Gentelmen . . .

I tire of explosions, isotopes and molten sand. Nothing perks me up like a good birthday! It's David Ogden Stiers birthday today. Born in 1944 the actor known for his sophisticated edge has long been a TV staple. His most memorable work being "Winchester" in the MASH series. He is also a lover of classical music who actually knows his stuff; he has guest conducted for many symphony orchestras.

His early career was classical theatre and improv but he headed out west to Hollywood where he appeared on the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Kojak (oh my) among others. But it was in 1977 that he joined the cast of MASH where he won two Emmy's for his performance as a stuffy Bostonian.

His smooth authoritative voice projected breeding and style and was used in many animated movies and as voice overs for such diverse projects as Beauty and the Beast, the Myst PC game series AND George Lucas' THX 1138.

David Odgen Stiers shares his birthday with that well known bandleader Kinky Friedman.

Noble force of the explosions.

Sometime in the mid 60's the Soviet Union started to look seriously at what atomic bombs could do other than barbeque enemies. Originally it examined the same 2 objectives as the American Ploughshares program- nuclear "landscaping" and oil extraction. Frighteningly named "Program No. 7, Nuclear explosions for the national economy" it soon grew to take on at least a half dozen more uses for this power. One idea was to move asteroids. No details on what that means.

The first real use of the bombs was to cap runaway oil and gas wells. It was a success. Now they felt that this could actually be a viable business. The Soviets set off 122 nuclear explosions from about 1965 to 1989.

I had a look at the list and there are some ho hum shots and others just don't sound good at all. For instance theres the Water Reservoir Construction project. A bomb was set off and the ensuing hole left to fill with water. But what about the Toxic Oil Field Waste Disposal shot? Hmmm, maybe the toxic waste is ok after all. And here's the one I like- The Decoupling Experiment.

In actual fact the toxic waste disposal was as simple as the reservoir construction. A bomb was set off deep undergound and the hole it produced became a holding tank for the crap. Apprently, some are still in use.

The decoupling was nothing more than attempts to isolate the seismic vibrations all the explosions created so nosy parker US wouldn't know what uncle Joe was up to.

If you have the time, energy and would like to read a fairly technical summary of the entire Soviet peaceful nuclear program check out the link from the US Department of Energy's web site. Its actually quite well written.

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/purl.cover.jsp?purl=/793554-ZAQEpq/native/

So why is this a better idea.

Other countries flirted with the idea of using atomic bombs to move earth too. Most notably the former Soviet Union, but surprisingly Canada also toyed with the notion. Now in the middle of a huge oil and gas boom centred in North Eastern British Columbia and Northern Alberta, the industry pumps millions of litres of oil and gas.

It wasn't all roses for this business. Back in the late 50's engineers grappled with how the hell to get all the oil out of the tar sands and how to get the gas to come out of the ground easier. Production costs were insane, investors were wary of the new sources and oil was not at 90 bucks a barrel yet.

I found an excellent piece on Alberta's dance with lady fission on the Innovation Alberta website (link below) by historian Dr. Michael Payne. In it he describes how the plan was to detonate an atomic bomb at a place called Cheechum Crossing, just outside one of the hubs of the industry, Fort McMurray.

It was the progeny of the same Project Ploughshares that started the dig a canal campaign. A Dr. L. M. Natland of the Richfield oil company actually came up with the idea of setting off an atomic bomb under the Athabasca Oil Sands. The hope was to liberate the oil from the sand. It had long been a puzzle for engineers; so much oil, so close but how to get it out. The engineers, the oil companies and the provincial and federal goverments got together and started planning.

Thankfully, public sentiment and generally touchy world relations (the Cuban missile crisis was barely a year away at this time) stopped the idea from blossoming. It didn`t completely die out for a while though. In 1973 a Canadian oil company called Phoenix Oil actually took out a patent on a method for extracting oil using atomic bombs, but it never went any farther than that.

http://www.innovationalberta.com/article.php?articleid=90

Stand back a bit while I light the fuse . . .

My love of the ridiculously unsafe has once more been satisfied in this, the beginning of a new series playfully called: When using too much explosives is fun. I give you Project Plowshare. A program devised by the Americans to use atomic bombs as excavation tools.

No doubt the military tests, over 300 alone just in the United States, gave engineers something to think about. At the very least the damn bombs left great big holes in the ground. Seizing on the opportunity to pacify their guilt and perhaps use atomic bombs to give back to society, the engineers and scientists said "Whoa, look how many construction workers lives we can spare by creating and instant hole in the ground the size of a university."

In actual fact the bombs did work well for earth moving uses, it not only moved the earth but vapourized a good bit of it and deposited the rest in the atmosphere too, reducing the need to find a place to put the stuff.

One of the projects considered was replacing the Panama Canal. It had simply become too narrow and slow. The canals locks proved cumbersome and prone to repairs. The idea was to create a sea level canal (no lifting the boats up and then floating them on to the other side). By using atomic bomb excavation the canal could be cut through anywhere in the area regardless of terrain and it would be much wider and deeper.

Beginning in 1950, Project Plowshare seriously examined sites all over Central America until deciding on Darien province in Panama. It was 45 miles across Atlantic to Pacific at this point and scientists figured on a couple of dozen really big atomic bombs would soften the ground enough to auger out a canal.

