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It looks like the plane Fireflash in one of the Thunderbird's shows. Okay, the engines are under the wings and not on the tail, but that's about it.

F.A.B.!

Tin tin's finest hour!

Watching TechTV on Saturdays got me hooked on The ThunderBirds, and the same reportedly inspired Parker/Stone to make this flick. It looks just as fun, if not more so, than the original.

Can't wait!

50 years of moovies and teevee depicting anyone with an interest in science as a total and complete loser will do that to a society.

And then you'd have to get Thunderbirds to come and rescue you.

Prior art: Thunderbirds' camera detector. I always wonderd how that was supposedd to work -- detecting a film exposed by opeing a shutter remotely seems rather difficult, but if in 2065 only digital camera are commonly available.

From the British Thunderbirds 60s TV series I give you the Mach 6 Fireflash!

(Now if they could just learn how to make civillian aircraft whose safety systems are more reliable...)

From the British Thunderbirds 60s TV series I give you the Mach 6 Fireflash!

(Now if they could just learn how to make civillian aircraft whose safety systems are more reliable...)

Probably he saw Thunderbirds first:

http://www.thunderbirdsonline.co.uk

Interestingly enough Gerry Anderson later used similar
Super-Marionation techniques for those other series:

http://www.tvcentury21.com/personnel/c21-con-sat-e xhibition.html

Google cached Here

1. Satellite

   Lovely solution, just one problem: They don't stay put.

   Sure over the equator they can orbit at the same rate the planet rotates and so appear "fixed" but that only works over that narrow ecliptic. Instead to cover extreme N. & S. latitudes one needs sats on a much more inclined orbit and then they're out of sight much of the time, a dozen or so would be required to provide continuous coverage. That means a couple of expensive launches, a serious of expensive sats, and of course their own-going management (course-corrections, problem resolution, etc.)

2. Radio Repeaters

   Why not build a series of microwave repeaters or such, bring the cable to the shore then broadcast the rest of the way? A couple of reasons:

   1. Putting in place that many repeater stations across the Antarctic would be difficult. They'd need to be tall, durable (in super-cold weather), well-anchored, and able to compensate for slowly moving stations.
   2. Getting back to them to fix any problems would be well nigh impossible much of the year so lots of redundancy, increased complexity, etc.
   3. Where's the power to come from? There isn't any local grid to plug in to and as the Canadians & Siberians will attest running long power lines across extreme latitudes is difficult (no grounding, lots of electromagnetic effects from aural storms, etc.) Solar won't work for a few months a year plus there's the buildup problem, burning hydrocarbons wouldn't be allowed plus would require regular refueling, and radiothermal seems very unlikely.

3. Fiberoptic Cable

   Yes fiber isn't the most robust material on its own. On the other hand it can be clad in all sorts of super-durable materials to protect it.

   To protect from stretching the fiber might be coiled inside an outer cladding so it's 2x or 3x as long as required. Or it could be threaded through an outer cladding (think 'garden hose') so it can slide back and forth under slight tension between 1km "reservoir" loops.

   Of course there's still the problem of powering the repeaters, but then that's why this contract is out there: To get folks interested in solving the problem.

Hmm, what would the Thunderbirds have done?

When I was expelled from school at 16, I got myself jobs in computers, where I was still under the delusion I wanted to work with science and technology. Of course, no way I could be an engineer anymore.

Being raised by an artist exposed me to all sorts of humanities stuff; but it would not really pay-off for about 20 years.

Then I met an engineer for the first time. I was totally dismayed at the utter lack of depth of the character, the extremely closed mind that had not the slightest interest outside the guy's profession, namely calculating the strength of beams going into a building.

I was glad I didn't pursue an engineering education!

Over the years, I interacted professionnally with many engineers, even at one point having two of them under my orders; only a few of those dispelled the initial notion I had of meeting my first one.

Then I worked several years with my father, who was making very-high quality books, and plenty of those were for a major museum. It is at this moment that I cursed myself for wanting to be an engineer, because I understood that I should have become an artist.

Meanwhile, the son of a friend I have known as a kid was growing up, and entered the engineering program of a very good university, of which he graduated with flying colours; two weeks later, he got himself a job, and bought himself a swift sportscar, in which he killed himself several hours later. Six years of engineering school down the crapper.

However, working in art edition circles, as interesting as it was, wasn't very computer-oriented, and it made me miss the OOP "revolution", which took me several years to catch-up; I was fortunate at that time to be hired to work on Internet connectivity just as the Internet was starting to "exist" in the public mind. Needless to say, my previous "artistic" dabblings came handy when some of the company's clients started to want websites...

Then I landed a job of IT manager for a small consulting company who provide turnkey museums all over the world; we are currently working on several projects, the largest of which is a new museum for the Smithsonian, in Washington.

Needless to say, this kind of work calls for a pretty multidisciplinary team. My past exposure to arts and design impressed my bosses enough to have me involved with every design team for several museums.

As you can guess, this makes for quite interesting meetings ("Okay, how should we put-up the Pterodon skeleton?" - "How can we mount those 80 aquariums to achieve maximum visibility?" - "Is it possible to have that subway mockup vibrate so it feels like it is running on the line?") or requests ("Hey, can you find me a planetarium?" - "I need a cable-car and a monorail"). You can guess that I am not ready to let go of that job...

I do not think I could have such an interesting job if I only had straight technical training; exposure to Humanities definitely broaden interests, and allows one to see the big picture and understand how various disciplines interact.