Category Archives: Space

A Modeling First

According to a Zero-G press release, Kate Upton did a weightless photo shoot in a Zero-G flight for the fiftieth Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.

[Update a few minutes later]

From the release:

The shoot took place on March 18, 2013; Upton and ZERO-G flew out of Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville, Florida. A specially modified Boeing-727, known as G-FORCE ONE®, performed a series of 17 parabolas – 13 zero gravity and four replicating lunar gravity – as Upton bounced and soared through the plane for the cameras. Upton’s weightless experience was not simulated; ZERO-G is the first and only FAA-approved provider of commercial weightless airline flights for the public.

“The ZERO-G experience was really exhilarating for everyone involved,” said MJ Day, editor of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. “We have been almost everywhere in the past 50 years with SI Swimsuit, but we have never done anything like this. It was certainly the most out-of-the-box shoot. Once again, Kate surprised us all with how she handled modeling in weightlessness.”

Hard to really capture it in stills. I assume they shot video as well. I wonder if we’ll see it.

[Late morning update]

OK, due to unpopular demand, I’m moving the pics under the fold to make it Safe for Married Men @Home.

Continue reading A Modeling First

Cis-Lunar Space

I think that to the degree people think of that phrase at all, they assume it’s in the vicinity of the earth-moon system, but technically, of the Lagrange points, only L-1 is part of it. L-2 is in trans-lunar space, and I’m not sure how you’d characterize Ls 3, 4 and 5. The thought was prompted by this post on transgendered and cisgendered people.

We’re Number 53,000!

[Sunday morning update]

We’re up within 35,000 today, and there are three new (all five-star) reviews.

I think this is the highest ranking the book has ever had on Amazon. Sales must have picked up this week (I hawked it quite a bit while in DC, both at the conference and with a couple think tanks — I’ll probably be doing a ReasonTV interview in the next couple weeks).

Also, it’s once again number one in the category “Aviation and Space Law.” Plus, it’s selling for full retail, which I’d assume means that Amazon thinks there’s sufficient demand for it that they don’t have to discount (not that I’ve given them a lot of room to do so, but they have had it down a buck or so in the past).

[Update a while later]

OK, based on numbers at the printer, it looks like I sold 27 books last week. Compare that to 18 for the entire month of January. Hopefully those will continue to build with more publicity, and good reviews at Amazon (six right now, all five star).

[Bumped]