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| Macross the A* Saga? | Jun 29, 2019 12:02 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Reader support starting at $1 a month through my Patreon campaign makes it possible for me to bring you new A* pages each weekday! Here's a sketch I got to send to a reader recently as their monthly reward at the $10/month level:
Thanks to everyone supporting the comic, and thank you for reading A*!
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| Space news: life in space, space atomic clock | Jun 27, 2019 10:48 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Space news roundup!
- 50 astronauts, in their own words (Washington Post) Astronauts dish about life in space, including that in microgravity, your sinuses are always blocked up
- Apollo in 50 numbers: Medicine and health (BBC) Colds, gas, and other horrors of space travel
- Nasa puts up deep-space atomic clock (BBC) Scientists hope a new toaster-sized atomic clock will prove much more accurate than current ground-based, refrigerator-sized atomic clocks, enabling spacecraft to measure their own position precisely based on course and their time elapsed, rather than having to radio back to Earth—in other words, this would make deep space navigation possible
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| It's true, green skin isn't a symptom | Jun 26, 2019 10:36 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
From Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #1, October 1962
art by Bob Fujitani
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| Final day for new A* Selenis portrait sale! | Jun 25, 2019 11:15 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:We're down to the final day for the new 10" x 12" Selenis portrait I have up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Special A* portrait auction ends Wednesday! | Jun 24, 2019 11:02 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I'm selling a new portrait-orientation watercolor painting of Selenis on eBay right now. The sale ends Wednesday, and the 10" x 12" painting looks like this:
I don't manage to do a whole lot of A* watercolor artwork aside from the daily pages, so check this one out—in the next few days!—if you're interested in something a little different. : )
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| What we need more of is hats | Jun 21, 2019 10:35 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:A* is made possible in large part by the generosity of readers supporting the comic through my Patreon campaign, which you can do for as little as $1 a month! Here's a sketch I got to send to one reader for their support in a recent-ish month:
Thanks folks for your wonderful support! And thanks to everyone reading the comic. =)
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| Maximal minimalism | Jun 20, 2019 11:54 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Spent way too long drawing this (minimalism seems to take me the longest : o), and I just got a shipping deadline to get some A* original art in the mail by tomorrow : ), and that's still got to be boxed up, not to mention carried to the post office tomorrow, so I'm wrapping up this blog post now! ^_^
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| New A* portrait art "Altair" up for auction | Jun 19, 2019 9:30 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:This past weekend I painted a 10" x 12" watercolor picture of Selenis! I called it "Altair" because that sounds cool (plus, Altair is a star ("a star," "A*," see? : )) and put it up for auction for the next week on eBay, starting at just $16.99.
The auction listing has higher-resolution images!
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| Special portrait-orientation A* art tomorrow | Jun 18, 2019 10:55 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I did a special portrait-orientation A* watercolor illustration over the weekend! Haven't done one of those since uh jeez episode 29, however long ago that was. : o I had meant to get it scanned in tonight and all set for posting in an auction tomorrow evening, but I spent too much time painting silly obsessive detail into today's comic page so I'll have to do the scanning and everything tomorrow but I *will* get it done and posted by hook or by crook!
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| A Perriman/Oswalt refresher (*past spoilers*) | Jun 17, 2019 9:59 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Last week I had a reader ask me if I could point them in a direction to refresh their memory of Perriman and Oswalt—characters frequently mentioned over the years here in A*. This is what I came up with:
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*** Minor spoilers from past episodes ***
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There's a fair amount of Perriman talk, etc in episodes 10, 11, 17, 18, and 35.
(Oh! And in 35 there's a reference to a character in episode 21.)
In March I made a gallery of all mentions of Oswalt in the comic up to that point.
There are Oswalt sightings in episodes 19, 32, and 36.
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| Sketchbook can only fit 1 eye, yeah that's it | Jun 14, 2019 11:54 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Here's a sketch I got to send to a reader supporting the comic through my Patreon campaign : ) :
You can help me make this comic by kicking in as little as $1 a month through Patreon—and every dollar is a big help! Thanks everyone who's pitching in and letting me bring you this comic day after day, 10 years in and counting. : D And thanks everyone who's reading it! = )
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| Whaddaya mean I need more'n one expression? | Jun 14, 2019 1:13 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Gosh. This new Selenis indulges in a wider emotional range than the older Selenises usually allowed themselves, and it is challenging my drawing habits, which up 'til now have basically been able to get by with variations of steely eyed determination. So eh jeez well I may just end up having to white out a lot of pasted-on cheesy grins until I figure out how to draw other emotions properly. : o
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| Big face, big brush | Jun 12, 2019 11:14 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Finally worked up the nerve to use the big brush to define Selenis' facial features; I've used it as the first step on male faces once or twice, but when it came to Selenis I always felt I had to start off with the small brush for precision so I wouldn't make a mess of things—and this would tend to come out either scribbly, if I just traced all my pencil lines, or more cartoony, if I tried to form the pencil lines into smoothed out features.
