http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0120756
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Moby Dick (1998) (TV)
Release Date: 15 March 1998 (USA)
Plot: The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.
Patrick Stewart ... Captain Ahab
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: August 2, 2006
I was also wondering again last night about a memory of me learning to speak Russian. And then I wondered to myself: did I steal a Soviet submarine back in the 80's?
In that wiki article about the Pegasus, there is that photo that makes me think that I am the person wearing the blue flight suit standing next to it. I realized that the class photo of me from kneeling in front of the SM2-ER at Dam Neck is a good memory deflection device for that. When I think of standing in front of a large white rocket, I think of Dam Neck.
And DAMN if "Superman Returns" doesn't start off with something similar to what I wrote the other day. The shuttle stays connected to the carrier aircraft and takes them both up higher into the atmosphere. I wrote something about the Pegasus doing that to the Stargazer in 1994, presuming that happened to me.
"Superman returns from nowhere to save shuttle from destruction"
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE]
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: August 2, 2006
Superman was able to save those people in that burning, disabled aircraft from dying in the crash. I was not.
Why is that important to me? Why does that means something to me? Why does that make me sad? Why does the word "sad" not enough begin to describe how I feel about that scene?
Who am I?
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE]
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: July 27, 2006
http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back/news.206
In June, the first launch of an advanced Pegasus XL from the L-1011 Stargazer carrier plane ended in failure; the cause has been identified as aerodynamic problems due to faulty hydro simulations (no wind tunnel testing was done).
http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Jun-1996/0230.html
"*Stargazer* is a specially modified Lockheed Martin L-1011 TriStar jumbo jet that's based at Meadows Field in Bakersfield," stated Jim Spellman, executive director for the National Space Society's Western Spaceport Chapter in Kern, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo county.
"It was named by OSC team members in honor of the first 'starship' commanded by fictional character Captain Jean-Luc Picard from the *Star Trek: The Next Generation* television series," Spellman added. The aircraft serves as the "first stage" by carrying the Pegasus XL rocket up to its 40,000 foot release point over the Pacific Ocean near Vandenberg AFB in Santa Barbara county.
"Upon release from *Stargazer* and a five-second freefall, the Pegasus XL's solid propellant rocket ignites
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE]
http://www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/details/CVN65.htm
NVR
Naval Vessel Register
USS ENTERPRISE (CVN 65)
MULTI-PURPOSE AIRCRAFT CARRIER (NUCLEAR-PROPULSION)
Class: CVN 65
Fleet: Atlantic
Force: Battle Force
Award Date: 11/15/1957
Keel Date: 02/04/1958
Launch Date: 09/24/1960
Commission Date: 11/25/1961
http://www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/details/CG67.htm
NVR
Naval Vessel Register
USS SHILOH (CG 67)
GUIDED MISSILE CRUISER
Class: CG 47
Fleet: Pacific
Status: Active, in commission
Award Date: 04/16/1987
Keel Date: 08/01/1989
Launch Date: 09/08/1990
Commission Date: 07/18/1992
"Flight of the Intruder"
Stephen Coonts
St. Martin's Paperbacks
Pocket Books edition / October 1987
St. Martin's Paperbacks edition / July 2006
Page 37
Chapter Three
Both fire-warning lights glared a brilliant red. The plane was out of control. The hydraulic gauges still showed plenty of pressure. The nose slammed up and down with an evil perversity, and the machine rolled left. He jammed the stick full right, but the left roll continued. He looked at Morgan. His head was gone. Blood spurted in little fountains from the stump of his neck. The canopy glass was gone on the right side, and the wind howled through the cockpit. The stick was firm, yet the plane did not respond. His body slammed back and forth as the G forces and the wind tore at him. With the altimeter racing down, he fumbled for the ejection handle between his legs. It wasn't there! His hands went to the primary handle over his head, but it too was gone! He couldn't tear his eyes from the wildly spinning altimeter. Maddened by the roar of the hurricane wind, he screamed.
The scream woke him. The darkness and the panic were real. Unable to orient himself, he fought the sheets. One fist struck the bulkhead, and the pain sobered him. He fumbled for the bunk light switch.
He kicked the sheets aside and put his feet on the floor. Sweat covered his brow. He lit a cigarette with trembling hands. Three o'clock in the morning. Sammy Lundeen was flying somewhere over North Vietnam. Morgan McPherson was in a body bag in the ship's morgue.
He had drunk too much bourbon. His head throbbed and his hands still shook. He levered himself upright and fumbled for some aspirin in the medicine cabinet. He wet a face towel and lay down again with the cool cloth on his forehead. He left the light on. He needed the light.
He concentrated on the sounds of the ship working in the seaway. Metal rubbing on metal, the great weight of the ship rolling ever so gently back and forth as it met the swells, the rhythm of movement. He could also hear the sounds of men and machinery. From the engineering spaces below his room came the ringing of hammer blows. He silently cursed the fellow with the hammer, some boilertender, no doubt, delicately adjusting a precision instrument.
But his mind kept coming back to the flight, obsessively. That bullet that got Morg could have smacked me instead, he thought. Two inches lower and it would have gone under his chin and got me in the ear. Smack. I wouldn't have even felt it. Just smack: then nothing.
Page 42
What could he possibly say to Sharon McPherson? Dear Sharon, I'm sorry I got your husband killed. How could he say he was sorry and make it mean anything? Her world gets smashed to bits and he's "sorry."
His hands were still shaking. Adrenaline aftershock, he decided. He picked up a sheet of paper and placed it on top of his splayed fingertips. The paper vibrated. Like everything else in his life, like the targets, like what happened to Morgan, it was beyond his control. He stared into the shadows of the room. He remembered the look on Morgan's face, and the gagging, and the blood. Blood everywhere. The body holds an unbelievable amount of blood. Maybe the people he and Morgan had killed had died like that, bleeding to death. Or maybe they had died instantly from the blast of the bombs. He would never know.
He chewed the pencil, his mind as blank about what he would say to Sharon as the sheet of paper in front of him. What do you say to a widow and mother? Dear Sharon, We just hit a target that wasn't worth a damn. Now your husband's in a body bag in the meat locker. I am sorry as hell he's dead: sorry, oh so sorry, but he is stone cold dead and sorry won't bring him back and you and I and Morgan's boy have to live with it.
