#Naval Nuclear Laboratory

[jitsfittips]

[makingcontact]

The Shadow of Nuclear Colonialism

The text “The Shadow of Nuclear Colonialism” superimposed on an image of the explosion at 9.0 seconds after the Trinity detonation on July 16, 1945. (Photo illustration byLucy Kang; background image via United States Department of Energy) The film Oppenheimer has reignited public interest in the Manhattan Project, the WWII-era secret program to develop the atomic bomb. But the movie leaves out…

[petervintonjr]

"I had no role models because nobody ever publicized them, not that they didn't exist. George Washington Carver and Percy Julian and others had preceded me in science, but nobody ever publicized their accomplishments, and, therefore, many of the minority students didn't know that they had a future in science because they figured it was something that was not for them."

After a bit of time away from this project to make room for convention appearances and other shows, I now return to the subject with a look at the life and accomplishments of physicist George Robert Carruthers, on this, what would have been his 85th birthday.

Born in 1939 Cincinnati, Carruthers's father was himself a civil engineer at Wright-Patterson AFB, but the family soon moved to the more rural location of Milford, Ohio. Carruthers was described as quiet and focused --intensely interested in space travel stories and comic books (my people!), and a devourer of the science articles in Collier's magazine (even penning a fan letter to Dr. Werner Von Braun, to which he received an unexpected and encouraging personal reply). At the age of ten Carruthers built his first telescope, constructed from lenses he obtained by mail order. After George's father died in 1952, the family moved to Chicago but his fascination with spaceflight did not diminish. Encouraged by wonderfully observant teachers, he eventually graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1960, then earned his MS in in nuclear engineering in 1962, and then landed his PhD in aeronautical and astronautical engineering in 1964.

While working towards his PhD, Carruthers worked as a researcher and teaching assistant, studying plasma and gases. In 1964, Carruthers took a postdoctoral appointment with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., focusing on far ultraviolet astronomy. In 1969 he received a U.S. patent for inventing a form of image converter; an instrument that detects electromagnetic radiation in short wavelengths. In 1970 his invention recorded the first observation of molecular hydrogen in outer space (which he described as "a very big deal at the time.")

Far and away (literally), Dr. Carruthers's greatest contribution to science is his development and construction of an ultraviolet electronographic telescope, which became the first (and to date still the only) astronomical instrument sent to the surface of the Moon; more properly known as the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph. The camera was brought along on the Apollo 16 mission in 1972, set up to observe the Earth's geocorona (outermost atmosphere) from a vantage point never before possible. A short time later a variation on this very same camera was brought aboard Skylab to photograph the near approach of Comet Kohoutek, the first instance of a comet being recorded in ultraviolet. A flight backup of the Apollo 16 instrument, along with the original mission film canister, stood for many years as part of the lunar lander exhibit at the National Air & Space Museum, until it was later transferred to a more protected exhibit to guard against corrosion.

Dr. Carruthers's success and notoriety from the Apollo mission led to his creation of the Science & Engineers Apprentice Program, offering disadvantaged high school students the opportunity to work with scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory. His research into ultraviolet spectroscopy continued --in 1991 one of his ultraviolet cameras was used in multiple experiments aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-39). He retired from the NRL in 2002 and in 2003, was inducted into the National Inventor Hall of Fame. In 2013 was awarded the National Medal for Technology and Innovation by President Barack Obama. Dr. Carruthers died on Christmas Day, 2020.

[endless-formsmostbeautiful]

Good Omens is a story about the Cold War.

The writing and publication of the novel Good Omens coincides rather neatly with the late Cold War (the fall of the Berlin Wall and German Reunification taking place in 1989-1990) and Pratchett and Gaiman would have both grown up and spent their young adulthood during the period of the Cold War.

In Good Omens, two global powers face off in a long-lasting “quiet” conflict in which outright action would be mutually destructive and would at worst lead to universal loss of human life. This is a storyline upon which variations exist in popular perceptions of the Cold War and works of fiction on the subject, including the satirical film Dr Strangelove. (It is perhaps relevant to add that Neil Gaiman at one point imagined Aziraphale and Crowley both being played by Peter Sellers, which is of course a central aspect of Dr Strangelove, in which Sellers plays three separate roles.)

Aziraphale and Crowley are also paralleled with Cold War agents nearly every time they appear in public together. When Aziraphale and Crowley feed the ducks at St James Park, it is mentioned that a duo of Eastern/Western agents are doing the same thing:

The ducks in St. James' Park are so used to being fed bread by secret agents meeting clandestinely that they have developed their own Pavlovian reaction. Put a St. James' Park duck in a laboratory cage and show it a picture of two men-one usually wearing a coat with a fur collar, the other something somber with a scarf-and it'll look up expectantly. The Russian cultural Attaches black bread is particularly sought after by the more discerning duck, while the head of M19's soggy Hovis with Marmite is relished by the connoisseurs.

After Aziraphale runs out of bread for the ducks, they swim over to "the Bulgarian naval Attache and a furtive-looking man in a Cambridge tie," showing that at least for the ducks, Crowley and Aziraphale are indistinguishable from actual Cold War agents. Later, when the two meet at the British Museum, clandestine espionage activities are also taking place:

They were in the cafeteria of the British Museum, another refuge for all weary foot soldiers of the Cold War. At the table to their left two ramrod-straight Americans in suits were surreptitiously handing over a briefcase full of deniable dollars to a small dark woman in sunglasses; at the table on their right the deputy head of M17 and the local KGB section officer argued over who got to keep the receipt for the tea and buns.

The slight fuss over the lunch receipt between British and Soviet agents is further mirrored by Aziraphale and Crowley’s discussion about who paid in 1793 and whose turn it is to pay now.