And that can work sometimes, but maybe the big brush is better at capturing the sort of rough realistic look I tend to prefer. It has a bold, graphic style—and it's also way more fun to make! ^_^
I did get something like it here and there last episode when my initial, small brush try had failed me and I had to paint over it with opaque mixures of watercolor pigment and white ink, which is kind of fun and gets all painty and weird and even finger-painty sometimes, but for the sake of my own sanity, schedule, and art supply budget, I don't think I can afford to make a habit of taking *that* route to the big blocky look. : o And the big brush way has the advantage of still allowing me to go in with the small brush afterward to add just a *few* scratchy details, which also gives a useful fat/thin line contrast.
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| US to open ISS to space tourism | Jun 11, 2019 10:23 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:In the past week or so, the BBC and The New York Times, among others, had articles covering NASA's announcement that they'll be opening the International Space Station (presumably, technically just the American section) up to space tourists: $35,000 a night for up to two tourists—with something like two 30-day slots available per year—although total feels, including lift fees to SpaceX and Boeing—are estimated to amount to a total of about $50 million per passenger.
NASA new-ish administrator, who does not have a science background, has touted this about-face on allowing tourism as a way to help fund NASA's push to get back to the Moon and Mars, but the fees they're getting out of the deal would be a tiny, tiny drop in those huge buckets, and don't even cover the costs of running the ISS. So, it's basically just sacrificing unique scientific research opportunities to give the hyper-wealthy a little space jaunt.
Granted, it will give a few companies some space business and experience, but again it's kind of a drop in the bucket. To me it seems like a poor, short-sighted decision. Of course, the bigger decision is the White House's declaration that they want to stop US government funding of the ISS by 2025, at which point it would be turned over to 100% commercial use. The station's life span is a matter of debate in the US and Russia, the two countries responsible for placing the station's sections in orbit; at various stages the whole station was supposed to be scrapped at some point in the 2020s, possibly with some modules going to a new station, although Russia is currently thinking of possible uses for the ISS through 2028, and a US House of Representatives committee is currently considering a Senate bill that would extend station operations to 2030.
Speaking of Russia, they're the only ones who've run tourism to the ISS before: in the earlier 2000s, seven tourists went to the station under their program, which was managed by a US company. Russia soon put a stop to it, deciding they needed the berths for actual cosmonauts.
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| 1979's Church Rock, NM uranium mill spill | Jun 10, 2019 10:35 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:The 1979 Church Rock uranium mill spill in New Mexico "remains the largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history." Much of the spilled 1,000 tons of radioactive mill waste and 94 million gallons of radioactive uranium mining tailings solution traveled downstream into the nearby Navajo Nation, contaminating groundwater and rendering the river unusable. "Burns acquired by some of those who came into contact with the contaminated water developed serious infections and required amputations."
Cleanup at the time was woefully inadequate; the company behind the spill, United Nuclear Corporation, only collected about 1% of the spilled solid waste; the site remains a problem to this day, with the EPA listing the groundwater situation as "not under control."
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| Dust storm hair mask | Jun 07, 2019 11:26 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Here's a sketch I got to send to a reader for supporting the comic through my Patreon campaign:
You can help me make the comic with as little as $1 a month through Patreon, and every bit is a big help to me!
Thanks everyone for your support! = D
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| 100 years ago: Eddington proves relativity | Jun 06, 2019 9:20 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:On May 29, 1919—~100 years ago—two teams of astronomers—one in Brazil, the other in West Africa—used complex "comparator" devices to study stars next to the Sun in the sky during a total solar eclipse. The goal: to prove Einstein's 1915 theory of relativity, which still languished in relative obscurity, its author in a sickbed in Berlin, suffering from malnutrition due to the Triple-Entente's blockade of Germany. The result, that stars next to the Sun in the sky appeared very slightly out of place, their light "bent" by the Sun's gravity, matched the prediction of relativity, and made Einstein an instant worldwide sensation.
