Yes, I am still here. It just has been too hot to build anything. Whenever I use a drop of glue it is already dry before I have applied it to the parts. I have made some progress but too little to mention in a post here. So, now the 35º+ heatwave apparently has almost passed and the temperatures are back to a 'normal' 28º indoors, I will see if I can start building again. If only I could stop sweating. What do you mean, no climate change? Scorching heat and an occasional rain bomb with no cooling power whatsoever.
See you soon.
--PK
30 July 2018
17 July 2018
ANS - The first Dutch adventure in space [1]
Hi. Storytime!
When in the early 1960s Europe too wanted to get a foothold in outer space, ELDO and ESRO were founded. A lot of European countries were involved, including the Netherlands. But although they financed the endeavour along with the rest, the Dutch were practically ignored when it came to active participation. The assignments for rockets and satellites always went to Germany, Italy and France.
The Dutch lacked experience, they said. Something they of course would never get when they couldn’t participate. So the Dutch delegation took a deep sigh and said to themselves: “Well, we’ll do it our bloody selves, then” (but of course they said it in Dutch, probably somewhere in the line of “Dan doen we het verdikke zelf wel!”).
They wanted their satellite to serve a scientific purpose, so it was decided it would be an astronomical satellite.
Skip forward a half a dozen years or so. With a big grant from the government the Dutch finally could start building in 1969. They named her ANS, which is an old-fashioned Dutch girl’s name but in fact stood for Astronomische Nederlandse Satelliet.
Two very special telescope systems would scan the Infrared and X-ray spectrum. The universities of Groningen and Utrecht would provide the telescopes and other astronomical instruments, the Philips company would create and build the brain and electronics, and Fokker would build it all together in a small frame, all under the supervision of the NLR, the Dutch Aeronautical institute.
When in the early 1960s Europe too wanted to get a foothold in outer space, ELDO and ESRO were founded. A lot of European countries were involved, including the Netherlands. But although they financed the endeavour along with the rest, the Dutch were practically ignored when it came to active participation. The assignments for rockets and satellites always went to Germany, Italy and France.
The Dutch lacked experience, they said. Something they of course would never get when they couldn’t participate. So the Dutch delegation took a deep sigh and said to themselves: “Well, we’ll do it our bloody selves, then” (but of course they said it in Dutch, probably somewhere in the line of “Dan doen we het verdikke zelf wel!”).
They wanted their satellite to serve a scientific purpose, so it was decided it would be an astronomical satellite.
Skip forward a half a dozen years or so. With a big grant from the government the Dutch finally could start building in 1969. They named her ANS, which is an old-fashioned Dutch girl’s name but in fact stood for Astronomische Nederlandse Satelliet.
Two very special telescope systems would scan the Infrared and X-ray spectrum. The universities of Groningen and Utrecht would provide the telescopes and other astronomical instruments, the Philips company would create and build the brain and electronics, and Fokker would build it all together in a small frame, all under the supervision of the NLR, the Dutch Aeronautical institute.
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| ANS being tested, around 1973. On the forward facing part you can see the holes for the soft X-ray telescope (the round one and the little square one) and in the middle the opening for the bulky Cassegrain UV-telescope. On the side, just below the top is the US hard X-ray experiment. At the bottom, pointing away from the camera, is the on-board computer. Everything was connected with strings of long white cables. Photo: ICANS/Fokker/Philips/NLR |
01 July 2018
Fokker F-500: The Skyguard revisited in paper!
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| The end result. |
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| some of the trial and error. |
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