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Extreme Machines
''Extreme Machines'' was a documentary series created by Pioneer Productions for The Learning Channel and Discovery Channel. The series focused mainly on machines although in some episodes of Season 4 and Season 5, it also looked at disasters involving them. The series was largely narrated by William Hootkins. The show made also made use of scale miniatures in many episodes, managed by David Barlow.''Extreme Machines, Super Trains - Pioneer Productions'' Episodes Season 1 (1997) Season 2 (1998) Season 3 (1999) Season 4 (2000) {, class="wikitable" !No. in Season !Episode Title !Technology shown !Episode Directed by , - , 1 , Pedal Power , , , - , 2 , Rocketeers , , , - , 3 , Car Crash , , , - , 4 , Aviators , , , - , 5 , Raiders of the Deep , , , - , 6 , Super Trains/Super Trains Ultimate , P-40DC Genesis ( Amtrak Sunset Limited) Superliner Railcar (Amtrak Sunset Limited) Acela Express Shinkansen TGV ICE Train (Eschede train disaster) Gaisal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Learning Channel
TLC is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. First established in 1980 as The Learning Channel, it initially focused on educational and instructional programming. By the late 1990s, after an acquisition by the owners of Discovery Channel earlier in the decade, the network began to pivot towards reality television programming—predominantly focusing on programming involving Lifestyle (sociology), lifestyles and personal stories—to the point that the previous initialism of "The Learning Channel" was orphaned initialism, phased out. As of February 2015, TLC is available to watch in approximately 95 million American households (81.6% of households with cable television) in the United States. History 1972–1980: Early history as the Appalachian Educational Satellite Project TLC's history traces to the 1972 formation of the Appalachian Educational Satellite Project (AESP), a distance education project formed by the Appalachian Regional Commission (A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
R-16 (missile)
The R-16 was the first successful intercontinental ballistic missile deployed by the Soviet Union. In the West it was known by the NATO reporting name SS-7 Saddler, and within Russia, it carried the GRAU index 8K64. Description The missile was 30.4 m long, 3 m in diameter and had a launch weight of 141 tons. The maximum range was 11,000 km with a 5-6 Mt thermonuclear warhead and 13,000 km with a 3 Mt warhead. The missile had a circular error probable (CEP) of 2.7 km. History During development, a massive failure occurred on October 24, 1960, when a prototype rocket exploded on the pad killing at least 78 personnel. After decades of coverup, the government finally revealed this incident, referred to as the Nedelin catastrophe. A fatal accident with the R-9 missile occurred exactly three years later, causing October 24 to be referred to as Baikonur's "Black Day." No launches have been attempted on that date at Baikonur ever since. Afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union Pacific Big Boy
The Union Pacific Big Boy is a type of simple articulated 4-8-8-4 steam locomotive manufactured by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) between 1941 and 1944 and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad in revenue service until 1962. The 25 Big Boy locomotives were built to haul freight over the Wasatch Range between Ogden, Utah, and Green River, Wyoming. In the late 1940s, they were reassigned to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where they hauled freight over Sherman Hill to Laramie, Wyoming. They were the only locomotives to use a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement: four-wheel leading truck for stability entering curves, two sets of eight driving wheels and a four-wheel trailing truck to support the large firebox. Today, eight Big Boys survive, with most on static display at museums across the USA. One of them, No. 4014, was re-acquired by Union Pacific, and between 2014 to 2019 it was rebuilt to operating condition for the 150th anniversary of the first transcontinental railroad. It thus regained ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California Zephyr (1949–1970)
The ''California Zephyr'' was a passenger train that ran between Chicago, Illinois and Oakland, California via Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, Winnemucca, Oroville and Pleasanton. It was operated by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (CB&Q), Denver & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW) and Western Pacific (WP) railroads, all of which dubbed it "the most talked about train in America" on March 19, 1949, with the first departure the following day. The train was scheduled to pass through the most spectacular scenery on its route in the daylight. The original train ceased operation in 1970, though the D&RGW continued to operate its own passenger service, the ''Rio Grande Zephyr'', between Salt Lake City and Denver, using the original equipment until 1983. In 1983 a second iteration of the ''California Zephyr'', an Amtrak service, was formed. The current version of the ''California Zephyr'' operates partially over the route of the original ''Zephyr'' and partially over the route of its former ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Pacific Daylight
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the names Southern Pacific Railroad, Southern Pacific Company and Southern Pacific Transportation Company. The original Southern Pacific began in 1865 as a land holding company. The last incarnation of the Southern Pacific, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company, was founded in 1969 and assumed control of the Southern Pacific system. The Southern Pacific Transportation Company was acquired in 1996 by the Union Pacific Corporation and merged with their Union Pacific Railroad. The Southern Pacific legacy founded hospitals in San Francisco, Tucson, Arizona, Tucson, and Houston. In the 1970s, it also founded a telecommunications network with a state-of-the-art microwave and fiber optic backbone. This ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard
LNER Class A4 4468 ''Mallard'' is a 4-6-2 ("Pacific") steam locomotive built in 1938 for operation on the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) at Doncaster Works to a design of Nigel Gresley. Its streamlined, wind tunnel tested design allowed it to haul long distance express passenger services at high speeds. On 3 July 1938, ''Mallard'' broke the world speed record for steam locomotives at , which still stands. While in British Railways days regular steam-hauled rail services in the UK were officially limited to a 90 mph 'line speed', before the war, the A4s had to run significantly above 90 mph just to keep schedule on trains such as the '' Silver Jubilee'' and '' The Coronation'', with the engines reaching 100 mph on many occasions. ''Mallard'' covered almost one and a half million miles (2.4 million km) before it was retired in 1963. The locomotive is long and weighs 165 long tons (168 tonnes, 369,600 lbs), including the tender. It is painted LNER garter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shinkansen