It is also relevant to mention that in Good Omens, the end of the world is to begin with a "multi-level nuclear exchange," which is a staple of Cold War fiction, including Dr Strangelove. Th possibility of nuclear warfare hung over the duration of the Cold War, with events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and (more recently) the Stanislav Petrov incident, and a general paranoid sense to the degree that US schoolchildren practiced hiding under their desks for a nuclear attack. (Exactly what protection a particleboard desk would provide against ground zero of a nuclear bomb remains unknown.)

Furthermore, after the failed apocalypse, Crowley and Aziraphale return to St James Park, where secret agents are again present, but things are different:

St. James' Park was comparatively quiet. The ducks, who were experts in realpolitik as seen from the bread end, put it down to a decrease in world tension. [...] The park was deserted except for a member of MI9 trying to recruit someone who, to their later mutual embarrassment, would turn out to be also a member of MI9, and a tall man feeding the ducks.

In this scene, there is stated to be a decrease in tension of the celestial and human variety, which coincides again with the end of the Cold War in the real world. For Aziraphale and Crowley, surviving the Cold War between Heaven and Hell is not about choosing the right side but about rejecting both facets of an oppressive system.

[akaiitori]

Verant - World Maps [OUTDATED]

Outdated info and map - kept up for archival purposes.

Something a little different :) I feel like I can't keep going forward rambling on Vagrant Skies unless I give some geographic and historical context.

Verant is very similar to Earth, having the same atmosphere, chemical composition, and rotation axis. It's orbited by two natural satellites, Alderhan and Tarohan. A year has 14 months, with each one lasting 24-25 days.

I won't be speaking about every single country since...evidently, I've only developed the areas that are actually relevant to the story :P

Some specific infodumping after the cut!

--------------------------------------------------------------

The Atesham Empire is a nation that disappeared around a hundred years before the story takes place. It was a paragon of scientific development, powered by their rich uranium mines. However, in the other countries desire to seize control over their resources, they opted to destroy the mines in an event that rendered their territory into a nuclear wasteland.

--

The Tarrukar Empire is a densely populated northern country. They've historically been a colonialist nation, powered by their domestication of the horse and the falcon. While their power and reach have diminished a lot, they still are one of the strongest nations in the world's geopolitics.

Tarrukar took on a strong interest in genetically modified soldiers after the fall of the Atesham Empire. The former nation had done a lot of progress in the field, but most of the involved scientists fled during the war. Tarrukar offered them asylum in exchange for their knowledge, and from this, they created transgenic humans, or transhumans; laboratory-grown animals with visual resemblance to humans.

Initially, transhumans were created by implanting new genes into a human fetus. In modern times, they are all synthetic in nature.

Tarrukar is fervently pro-transhuman, leading the research into new territories. While their expertise began in military design, currently they also create transhumans for domestic care and show. Socially, transhumans are meant to be subservient as a show of gratefulness for being created.

--

The Republic of Braukar is a very new country, created after the Tarrukar Civil War a couple of decades ago. This war happened due to the disapproval of civilians towards the creation of the Cyclones. These groups had suffered greatly during the war with Atesham, and instead of providing aid, the Empire had opted to splurge tax dollars on demonic bird creatures. In current times both nations aren't in direct war, but they aren't on good terms.

Braukar is harshly anti-transhuman, and they will deport or even execute any found in their territory.

--

The Kingdom of Menet is another northern country, linked to naval power and machinery. Historically, it has been in constant battle with Tarrukar to control the system of isles on the Storm Sea. After the fall of Atesham and the introduction of Cyclones, Menet decided to make their own variety of genetically modified soldiers. These are called Vastare, and while they look fully human, they have superior traits, ranging from healing to strength and speed.

While Menet accepts the concept of transhumans in theory, they have very strict limitations towards their creation. In particular, they are against introducing visually non-human traits, as this goes against the Menetian ideal of human holiness over beasts.

This doesn't stop the wealthy from commissioning Tarrukar-made transhumans, though.

--

The Tescano Alliance is an international organisation that spans sixteen countries, with its headquarters in Teotlanco. It has some level of sovereignty over its members, while still allowing independence between the nations. Ancient civilization hailed from this part of the world, and while most modern customs have been replaced by Tarrukar and Atesham's influence, many terms and ideals come from Tescano roots.

The Tescano nations have limited contact with foreign states. Other countries leave them alone too, as a war declaration with one means having to face the entire alliance.

Their views towards transhumans are neutral. The Tescano culture sees all living things (animals, plants, and beyond) as gifts that deserve respect, transhumans included. They will welcome any of them into their countries, getting treated with the same rights as any other foreigner. However, creating new transhumans is banned in the Alliance as it's seen as a transgression against nature's will.

[lboogie1906]

Robert Johnson Omohundro (June 17, 1921 - May 15, 2000) was one of a select few Black scientists and technicians to work on the Manhattan Project and thus contribute to the development of the atomic bomb during WWII. He was born in Norfolk to Henry Omohundro and Brownie Pierce Omohundro, he had 5 siblings.

He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk and earned a BS in Mathematics and an MS in Physics from Howard University. After graduation, he worked as a radio tester with the Western Electric Company.

His contribution to the atom bomb project was his work as a mass spectroscopist. Mass spectrometry is a common technique that scientists use to help identify particles in samples by their mass. During WWII he worked at a secret facility in Arizona and was responsible for developing devices to locate and measure radiation emissions from atomic warheads. These devices were used long after WWII by the International Atomic Energy Agency in airports around the world to detect clandestine transfers of fissionable material and portable neutron detectors.

