
Can you put the poll up now please?
I wanna vote for this one.
We're progressing nicely towards selecting a lively livery for our Vulture 2 spaceplane, although following publication earlier this week of the first batch of reader suggestions, Stelios Zacharias got in touch to insist "my four-year-old can design better than that". The Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) fan wrote …
I know you probably can't print this exact design onto Vulture 2, but maybe you should just give the girl a bunch of permanent markers and let her loose on the real thing?
It will look completely different again, but it would definitely have a certain something.
(The other designs are just a bit 'meh'. Hard to describe without sounding pretentious - but they are all kind of obvious and predictable.)
With regard to the issue of content, the disjunctive perturbation of the spatial relationships brings within the realm of discourse a distinctive formal conceptualisation, while in juxtaposition the internal struggle of the dynamic signifier verges on codifying the eloquence of this work.
This masterpiece receives my vote.
I suspect the launch date for LOHAN is being put back because El Reg is now going to:
1. Come up with a design for a set of super sized felt tip pens.
2. Put us commentards on bacronym duty.
3. Poll for the best suggestion.
4. Test the concept.
5. Send finalised pen design to the 3D printers.
I'd like to get my bacronym suggestion in first: SCRIBBLE: Surface Coat Rendering In Big Bold Lines of Emulsion.
Apart from Ariadne being a wonderful name. Part of this could be about fostering more interest in science in the young (I'm sure paint schemes count) and what better way than to let a 4 year old see her design blast off from the face of the earth.
If she doesn't win the final vote, at least send her a Vulture central mug, or a badge... or even the soon to be retired LOHAN playmonaut (if he makes it back).
And here we see human tech in action, complete with the "baby out with the bathwater" approach to everything.
40 years ago it was shown very effectively that a nice paint job was not worth the weight penalties incurred in proper spaceships.
Spray away, idiots, and shave another few hundred feet off the ceiling of LOHAN with every swipe of the can.
I have to admit you make a compelling argument there. I will happily stipulate that paint is indeed not detrimental to the mission profile if and only if the distinctive livery depicted in the article is used, preferably applied by the originating artist.
Otherwise I stand by my whining.
So, while I have been trying to figure out whether to enjoy the attention or worry about the consequences of exposure, I have given Ariadne some more blanks. She was upset that I took her original drawing away to digitize it and says she will not be giving me any new designs.
Ariadne is also fan of both the Hello Kitty in space effort and the Toy train in space effort, so I am sure she will be following any future Vulture 2 efforts with me, whatever paint-job is chosen.