The , colloquially known in English as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan. Initially, it was built to connect distant Japanese regions with Tokyo, the capital, to aid economic growth and development. Beyond long-distance travel, some sections around the largest metropolitan areas are used as a commuter rail network. It is operated by five Japan Railways Group companies. Over the Shinkansen's 50-plus-year history, carrying over 10 billion passengers, there has been not a single passenger fatality or injury on board due to derailments or collisions. Starting with the Tokaido Shinkansen () in 1964, the network has expanded to currently consist of of lines with maximum speeds of , of Mini-Shinkansen lines with a maximum speed of , and of spur lines with Shinkansen services. The network presently links most major cities on the islands of Honshu and Kyushu, and Hakodate on northern island of Hokkaido, with an extension to Sapporo under constru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermes (spacecraft)
Hermes was a proposed spaceplane designed by the French Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) in 1975, and later by the European Space Agency (ESA). It was superficially similar to the American Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar and the larger Space Shuttle. In January 1985, CNES proposed to proceed with Hermes development under the auspices of the ESA. Hermes was to have been part of a crewed spaceflight program. It would have been launched using an Ariane 5 launch vehicle. In November 1987, the project was approved; it was to commence an initial pre-development phase from 1988 to 1990, after which the authorisation to proceed to full-rate development was to depend on the outcome of this phase. However, the project was subject to numerous delays and funding issues around this period. In 1992, Hermes was cancelled. This was in part due to unachievable cost and performance goals, as well as the formation of a partnership with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (RKA), which reduced the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HOPE-X
HOPE (H-II Orbiting Plane) was a Japanese experimental spaceplane project designed by a partnership between NASDA and NAL (both now part of JAXA), started in the 1980s. It was positioned for most of its lifetime as one of the main Japanese contributions to the International Space Station, the other being the Japanese Experiment Module. The project was eventually cancelled in 2003, by which point test flights of a sub-scale testbed had flown successfully. History The original HOPE project called for the building of a sub-scale orbital prototype known as HOPE-X, for H-II Orbiting Plane, Experimental. This would be used for flight testing and systems validation, before moving onto the larger HOPE, which used many of the same parts and general design in a 4-man design. As the name implies, both would be launched on Japan's new H-2 launcher, the full-scale HOPE requiring substantial upgrades in performance. At the time, Japan was an up-and-coming industrial powerhouse, and their spac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VentureStar
VentureStar was a single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch system proposed by Lockheed Martin and funded by the U.S. government. The goal was to replace the Space Shuttle by developing a re-usable spaceplane that could launch satellites into orbit at a fraction of the cost. While the requirement was for an uncrewed launcher, it was expected to carry passengers as cargo. The VentureStar would have had a wingspan of , a length of , and would have weighed roughly 1000 t (2.2 million lb). VentureStar was intended to be a commercial single-stage-to-orbit vehicle that would be launched vertically, but return to Earth as an airplane. Flights would have been leased to NASA as needed. After failures with the X-33 subscale technology demonstrator test vehicle, funding was cancelled in 2001. VentureStar was essentially a bigger version of the X-33 but was not produced. The X-33 had ongoing problems meeting performance requirements for the carbonfibre hydrogen fuel tank. There were a number of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McDonnell Douglas DC-X
The DC-X, short for Delta Clipper or Delta Clipper Experimental, was an uncrewed prototype of a reusable single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle built by McDonnell Douglas in conjunction with the United States Department of Defense's Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) from 1991 to 1993. Starting 1994 until 1995, testing continued through funding of the US civil space agency NASA. In 1996, the DC-X technology was completely transferred to NASA, which upgraded the design for improved performance to create the DC-XA. Background According to writer Jerry Pournelle: "DC-X was conceived in my living room and sold to National Space Council Chairman Dan Quayle by General Graham, Max Hunter and me." According to Max Hunter, however, he had tried hard to convince Lockheed Martin of the concept's value for several years before he retired. Hunter had written a paper in 1985 entitled "The Opportunity", detailing the concept of a Single-Stage-To-Orbit spacecraft built with low- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturn V
Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with multistage rocket, three stages, and powered with liquid-propellant rocket, liquid fuel. It was flown from 1967 to 1973. It was used for nine crewed flights to the Moon, and to launch Skylab, the first American space station. the Saturn V remains the only launch vehicle to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). Saturn V holds records for the heaviest payload launched and largest payload capacity to low Earth orbit: , which included the third stage and unburned propellant needed to send the Apollo command and service module and Apollo Lunar Module, Lunar Module to the Moon. The largest production model of the Saturn (rocket family), Saturn family of rockets, the Saturn V was designed under the direction of Wernher von Braun at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; the lead contractor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