He applied the techniques of nuclear physics honed during his work on the Manhattan Project to developing technology at the Naval Research Laboratory in DC. He was noted for his development of devices that prevent the propagation of plutonium at airfields. He continued his WWII research by designing more advanced devices for radiation detection from nuclear warheads. He obtained two patents in the field of nuclear physics. Throughout his career, he authored and co-authored 40 scientific articles.

He was a member of the American Physical Society, the Research Society of America, and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphaphialpha

[mareislandfoundation]

Unsinkable

the USS Tuna (SS-203) is an example of durability of a submarine built at Mare Island. The Japanese couldn’t sink her, friendly fire couldn’t, and nuclear weapons were not up to the task. In the end only the U.S. Navy could sink her when it was decided to scuttle her. USS Tuna was a United States Navy Tambor-class submarine launched at Mare Island on October 2 in 1940 as part of an arms build-up as the world grew ever more consumed by war. She served throughout the Pacific during World War II and earned seven battle stars. After the war, she was used as a test platform during the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb testing in 1946.

Tuna departed San Diego, California, on 19 May 1941 for Pearl Harbor and shakedown training. In one of those rare moments when adversity is twisted into opportunity the operations in Hawaiian waters revealed that the submarine's torpedo tubes were misaligned. This builder’s flaw took a positive turn when correcting the problem necessitated her returning to Mare Island for repairs. During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Tuna lay safely in drydock at Mare Island. Following repairs, she set out for Pearl Harbor an war patrols on 7 January 1942.

Tuna conducted 13 war patrols in the East China Sea, the Japanese home islands, the Aleutian Islands, the waters off the east coast of Vella LaVella; off New Ireland and Buka, and the Bismarck Archipelago, off Lyra Reef, on the northeast side of New Ireland. In mid-1943, as Tuna set out from Brisbane on her eighth patrol, a Royal Australian Air Force patrol bomber attacked her, dropping three bombs close aboard. The resultant damage necessitated 17 days of major repairs at Brisbane, delaying her departure for the eighth patrol. She then set off for the East Caroline Basin on the traffic lanes to Rabaul, and the Java Sea and Flores Sea before returning to Hunters Point Navy Yard in California, where she arrived on 6 April 1944 for a major overhaul. After refitting, she headed for the Palau Islands. Tuna roamed the sea lanes of the Japanese home islands, off Shikoku and Kyūshū. She then supported the invasion and liberation of the Philippines.

Tuna’s final war patrol began on 6 January as she left Saipan to take position off the west coast of Borneo. From 28 January to 30 January 1945, Tuna conducted a special mission, reconnoitering the northeast coast of Borneo. She did not attempt a landing due to enemy activity. From 2 March to 4 March, Tuna accomplished her second special mission of the patrol, landing personnel and 4400 pounds of stores near Labuk Bay.

Following the war Tuna was selected as a target vessel for the upcoming atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Tuna was assigned a place among the target vessels anchored in the atoll. The first atomic bomb was detonated on 1 July 1946, and the second followed 24 days later. Receiving only superficial damage, following the Atomic bomb test Tuna was decommissioned on 11 December 1946, she was retained as a radiological laboratory unit and subjected to numerous radiological and structural studies while remaining at Mare Island. She was then towed from Mare Island for the submarine's "last patrol." On 24 September 1948, Tuna was sunk in 1,160 fathoms (6,960 ft) of water off the West Coast and struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 21 October 1948.

Dennis Kelly

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.3

2457 BC – Gaecheonjeol, Hwanung (환웅) purportedly descended from heaven. South Korea's National Foundation Day. 52 BC – Gallic Wars: Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, surrenders to the Romans under Julius Caesar, ending the siege and battle of Alesia. 42 BC – Liberators' civil war: Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fight to a draw Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius in the first part of the Battle of Philippi, where Cassius commits suicide believing the battle is lost. 382 – Roman Emperor Theodosius I concludes a peace treaty with the Goths and settles them in the Balkans. 1392 – Muhammed VII becomes the twelfth sultan of the Emirate of Granada. 1574 – The Siege of Leiden is lifted by the Watergeuzen. 1683 – Qing dynasty naval commander Shi Lang receives the surrender of the Tungning kingdom on Taiwan after the Battle of Penghu. 1712 – The Duke of Montrose issues a warrant for the arrest of Rob Roy MacGregor. 1739 – The Treaty of Niš is signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia ending the Russian–Turkish War. 1789 – George Washington proclaims Thursday November 26, 1789 a Thanksgiving Day. 1792 – A militia departs from the Spanish stronghold of Valdivia to quell a Huilliche uprising in southern Chile. 1863 – The last Thursday in November is declared as Thanksgiving Day by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. 1873 – Chief Kintpuash and companions are hanged for their part in the Modoc War of northern California. 1912 – U.S. forces defeat Nicaraguan rebels at the Battle of Coyotepe Hill. 1918 – Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria accedes to the throne. 1919 – Cincinnati Reds pitcher Adolfo Luque becomes the first Latin American player to appear in a World Series. 1929 – The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is renamed to Yugoslavia by King Alexander I. 1932 – The Kingdom of Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1935 – Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italy invades Ethiopia. 1942 – A German V-2 rocket reaches a record 85 km (46 nm) in altitude. 1943 – World War II: German forces murder 92 civilians in Lingiades, Greece. 1946 – An American Overseas Airlines Douglas DC-4 crashes near Ernest Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, killing 39. 1949 – WERD, the first black-owned radio station in the United States, opens in Atlanta. 1951 – Korean War: The First Battle of Maryang San pits Commonwealth troops against communist Chinese troops. 1952 – The United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon in the Montebello Islands, Western Australia, to become the world's third nuclear power. 1957 – The California State Superior Court rules that the book Howl and Other Poems is not obscene. 1962 – Project Mercury: US astronaut Wally Schirra, in Sigma 7, is launched from Cape Canaveral for a six-orbit flight. 1963 – A violent coup in Honduras begins two decades of military rule. 1981 – The hunger strike at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland ends after seven months and ten deaths. 1985 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight, carrying two DSCS-III Satellites on STS-51-J. 1986 – TASCC, a superconducting cyclotron at the Chalk River Laboratories in Canada, is officially opened. 1989 – A coup in Panama City is suppressed and 11 participants are executed. 1990 – The German Democratic Republic is abolished and becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany; the event is afterwards celebrated as German Unity Day. 1991 – Nadine Gordimer is announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. 1993 – An American attack against a warlord in Mogadishu fails; eighteen US soldiers and over 350 Somalis die. 1995 – O. J. Simpson murder case: O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. 2008 – The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 for the U.S. financial system is signed by President George W. Bush. 2009 – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey join in the Turkic Council.

