The actor who portrays the Midshipman who is killed in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" was 3 years, 4.59 months, younger than me. I assume this also reflects that I was almost killed on that first flight of the space shuttle on 4/14/1981, where I would have still been a U.S. Navy Midshipman at the time. That name Preston also means something I can't completely remember.
34-59
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0252055/
Ike Eisenmann
Date of Birth: 21 July 1962
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982) .... Midshipman Peter Preston
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Peter_Preston
Midshipman 1st Class Peter Preston was an engineer's mate aboard the USS Enterprise during its Starfleet Academy training cruise in 2285. Preston was the nephew of Montgomery Scott, the youngest child of Scott's sister. According to his uncle he was "crazy to get to space".
That year, Preston met Admiral James Kirk during an inspection tour of the Enterprise. While inspecting engineering, Preston challenged Kirk's assessment of the ship, charging the Admiral with being as blind as a Tiberian bat, if he could not see that the Enterprise was the pride of the fleet. Upon Preston's digression, Kirk noted that he was a "tiger".
Following an unprovoked attack by the USS Reliant, later determined to be led by Khan Noonien Singh, the Enterprise was severely damaged in the engineering section. Preston stayed at his post throughout the attack, even when the other trainees ran. He would die from burns he sustained while assisting other engineers evacuate an area being sealed by a radiation shield.
Preston was played by actor Ike Eisenmann. Many of Preston's lines were cut from the original film and video release, as were scenes revealing his relation to Scotty, but they were restored in a 1985 ABC-TV airing of the film, as well as the later 2002 Directors Edition DVD.
I definitely have not watched this movie in the past 9 years, but yet I can "remember" watching it in the context of my artificial and symbolic memory.
The premiere date for "Gremlins" was precisely 414 weeks after 7/2/1976. That date 7/2/1976 is the date I recognize as when I intercepted the comet. I didn't find anything particularly interesting in that movie to connect with that event, other than the line about "bright light." I have some artificial memories that I am not entirely certain what it means. I would have wanted to associate this movie with events in my life and I assume that is why Phoebe is in it, assuming that I had some form of creative control over this movie.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087363/
Gremlins (1984)
Release Date: 8 June 1984 (USA)
Hoyt Axton was 343 months, 3 weeks, old on 11/15/1966, the day Gemini 12 returned to Earth. I recognize the Gemini 12 as my first flight into space, although I don't actually consciously remember any of that.
34-33
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001924/
Hoyt Axton
Date of Birth: 25 March 1938
Gremlins (1984) .... Randall Peltzer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlin
A gremlin is a folkloric creature, commonly depicted as mischievous and mechanically oriented with a specific interest in aircraft. Their origin is found in myths among airmen, claiming that the gremlins were responsible for sabotaging aircraft. In later times, different fantastical creatures have been referred to as gremlins, bearing varying degrees of resemblance to the original gremlins.
The word "gremlin" was a product of the second World War.[1] The concept of gremlins as responsible for sabotaging aircraft is first recorded among airmen of Britain's Royal Air Force during World War II, in particular the men of the high altitude Photographic Reconnaissance Units (PRU) of RAF Benson, RAF Wick and RAF St Eval. The story attempted to explain the accidents which often occurred during their flights.
The first published reference to the Gremlin is in an article by Hubert Griffith in the servicemen's fortnightly Royal Air Force Journal dated April 18, 1942[2] although that article states the stories had been in existence for several years, and there are later recollections of it having been told by Battle of Britain Spitfire pilots as early as 1940.[3] Later sources have sometimes claimed that the concept goes back to World War I, but there is no print evidence of this.[citation needed]
Author Roald Dahl is credited with getting the gremlins known outside of the air force. He would have been familiar with the myth, having carried out his military service in the 80th squadron of the Royal Air Force in the Middle East. Dahl had his own experience in an accidental crash-landing in the Libyan Desert. In January, 1942 he was transferred to Washington, DC as Assistant Air Attaché. There he eventually authored his novel The Gremlins, in which he described male gremlins as "widgets" and females as "fifinellas". He showed the finished manuscript to Sidney Bernstein, the head of the British Information Service. Sidney reportedly came up with the idea to send it to Walt Disney.
The manuscript arrived in Disney's hands in July, 1942 and he considered using it as material for a film. The film project never materialized but Disney managed to have the story published in the December, 1942 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. About half a year later a revised version of the story was published in a picture book published by Random House. The book was republished in 2006 by Dark Horse Comics. Thanks mainly to Disney, the story had its share of publicity which helped in introducing the concept to a wider audience. Issues #33-#41 of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories published between June, 1943 and February, 1944 contained a nine-episode series of short silent stories featuring a Gremlin Gus as their star. The first was drawn by Vivie Risto and the rest of them by Walt Kelly. This served as their introduction to the comic book audience.
While Roald Dahl was famous for making gremlins known world wide, many returning Air Servicemen swear they saw creatures tinkering with their equipment. One crewman swore he saw one before an engine malfunction that caused his B-25 Mitchell bomber to rapidly lose altitude, forcing the aircraft to return to base. Critics of this idea state that the stress of combat and the dizzying heights caused such hallucinations, often believed to be a coping mechanism of the mind to help explain the many problems aircraft faced whilst in combat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K34_Strela-3
The 9K34 Strela-3 (Russian: 9?34 [...]; English: arrow) man-portable air defence missile system (MANPADS) was developed in the Soviet Union as a response to the poor performance of the earlier 9K32 Strela 2 (SA-7 Grail) system. "9K34" is its GRAU designation. And its NATO reporting name is SA-14 Gremlin. The missile was largely based on the earlier Strela 2, and thus development proceeded rapidly. The new weapon was accepted to service in the Soviet Army in January 1974.
The most significant change was the introduction of an all-new infra-red homing seeker head. The new seeker worked on FM modulation (con-scan) principle, which is less vulnerable to jamming and decoy flares than the earlier AM (spin-scan) seekers, which were easily fooled by flares and even the most primitive infrared jammers. Most importantly, the new seeker also introduced detector element cooling in the form of a pressurized nitrogen bottle attached to the launcher.
The effect of cooling was to expand the seeker's lead sulphide detector element's sensitivity range to longer wavelengths (slightly over 4 µm as opposed to 2.8 µm of uncooled PbS elements). In practice this made possible the tracking of cooler targets over longer ranges, and enabled forward-hemisphere engagement of jets under favourable circumstances.
The seeker also had better tracking rate, enabling the missile to track maneuvering or fast and approaching targets.