This project was seriously considered. Only the test ban treaty of 1962, which halted all testing, actually stopped it. Engineers needed to do more testing before beginning excavation. Various other test bans came and went with no real progress on this idea, but Project Plowshare wasn't officially closed until 1977.

Logistically speaking.

Whilst puttering around looking for automobile failures and extra large things that blew up I came across this fellow and promised myself I'd find 5 minutes to write something down. Frederick William Lanchester was an inventor, engineer and transportation pioneer. Born this day in 1868 in London, England, he was one of eleven children ( 3 sisters and 6 brothers).

To say that he was an engineer doesn't quite cover the sheer range of his work. He worked on cars, boats, planes (before and after they were invented) photography, physics, and even created an entire new field called operations research. A real Renaissance Man.

He built his first engine in 1893 and together with his brothers, who had built a boat, created in 1894, the first powerboat to ply English waters. The following year he built, with the aid of another brother,(thank God they weren't all barbers) one of the first cars in England. The performance sucked according to Frederick so he built another engine with more power and a smoother feel. He had already begun to realize that the consumer wanted a quiet, comfortable vehicle to ride in. Automobile owners needed to feel safe and secure.The image of a soot covered mud encrusted Shakelton-esque trail blazer that owning an automobile then required of its owner was foreign to Lanchester.

In 1900 the brothers formed the Lanchester Engine Company and utilized Fredericks advanced designs like mid mounted engine for stability, 3 speed automatic transmission and a unique disc braking system that braked the clutch disc rather that the wheels.

Frederick never stopped with innovative new designs. When he invented larger and more powerful engines he again was faced with the vibrations and noise that occured. This would never do. He set about to design counter balancing shafts to smooth out the engine performance. A feature used today in high preformance cars.

Through several permutations of his company, Lanchester continued to build cars until he was bought out by Daimler in 1933. Tinted glass, left hand steering for export models were some of the options available.

Avast me hearties.

Crews have rebelled against captains, troops against generals for as long as men (and women) have been led or told what to do. I was watching a superd show called Mars Rising, narrated by William Shatner on Discovery Channel last night, when there was a brief snippet about rebellions in space.

As per usual I did some snooping and came up with a few close calls dating back almost 40 years.

Apollo 7 astronauts had an extraordinarily hard time of their mission in 1968. The first new Apollo launch after the Apollo 6 launch pad disaster, the crew felt the pressure to make this one a success. They had pressures from onboard as well: they all had colds. Great, a cold, clammy microscopicaly small capsule with 3 runny nosed men. For 11 long days. Around and around they go, orbit after orbit, testing and re-testing. Getting hundreds of trials completed, scenarios played out in orbit before the first long range charge at the moon. It is said that not all of the requests from mission control were carried out when they wanted them to.

In 1972, the crew of Skylab (remember Skylab?) got fed up with an over ambitious schedule and simply booked a flex day. The day after they worked out a more realistic work load.

MIR wasn't so lucky. A workhorse both in kilometers traveled and hours logged by its crews, it was also the first true space outpost. A place astronauts went and moved in and stayed. In 1995 2 Russian astronauts simply refused to don their space suits and head outside. Ground engineers couldn't do a whole heck of a lot so they said OK, fine, have it your way. Back on earth there was some crap flying. The MIR commander of the time had simply had enough and wanted to wait until fresh replacements arrived.

MIR had suffered an enormous fire that year, that if it had not been put out, could have done in the place. Later on in June a supply ship crashed into MIR, cutting its power in half and generally making a hash of the place.

Eeek, a mouse.

Joey Bishop, the 5th and last surviving member of the Rat Pack, died today, he was 89. Born in the Bronx, Joseph Abraham Gottlieb, was a comedian from the start. Unlike the other Rat Pack-ers, who were actors and singers first (true song and dance men) Bishop did stand up. He started doing vaudeville before he went off to war.

When he returned he went back to comedy, this time stand up in clubs, radio and that fledgling medium, television. Frank Sinatra caught his act and helped him get better gigs, including working with Sinatra.

Always the sombre "rat", his long face and quiet delivery eaned him a reputation for being the responsible one of the gang, the designated driver. He never matched his buddies for partying and girl chasing. In fact he was married to only one woman, Sylvia Ruzga, for nearly 60 years.

With the exception of a few movies in the fifties and early sixties, most notably, Ocean's Eleven, he was working the Vegas Clubs with the Rat Pack. TV offers surfaced starting in 1960 with many appearances on the tonight show hosted by comedy heavyweights Jack Parr and Steve Allen.

Soon after he starred in his own comedy show, The Joey Bishop Show, about a guy who stars in a late night talk show. When will they learn. Anyway it didn't last past a few seasons. Next was his own late night talk show, a real one, but it fizzled. Partly because Bishop was a comedian, not an interviewer, and partly because now he was up against the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson at the helm. A young up and comer, Regis Philbin, was his sidekick.

Ironically, Bishop would guest host the Tonight Show more than 150 times.

Sometimes he appeared to be the junior member of the Rat Pack, or mascot. In typical Joey Bishop fashion he's quoted as saying “But even the mascot gets to carry the ball, too,”