[georgemcginn]

Contracts For Sept. 22, 2023

View Online FOR RELEASE AT 5 PM ET Contracts For Sept. 22, 2023 NAVY Fluor Marine Propulsion LLC, Arlington, Virginia, is awarded a $1,362,922,002 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded contract N00024-18-C-2130 to exercise the fiscal 2024 options for Naval Nuclear Propulsion work at the Naval Nuclear Laboratory. Work will be performed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (46%);…

[personal-reporter]

Festival della Comunicazione 2023 a Camogli

Dall’intelligenza artificiale alle frontiere della ricerca, Camogli per il Festival della Comunicazione 2023 mette al centro scienza e innovazione. da giovedì 7 a domenica 10 settembre, con un tema fondamentale come la memoria,  quella straordinaria attitudine della mente, del corpo e dello spirito che è uno strumento indispensabile per costruire l’identità delle persone e dei popoli.  La quattro giorni diretta da Danco Singer e Rosangela Bonsignorio raccoglie l’eccellenza della ricerca italiana, con un programma dedicato all’innovazione messo a punto in collaborazione con Università di Genova (UniGe), Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) e Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) di Genova, partner del Festival che porteranno a Camogli grandi personalità del panorama italiano. Tra gli incontri più attesi c’è quello con Sahra Talamo, che ha lavorato dieci anni al Max Planck Institute con il premio Nobel Svante Pääbo e dirige a Bologna un laboratorio specializzato in datazioni al carbonio-14 e Guido Barbujani, genetista dell’università di Ferrara, prosegue anche in questa edizione gli incontri del filone pluriennale Homo sapiens trattando di sostituzioni etniche e di che cosa significhi essere una specie migrante. Da non perdere è la lectio di Nello Cristianini, professore di intelligenza artificiale all’università di Bath, incentrata sul convivere con le macchine intelligenti”in un momento storico in cui è diventato possibile delegare a questi sitemi automatizzati anche i processi decisionali, mentre il direttore scientifico dell’Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia di Genova Giorgio Metta sarà in dialogo con il poeta Guido Catalano a proposito di come il campo umanistico e quello tecnico-scientifico stiano convergendo attraverso le più recenti applicazioni dell’intelligenza artificiale. Anche Maurizio Ferraris discuterà su come la memoria sia naturale e quanto invece artificiale, con riflessioni che suonano ancora più fondamentali nell’epoca di ChatGPT. Il geologo e divulgatore scientifico Mario Tozzi racconterà le storie sconosciute di un mare quasi scomparso e,  in dialogo con la professoressa di fisica e climatologia all’università di Torino Elisa Palazzi, affronterà il tema dei falsari del clima. Dario Bressanini racconterà il manuale di autodifesa alimentare, Silvia Ferrara e Giorgio Vallortigara dialogheranno sul tema dei simboli e il ruolo che hanno avuto nell’evoluzione umana, Alberto Diaspro si concentrerà sul microscopio artificiale, mentre Licia Troisi e Luca Perri dialogheranno tra scienza e fantascienza, e l'eredità di Margherita Hack per la divulgazione scientifica sarà il cuore della discussione tra Caterina Boccato, Federico Taddia e Walter Riva. L’Università di Genova e l’Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare declineranno e approfondiranno con una serie di incontri ad hoc il tema del Festival 2023 nelle diverse accezioni che possono fare riferimento alla tecnologia e all’intelligenza artificiale, alle scienze della Terra, alle arti e ai saperi, con particolare attenzione alle sperimentazioni legate all’Open Science e alla condivisione degli avanzamenti scientifici nei confronti del pubblico. Innovazione, tecnologia e scienza saranno protagoniste anche delle attività intorno al festival, con escursioni e laboratori dedicati, come il laboratorio Elettronica in passeggiata in collaborazione con il DITEN, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Navale, Elettrica, Elettronica e delle Telecomunicazioni dell’Università di Genova, che indagherà le innovazioni dell’elettronica moderna dove la sinergia tra l’uomo e la macchina è sempre più imprescindibile. Esperti del settore, autori di prestigiose ricerche scientifiche e giovani studenti appassionati guideranno alla scoperta dei nuovi traguardi dell’Intelligenza Artificiale e il programma di trekking includerà poi uno dei più bei itinerari della zona sul sentiero delle Bocche-Falciara, con il racconto dedicato a Margherita Hack, in una passeggiata lunga 100 anni dove Federico Taddia, con l’ex direttore del Parco di Portofino Alberto Girani , accompagnerà grandi e piccini in un emozionante e coinvolgente viaggio. Read the full article

[denimbex1986]

'Rear Admiral William "Deak" Parsons was born on November 26, 1901, in Evanston, Illinois. He graduated from the Naval Postgraduate School at Annapolis in 1929 with an emphasis on ordnance.