The expedition was led by British astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington; you can see one of the photos from his expedition here. A recent BBC article, The man who made Einstein world-famous, has details of that story and more: Eddington, a pacifist and conscientious objector during the war, "was one of the few British scientists willing to even think about German science," and "wrote the first books on relativity, gave popular lectures on Einstein, and became one of the great science communicators of the 20th Century."
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| More robot space arms! | Jun 05, 2019 9:42 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Two days ago I wrote about a couple spacecraft grapple mechanisms in development; so, since I already had to look some of this stuff up, I thought I might as well write a bit about other spacecraft grapple systems—particularly robot arms.
The arm I drew in page 13 of this episode was, of course, based on vague recollections of the large arm that could be mounted in the old Space Shuttle cargo bays: Canadarm (kind of an awkward name, but Canada *really* wanted you to know they made it!).
I got the actual grapple business end of the arm totally wrong, of course; the 15.2 meter long Canadarm didn't have big pincers, but rather a sort of tube assembly housing an enclosed grasping mechanism, made to latch on to specifically designed grapple fixtures that would have had to be placed for that purpose on whatever Canadarm was going to be called upon to manipulate. The standardized North American grapple fixture has a kind of cool sci-fi-ish-looking tripod design of three "ramps" that guide the grasping mechanism to the central pin.
The 17.6m successor to Canadarm, the even less creatively named Canadarm2, makes up a key part of the Mobile Servicing System on the International Space Station. In addition to that large arm, there's a smaller, two-armed Canadian robot named "Dextre," which can be mounted on Canadarm2, or placed by Canadarm2 on mounting points on the station exterior.
Canadarm2 actually has grasping mechanisms at both ends, which also incorporate connections for power, data, and video feeds; it can gradually move itself, in an "inchworm motion," across the station exterior by connecting alternating ends to powered connection ports (the same ports Dextre can be mounted on) while swinging its other end over to advance to the next. : o
If it doesn't want to go to all that work, it can hitch a ride on the station's Mobile Base System, a platform mounted on a 108m track running the length of the station's main truss. The MBS was also made in Canada.
The Japanese module on the ISS has its own 10m arm, JEMRMS, which can use the same grapple fixtures as Canadarm2.
The Russian segment of the ISS is due to get its own arm, the 5m European Robotic Arm. Originally planned for 2015, it has been pushed back at least a few times, from the looks of outdated sections of the Wikipedia page, and is currently scheduled for launch in summer 2020. The ERA will be able to move "hand-over-hand" like Canadarm2 does, but it will connect to grapple fixtures of a different design, and appears to be intended for use more or less exclusively around the Russian segment of the station.
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| Stuffed | Jun 04, 2019 10:30 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Ended up on a surprisingly long walkabout today with a friend who showed me some of the old-fashioned museums at the local state university, some of which featured stuffed and mounted animals. I'd kind of forgotten that was how things were done. It's neat to be able to see a pangolin and an echidna up close, in a way, but also fairly horrifying and ghoulish, especially considering how they could have ended up there. Ah the ways you had to find stuff before the internet.
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| Altius Space Machines space grapples | Jun 03, 2019 9:28 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Bill Bolton of Altius Space Machines saw my illustration of a spacecraft grapple arm in page 13 and, as Altius is working on actual spacecraft grapple mechanisms, was kind enough to send me some information on the real deal.
Their system currently in development—"BullDog"—takes a two-pronged approach: a long, fast, boom can reach out and tag a detumbler on an out-of-control satellite, and an articulated arm can perform a variety of servicing tasks. The system is compact; the spacecraft in these renders is about 1 meter long:
A detumbler, or "detumble package," in the scenario of a dead target satellite spinning out of control, would feature a magnetorquer: a device containing electromagnets operated in such a way as to "force the dead spacecraft to align with the Earth's magnetic field"; the process is slow, but highly energy-efficient.
A little Googling found me a related project Altius has under development: "DogTag," a standardized grapple fixture that would be mounted on spacecraft for grapple arms to grab. Bill mentioned to me a preference for magnetic grapple mechanisms over the big mechanical pincers I drew ^_^, but the DogTag is designed to offer a grapple option for both of those approaches, and many others: it is described as "capable of being grappled by a wide range of technologies: magnetic, electrostatic, gecko adhesive, hot melt or chemical adhesive, mechanical pinch grasping, mechanical snare capture, or even harpoon."
Thanks to Bill Bolton and Altius Space Machines for the real-life grapple mechanism examples and information. : )
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