LifeofthisWorld

World Iran Threatens To Close Oil Shipping Lanes, Could Beijing Do Likewise In South China Sea? Forbes   Sat, May 7 10:54 PM PDT   Sign in to like   Reblog on Tumblr   Tweet News from late last week that Iran had threatened to close oil shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. proceeds with further military drills in the area is disturbing enough, but it also provokes questions about actions China could also take in the not too distant future in the South China Sea. Oilprice.com reported on the Iran story on Friday, citing remarks made on Iranian television by General Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard. “If the Americans and their regional allies want to pass through the Strait of Hormuz and threaten us, we will not allow any entry,” Salami said. Salami was referring to an early April large-scale military drill “International ...

Did Hiroshima Save Japan From Soviet Occupation? Foreign Policy Magazine   Sun, May 8 7:36 AM PDT   Sign in to like   Reblog on Tumblr   Tweet In the wee hours of Aug. 24, 1945, Soviet long-range bombers would take off from their air base not far from the Far Eastern port of Vladivostok and fly east, across the Sea of Japan, dropping lethal payloads on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. At 5 a.m. that morning, two Soviet regiments would storm their way onshore, followed, in two hours, by a larger force. Within days, two infantry divisions would sweep across northern Hokkaido, cutting the island in half. That was the rough battle plan drawn up by the commander of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, Adm. Ivan Yumashev, at the end of World War II for occupying Hokkaido. Troops were on standby. Submarines were ordered to the Hokkaido coast ...

People are bashing the F-35 over this picture of it flying with an F-16 Business Insider   22 hours ago   Sign in to like   Reblog on Tumblr   Tweet The cool shot in this post was shared by the Thunderbirds on their Facebook page. It shows a USAF F-35A forming up on right wing of the F-16 #1 leader of the U.S. Air Force demo team. By looking at the configuration of the two aircraft and the AOA (Angle Of Attack) – the angle between the relative wind and a reference line on the airplane or wing – it’s pretty clear that the aircraft are flying at low speed, in an attempt to match the airspeed of a slow camera ship. Noticing that the F-35 is flying with a higher AOA than the F-16, many people have used the photograph to criticize the Lockheed Martin’s fifth generation stealth jet as if the fact that the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) was flying “nose ...

Can We Really Get to Alpha Centauri? Universe Today   3 hours ago   Sign in to like   Reblog on Tumblr   Tweet In a previous episode, I said that traveling within the Solar System is hard enough, traveling to another star system in our lifetime is downright impossible. Many of you said it was the most depressing episode I’ve ever done . The distance to Pluto is, on average, about 40 astronomical units. That’s 40 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth. And New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft traveling in the Solar System took about 10 years to make the journey. The distance to Alpha Centauri is about 277,000 astronomical units away (or 4.4 light-years). That’s about 7,000 times further than Pluto. New Horizons could make the journey, if you were willing to wait about 70,000 years. That’s about twice ... Read more

U.S. Likely to Lift Ban on Arms Sales to Vietnam Foreign Policy Magazine   2 hours 29 minutes ago   Sign in to like   Reblog on Tumblr   Tweet The White House appears poised to end a ban on arms sales to Vietnam in time for a landmark visit by President Barack Obama later this month, despite misgivings from some lawmakers and human rights advocates. The step would carry crucial symbolism in the growing contest for influence between China and the United States in the Western Pacific and also for America’s relationship with Hanoi that has come full circle since the dark days of the Vietnam War. Anxious about China’s aggressive moves to assert its territorial claims in the South China Sea, Vietnam’s government has pressed repeatedly for an end to the prohibition on U.S. arms exports, which would permit Hanoi to buy high-tech American military ...

Will Earth Survive When the Sun Becomes a Red Giant? Universe Today   5 hours ago   Sign in to like   Reblog on Tumblr   Tweet Since the beginning of human history, people have understood that the Sun is a central part of life as we know it. It’s importance to countless mythological and cosmological systems across the globe is a testament to this. But as our understand of it matured, we came to learn that the Sun was here long before us, and will be here long after we’re gone. Having formed roughly 4.6 bullion years ago, our Sun began its life roughly 40 million years before our Earth had formed. Since then, the Sun has been in what is known as its Main Sequence, where nuclear fusion in its core causes it to emit energy and light, keeping us here on Earth nourished. This will last for another 4.5 – 5.5 billion years, ...

U.S. Next Big Future: US Air Force will have first combat lasers on large C-17 and C-130s and then later miniaturized for F-16 and F-35 fighter jets nextbigfuture.com   8 hours ago   Sign in to like   Reblog on Tumblr   Tweet The US Air Force plans to arm its fleet of drones and fighter jets with high-tech laser weapons. Air Force Research Laboratory officials have said they plan to have a program of record for air-fired laser weapons in place by 2023. Ground testing of a laser weapon called the High Energy Laser, or HEL, was slated to take place last year at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., service officials said. The High Energy Laser test is being conducted by the Air Force Directed Energy Directorate, Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. ..