Capt. Parsons's last shipboard assignment prior to America's entry into World War II was in 1939, as gunnery office on board the USS Detroit, flagship of the commander of destroyers of the Pacific battle force. Shore duty came next, at the naval Proving Grounds in Dahlgren, Virginia, and at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he made possible the introduction of the proximity fuses for combat use. By 1942, he was ready to be sent to sea, but the president's science advisor, Vannevar Bush, whom he had assisted in his previous assignment, drafted him into the atomic bomb project.

In March 1943, Capt. Parsons joined the Manhattan Project as leader of the Ordnance Division. Parsons reported to admiral Ernest King, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, who dashed Parsons's hopes for a wartime sea command. King told him that the services of an ordnance officer were needed to supervise the production of an atomic bomb. Like General Leslie Groves, Capt. Parsons put aside his personal desire for combat duty to make greater contributions to the total war effort: helping to create "a perfectly functioning atomic bomb that could end the war."

Except for the uranium physics and metallurgy, the gun assembly of Little Boy, the uranium bomb, was mostly an ordnance problem entrusted to Capt. Parsons. After the reorganization in August 1944, he was also entrusted with transforming the uranium and plutonium bombs into combat weapons.

Capt. Parsons was also the head of Project Alberta, which oversaw the various responsibilities necessary for the actual delivery of the bombs. These included modifying the aircraft to accommodate the bombs, supervising field tests, developing fuses, and selecting and advancing bases for assembly and delivery.

Capt. Parsons helped to research, develop, assemble and finally drop the atomic bomb. He crawled into the Arctic-cold bomb bay of the Enola Gay to arm the bomb, which was armed in-flight due to its unstable design.

After World War II, Capt. Parsons became the U.S. Navy's leading figure on nuclear issues, and he continued to be involved with nuclear issues for the rest of his career. In 1946, he worked to organize Operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear tests in the Pacific.

He eventually rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. On December 5, 1953, he died from a heart attack in Bethesda, Maryland.'

[whitepolaris]

For Hunters Points, the Ship Has Sailed

In the first half of the twentieth century, San Francisco was the busiest port on the West Coast, and the Hunters Point Shipyard was its busiest repair facility. The yard opened commercially in 1867 with the construction of the West Coast’s first permanent dry dock. At the time, it was one of the world’s largest. 

Within weeks of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the entire shipyard was seized by the navy, and during World War II the War Department transformed Hunters Point into a vital repair base. At its peak in 1945, it employed over 18,000 workers. During the postwar years, the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory operated there, its major responsibility being the study and decontamination of ships used in the nuclear weapons tests at the Bikini atoll. The NRDL also built a cyclotron “atom smasher” at Hunters Point and conducted top secret research on the effects of radioactive fallout on humans and animals. 

Between the shipshod documentation of the NRDL’s dirty playthings and other unknown contaminants from the day-to-day operations of a major shipyard, no one really knows the extent of the toxic mess left behind on the isolated south side of the base. The NRDL was shut down in 1969, and in 1974 the navy decommissioned the entire base. Most of the area has remained uninhabited and inhospitable ever since. 

Stories of widespread radioactive and chemical contamination as well as its location beside one of the toughest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods in San Francisco have kept the once bustling five-hundred-acre shipyard out of the public eye for decades. The entire facility has been locked and off-limits to the public for over thirty years. After a series of phone calls to various local and federal agencies, Weird California was granted night photography access to the long-deserted yard. 

Dozens of abandoned corrugated-metal warehouses and decrepit office buildings stand scattered around nameless potholed streets. Red brick dry rock pump houses, dating back to 1867, slowly decay in the fog-shrouded air. These are some of the oldest buildings in San Francisco, utterly forgotten. Giant gantry cranes loom over broken and flooded dry docks as an endless stream of airliners streak across the sky from the nearby San Francisco and Oakland airports. 

Security is tight. The SFPD and Department of Defense police maintain a strong presence at the shipyard. Inside the fence, it’s quite safe, while just outside, gang warfare run rampant. 

On the hill above the dockyard is a now empty residential neighborhood. Built in the early twentieth century, all eighty-six homes were seized by the navy for officers’ housing in 1942. When the base was decommissioned, the homes were abandoned. They have stood untouched for thirty years, slowly weathering, taking on the look of a postapocalyptic movie set. It’s spooky to wander down the middle of the desolate, debris-covered streets and hear car chases and gunfire just a few blocks away. The entire relic-strewn base is just minutes from the downtown of one of the West Coast’s largest cities. Most of San Francisco’s citizens have no idea of this place’s checkered past and toxic legacy. Many don’t know it even exists. 

[hydralisk98]

Servitor (49th century clashes with several fandoms & historical timelines)

Symbolic glyph tokens moving onto a 2D tilemap, going over a vector sectors of my hometown as a first shareware piece;

Ideadump for "Maskoch", the city I call my home:

"Zeit" Citadel complex with walls, complete with astronomical observatory & plentyful of laboratories. Also large green parks around the seaside & away from the inner wall of the complex. Top tip somewhat ressembles Neue Berlin's Volkshalle + Expo67 dome.

Old walls going around the city's center.

Commercial plaza on the river, water mill, public education & research centers, hyper-mall, naval base & port, hillside, water flood in 4495, ...

Green parks

SUM Juniper (Hyperborea / Borealis, Bismarck, Lusitania...)

Expansive underground subways with complete with abandoned tracks and several layers of paths, like Paris' catacombs to a degree but cyberpunk-flavored, especially considering the world is mostly solarpunk already...

