Great site visualizing Orion Battleships. I'm a fan of Orions; they are something we could do, if not now, well, then soon (and essential ingredients for near future sci-fi).
Cribbed this awesome picture from DRB.
From Futurismic:
We are currently developing a series of suborbital space vehicles - designed to pave the way for manned space flight on a micro size spacecraft.
Basically, "oneships".
I love it, even if it's at the half baked theory point right now. From my weak understanding of orbital mechanics, ninety percent of getting anywhere in this Solar System is just getting up into orbit.
I love the idea of slipping on a spaceship like an old shoe.
I hereby volunteer to be spam in a can (if anyone is, like, asking).
Dark Roasted Blend has a great pictorial runddown of the Orion Nuclear Rocket. The DRB team is also introducing a Scifi dedicated minisite. Lovely.
Since we're rekindling the Cold War with the Russmob, let's finally get those space dreadnoughts up in orbit. Man (ed note:or chick; it the oughts, dude) your battlestations!!
Burt Rutan unveils the first of, I hope, many, varied, slingshots towards the stars:
Nice reminder. Bigelow Aerospace has two (as yet unmanned) stations in orbit. Get cracking, Virgin Galactic.
Cute. DRB rounds up the world's smallest cars; wave of the future? What happens when you have to haul the family across country?
Sometimes I suspect that our arguments about transportation are often arguments about movement: for who, how much and how far, Goldilocks?
Via io9, this awesome collection of glass blown spaceships, from Rik Allen's exhibition:
UPDATE: Larger, more detailed images at Rik Allen's website.
Plans for Burt Rutan and Richard Branson to build on the success of Virgin Galactic.
Just a wikinub, right now. Look forward to see what happens in the short term (five or so years).
And not the Ron Paul kind. Link.
My worldbuilding has Blimps and scramjets. Wave of the future. On blimps:
1. Security. Hard to use as a weapon. Easier to control.
2. Mass transportation.
3. Elegant for the Leisure Class.
4. Fits eco-environing.
5. No pirates (at least in the early years)
For filing under future transportation.
The cancelled Walrus Warblimp
The Aerostat Yacht
And this gorgeous strato cruiser
Note, on the cancelled Walrus, this line caught my eye from Defense Tech:
THERE'S MORE: The Office of the Secretary of Defense is pushing a heavy-lift blimp plan of its own. But Rummy's lighter-than-air crew doesn't think the Pentagon can -- or should -- do zeppelin-development on its own. Instead, they're trying to encourage a whole industry to come together to build these airborne behemoths, so both soldiers and civilians can benefit.
Similar to NASA encouraging COTS solutions to space travel. Get industry to role the dice, come along later and lease or buy the desired product. Gummint does best when it does less.
