisions, guards to prevent the camp from getting robbed, a quatermaster who ensures that things are packed more efficiantly, a merchant who pays out shares every time the party land in a new market. Having a cast of characters follow the party through their adventures

My question for you dear readers is if there's anything I'm missing. How do you think I should handle the encumbrance system? How should this information be presented to the party in the most efficient way possible? Eventually I want to evolve the camp system into a background for running a proper stronghold, or a ship's crew, but I want the foundations to be strong before I do.

[cpleblow]

Hiking in backcountry

(between Loveland and Estes Park)

©cpleblow (2023)