Syndicalist hybrid economy with synthetic agents & droids & robotic serfs doing much of the productive low-end work, silicon valley benevolent ministries and cooperatives... almost like they were Rouge Servitors...

4470-4500s plastics valley theme park from Tekla agencies. (think like a Nikola Tesla park but from our 20th century)

Industrial silicon sector similar to San Jose's Silicon Valley with downtown markets

Tramway, monorail & electric railway transportation networks on the surface

Micro-districts along the old wall edges and into the walled areas

Morphological freedoms

Solarpunk & Lunapunk cyberware options

Ever-lasting library & knowledge processing institution standing from way before the Bronze Age collapse

General strike in the Shoshoni Union

Syndicalist "soviet / byzantine" political intrigues, "Servitor" service grid modules getting involved and peaceful resolution

Nuclear arsenal build-up initiating

Ministry of distributed information processing (women-run institute of sciences & arts)

Free, Libre, Open Source, public domain and copyleft works and governing

DAOs (not crypto-oriented though...) & social tribes

Cladogram & Utalics' Lisp mainframes & retro technological collecting restoration & interactive use developments

Profound alternate technical & technological history (going mostly from the classical era index card libraries to alternate future)

Thea & Karl republicans governing in 1912-1916 & 1916-1920, so no Wilsonism

Klara Ker, the female INTJ autistic protagonist integrating into Shoshoni upper-middle class & participating somewhat into politics

Slice-of-life?

[fatehbaz]

Imperial dispossession in Greenland and islands of the Pacific; making new suburbias; exporting US domestic lifestyles; Indigenous resistance

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Within the Western popular imagination, places like the RMI [Marshall Islands] and Greenland are often used as mirrors or -- perhaps more accurately -- as bellwethers: an example of what could be (or what will become of) the so-called First World [...]. They are rarely made meaningful on their own. Instead, reports published in major news outlets describe a “melting” Greenland and a “disappearing” Marshall Islands by translating their loss through symbolic forms deemed more legible to the average American. [...] [N]uclear photography endeavored to “take the place out of the landscape” so as to replace public concerns around ethics instead with awe [...], [undertaken simultaneously as] movement of peoples necessary to, first, produce terra nullius -- a space emptied and made available [...] -- and second, to mark that space as distinctly American through the installation of miniature suburbias in the form of military bases and bunkers [...]. Social, geographical, and material practices of division -- split atoms, nuclear family units -- reflect what Aimee Bahng has referred to as “settler colonial… constructions of enclosure” [...]. [There was an] extension of heteronormative American domestic life onto and into Indigenous territories cleared for Cold War projects: a manifest destiny for the nuclear age. [...]

[A] “homemaking project” that once collapsed the “here” and “there” of US empire now envisions a difference that overlooks American complicity in apocalyptic climate futures upon Indigenous lands across North America, Oceania, and the Arctic. It is, in part, because of the presumed insignificance of the Marshall Islands and Greenland (and by extension their people) that these two places became pulled into the crosshairs of atomic geopolitical warfare. [...]

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As Marshallese activist Darlene Keju-Johnson recalled, “in 1946, a U.S. Navy officer came to Bikini Island and told Chief Juda, ‘We are testing these bombs for the good of mankind, and to end all wars’… the naval officer did not tell the chief that the Bikinians would never see their home again” [...]. Moved to first Rongdrik (Rongerik), then Ānewetak, then Kuwajleen (Kwajalein), and then Kōle (Kili), ri-Pikinni struggled to survive as the United States tested sixty-seven nuclear bombs on Pikinni (Bikini) and other nearby sites between 1946 and 1958. [...] These ideologies were exported in the form of US military installations like the US Army Garrison Kwajalein Atoll and Greenland’s Camp Century, constructed in midcentury. [...] Historian Lauren Hirschberg’s analysis of the suburbanization of Kuwajleen highlights how the heteronormative nuclear family structure became central to the remaking of the atoll as both a space of exception and “a colonial technology for marking the island as a familiar domestic national space” [...].

Through a major partnership with Bell Telephone Laboratories, the US military promoted life on Kuwajleen as a space of supreme comfort and leisure through the publication of welcome guides that boasted salons, prime rib dinners, and department store shopping [...]. Meanwhile, Marshallese day laborers who provided janitorial, housekeeping, and groundskeeping services commuted from Epjā (Ebeye), where they lived both segregated from and economically beholden to the base [...].

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Just as Marshallese were displaced from Pikinni and other atolls, Inuktun were moved to accommodate American military operations. [...] One of the largest military bases ever constructed by the United States, Thule served as a key strategic location [...] and, simultaneously, distracted from undisclosed nuclear activity at nearby Camp Century, a “city under the ice” that housed an arsenal of six hundred nuclear missiles [...]. [P]lans for Thule’s expansion in May 1953 included the forced removal of eighty-seven Inuktun and the demolition of their homes [...].

Newsreels about Camp Century similarly highlighted features designed to replicate American suburban life “under the ice.” Created by the United States in 1960, Camp Century operated as a cover for Project Iceworm, which used a network of subterranean tunnels burrowed under the Greenland ice sheet as a nuclear arsenal. The camp, which operated only until 1966, comprised living quarters, research facilities, and a portable nuclear reactor for the stated purpose of better understanding military effectiveness and operations in Arctic conditions. In the minds of Americans, who came to know this “city under the ice” through maps, photographs, and live footage circulated by the US government, it functioned as a kind of ultimate fantasy fallout shelter that promised to keep the American way of life secure and safe [...]. The US Department of Defense 1961 short film Big Picture: City under the Ice is one example of the substantial media production surrounding Camp Century, which reveled in the engineering used to build closed-system facilities for maintaining American lifestyles amid what is frequently referred to as “barren” and “lifeless” landscapes. In it, the narrator lists items representing domestic comforts: prefabricated houses, hot showers, and “even ice cream” as a subtle underscore of the hermetic barrier between the bunker and the glacier [...].

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As Anne Spice points out in their analysis of Indigenous resistance to oil pipelines as “critical infrastructures” of the settler state, long-standing “binaries of civilized/savage and culture/nature” continue to inform theorizations of the built environment as marks of modernity. The role that infrastructure plays in state-building projects has a capillary function, pumping power in the form of oil, electricity, water, people, and capital into Indigenous territories in ways that, in turn, obscure Native presence. Tracing a substantial anthropology of infrastructure that locates transportation systems like pipelines, railroads, and highways as “settler colonial technologies of invasion,” Spice reveals how these material networks naturalize settler presence as seemingly stable, inevitable, and permanent [...]

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Text published by: Hi’ilei Julia Hobart. “Atomic Histories and Elemental Futures across Indigenous Waters.” Media + Environment 3 (1). 2021. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post added by me.]

[lesbianchemicalplant]

this is a little harsher than I actually mean, but to recycle from an old post:

I definitely get what she finds off-putting in lehrer. it's the usamerican liberalism‚ tongue-in-cheek as it is. kurt vonnegut type beat

this come through the strongest the closer the subject matter is to the US military or communism, which unfortunately includes some of his most lasting and recognized work. “Wernher von Braun”, for example, a biting zinger about Operation Paperclip, great—and then you get to the end

"In German, und Englisch, I know how to count down Und I'm learning Chinese!" says Wernher von Braun

sort of undermines your knowing wink about the west rehabilitating (and propping up) Nazis when you throw in a gag implicating victims of Imperial Japan

anyhow, getting to the point: he's writing from experience in songs like It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier and The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be. it's fodder, and he's irreverent about it, but it is his fodder:

Lehrer remained in Harvard's doctoral program for several years, taking time out for his musical career and to work as a researcher at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory.[18] Lehrer was drafted into the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1957, working at the National Security Agency (NSA). Lehrer has stated that he invented the Jello shot during this time, as a means of circumventing a naval base's ban on alcoholic beverages.[18] Despite holding a master's degree in an era when American conscripts often lacked a high school diploma, Lehrer served as an enlisted soldier, achieving the rank of Specialist Third Class, which he described as being a "corporal without portfolio".[19] These experiences became fodder for songs, such as "The Wild West is Where I Want to Be" and "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier".[20] In 2020 Lehrer publicly revealed that he had been assigned to the NSA; since the mere fact of the NSA's existence was classified at the time, Lehrer found himself in the position of implicitly using nuclear weapons work as a cover story for something more sensitive.

from this interview, on working for the NSA after the US terrorized Korea:

GEO: I was surprised to learn that you enlisted in the Army back in 1955. TOM LEHRER: That's one way of putting it, but probably not the appropriate verb. The point is that they were drafting people up to the age of 35. So I dodged the draft for as long as anybody was shooting at anybody. And then when I realized that I would have to go -- there was really no way out of it except getting an essential full time job, which I didn't really want to do -- I waited until everything was calm and then surrendered to the draft board. I wouldn't call it "enlist". "Enlist" means that you have to spend another year. I allowed myself to be drafted. I was 27 at the time and there were a lot of graduate students who were like me who had gotten deferred as graduate students and now had to pay up. So it was a kind of an odd group there, a lot of educated people in my "outfit", I believe is the word. And we had a lot of fun. So I did that for two years in Washington DC and had a great time -- especially since there was no war -- though vice president Nixon was trying to get us into one in Indo-China even then. So there was that little threat. And there was Suez and a few other little things that looked a little tricky. But it didn't look like there was going to be a real war. So it seemed to be safe to go in. And I'm sure that a lot of my cohort felt the same way. GEO: And what did you do? TOM LEHRER: It was NSA. I think I'm allowed to say that now. I asked around before I surrender to be sure that I would not be in special services or something playing volleyball with the troops in Korea. I wanted to make sure that I got a nice cushy job. We were called "The Chair Borned". And I found out that they were hiring mathematicians. So I arranged to be hired.

this puts even one of my favorites, We Will All Go Together When We Go[1][2], in an uncomfortable light....there's an implicit framing of the Cold War as symmetrical insanity of both sides—we're going to annihilate each other! wacky times!—rather than, say, exactly one side, Lehrer's side, having a nuclear First Strike policy demonstrated for the entire world in 1945. similarly for Who's Next....wry centrism on a surreal world, golly

(bonus, presented without comment:)

And what's been hard for Lehrer is to see a reason to continue doing satire. In the Cold War 1950s, the audience was more unified in what they believed. "Everybody agreed. Adlai Stevenson was good, lynching was bad. Life was much easier. Now, you can make certain obvious jokes, but I can't think of how you could do a song. Monica Lewinsky is easy. I don't know how you make jokes about Sierra Leone, or Rwanda, or Ireland, or stuff that's really going on the world."

all of that being said, this only chafes at me so much—usamerican funneyman is a liberal, news at 11—because he's a personal favorite anyway. and not all of his songs, most of them even, don't have this liberalism come through in nearly such unfortunate ways. the lyricism is always fun, you have to smile at his delivery, in the little opening monologues too. Poisoning Pigeons In The Park is a delight. so are many of the lesser-known songs, so it's worth going through everything—all of which he's made public domain and freely available on his website

[1] plus, Tom, you can't say that word

[2] still, “you may have thought it tragic / not to mention other adjec- / -tives to think of all the weeping they will do”

What do you think of Tom Lehrer?

@lesbianchemicalplant , would you mind covering this for me?

[nasa]

The ranks of America’s Astronaut Corps grew by 11 today!

After completing more than two years of basic training, our graduating class of astronauts is eligible for spaceflight. Assignments include the International Space Station, Artemis missions to the Moon, and ultimately, missions to Mars.

The class includes 11 astronauts, selected in 2017 from a record-setting pool of more than 18,000 applicants. This was more than double the previous record of 8,000 applicants set in 1978.

Meet the graduates:

Kayla Barron

“If you don’t love what you’re doing, you’re not going to be good at it. I think it’s a combination of finding things that you really love that will also be really challenging and will force you to grow along the way.”

This Washington native graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering. As a Gates Cambridge Scholar, which offers students an opportunity to pursue graduate study in the field of their choice at the University of Cambridge. Barron earned a master’s degree in nuclear engineering.

As a Submarine Warfare Officer, Barron was part of the first class of women commissioned into the submarine community, completing three strategic deterrent patrols aboard the USS Maine.

Zena Cardman

“Every STEM opportunity that I have ever gone down is because of some mentor who inspired me or some student who was ahead of me in school who inspired me.”

Zena Cardman is a native of Virginia and completed a bachelor’s degree in biology and master’s degree in marine sciences at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research has focused on microorganisms in subsurface environments, ranging from caves to deep sea sediments.

An intrepid explorer, Cardman’s field experience includes multiple Antarctic expeditions, work aboard research vessels as both scientist and crew, and NASA analog missions in British Columbia, Idaho, and Hawaii.

Raja Chari

“I grew up with the mentality that education is truly a gift not to be taken for granted.”

This Iowa native graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1999 with bachelor’s degrees in astronautical engineering and engineering science. He continued on to earn a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.

Chari served as the Commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the Director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force. He has accumulated more than 2,000 hours of flight time in the F-35, F-15, F-16 and F-18 including F-15E combat missions in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Matthew Dominick

“I get to work with incredible people that want to solve problems and are passionate about it. I really want to contribute to the world and this is how I want to do it.”

This Colorado native earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of San Diego and a master’s degree in systems engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. He also graduated from U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.

Dominick served on the USS Ronald Reagan as department head for Strike Fighter Squadron 115. He has more than 1,600 hours of flight time in 28 aircraft, 400 carrier-arrested landings and 61 combat missions.

Bob Hines

“As you get older, other things become important to you, like being a part of something that’s bigger than yourself. This human endeavor of exploration is something that’s really exciting.”

Bob Hines is a Pennsylvania native and earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Boston University. He is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, where he earned a master’s degree in flight test engineering. He continued on to earn a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Alabama.

Hines served in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserves for 18 years. He also served as a research pilot at our Johnson Space Center. He has accumulated more than 3,500 hours of flight time in 41 different types of aircraft and has flown 76 combat missions in support of contingency operations around the world.

Warren Hoburg

“It was back in high school that I realized that I was really interested in engineering. I always liked taking things apart and understanding how things work and then I also really enjoy solving problems.”

Nicknamed “Woody”, this Pennsylvania native earned a bachelor’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Hoburg was leading a research group at MIT at the time of his selection and is a two-time recipient of the AIAA Aeronautics and Astronautics Teaching Award in recognition of outstanding teaching.

Dr. Jonny Kim

“I fundamentally believed in the NASA mission of advancing our space frontier, all while developing innovation and new technologies that would benefit all of humankind.”

This California native trained and operated as a Navy SEAL, completing more than 100 combat operations and earning a Silver Star and Bronze Star with Combat “V”. Afterward, he went on to complete a degree in mathematics at the University of San Diego and a doctorate of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Kim was a resident physician in emergency medicine with Partners Healthcare at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Jasmin Moghbeli

“Surround yourself with good people that have the characteristics that you want to grow in yourself. I think if you surround yourself with people like that you kind of bring each other up to a higher and higher level as you go.”

Jasmin Moghbeli, a U.S. Marine Corps major, considers Baldwin, New York, her hometown. She earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering with information technology at MIT, followed by a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School.

She is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School and has accumulated more than 1,600 hours of flight time and 150 combat missions.

Loral O’Hara

“I’m one of those people who have wanted to be an astronaut since I was a little kid, and I think that came from an early obsession with flying – birds, airplanes, rockets.”

This Houston native earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Kansas and a Master of Science degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Purdue University. As a student, she participated in multiple NASA internship programs, including the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program, the NASA Academy at Goddard Space Flight Center, and the internship program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

O’Hara was a research engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where she worked on the engineering, test and operations of deep-ocean research submersibles and robots. She is also a private pilot and certified EMT and wilderness first responder.

Dr. Frank Rubio

“I just figured it was time to take the plunge and try it. And so, I did and beyond all dreams, it came true.” 

Dr. Francisco “Frank” Rubio, a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, is originally from Miami. He earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the U.S. Military Academy and earned a doctorate of medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. 

Rubio served as a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter pilot and flew more than 1,100 hours, including more than 600 hours of combat and imminent danger time during deployments to Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He is also a board certified family physician and flight surgeon.

Jessica Watkins

“I’ve always been interested in exploring space. What’s out there and how can we as humans reach those outer stars and how can we learn more information about who we are through that process.”

This Colorado native earned a bachelor’s degree in geological and environmental sciences at Stanford University, and a doctorate in geology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Watkins has worked at Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Watkins was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology, where she collaborated on the Mars Curiosity rover, participating in daily planning of rover activities and investigating the geologic history of the Red Planet.

Learn more about the new space heroes right here: https://www.nasa.gov/newastronauts

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.