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Post by gezalenko on Oct 19, 2005 8:43:53 GMT -4
My first name is Gerald, which has been shortened to Gez by my friends ever since I was very small. A few years ago we had an Australian temp working in our office, and she said my short name reminded her of an Australian Football star called Gezalenko. Then people started using it for me. I've just looked on Google and found that his name is actually spelled (Alex) Jesaulenko. Hmmm . . . .
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Post by gezalenko on Aug 29, 2005 12:37:44 GMT -4
Thanks Jay and Al, I see what you were getting at.
So they came up with a design that 1) enabled ships to be built very quickly, 2) would be good enough for a few trips in normal circumstances 3) would not necessarily last as long as normal ships in normal circumstances 4) would not necessarily be able to cope with attacks by the German navy, whether on the maiden voyage or later, but there would be so many of them that losing a few wouldn't matter.
Maybe going off topic now but sticking with WW2, it occurs to me that that design spec was a bit like that of the Sherman tank - build them quickly in huge numbers, not the best possible design, but there'd be so many of them that losing a few wouldn't matter too much. It probably applied to many other pieces of WW2 kit.
It also occurs to me that that design spec was almost the exact opposite of Apollo (and the Shuttle) - build them one at a time, in an enormously complicated process, and the loss of a single one was considered disastrous.
I think this links back to one of the most interesting features of the Apollo programme (for me) which was the design and development process. It's not just about saying "let's put a man on the moon" it's also about identifying many many more mission requirements, design, production and cost constraints, and tying them all into a project that delivered a workable solution. When you start reading about how they went about it, it becomes apparent that, even if they faked it, the planning, preparation and design work was so thorough that they could have actually gone to the moon using the methods they developed.
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Post by gezalenko on Aug 29, 2005 5:49:47 GMT -4
JayUtah wrote - "the Liberty Ships were not necessarily designed to survive their maiden voyages"
Hi Jay. What did you mean here ? Did you mean that they were specifically designed to FAIL on their maiden voyages ? Or did you mean that the need to survive the maiden voyage was not a (significant) design consideration ? Or something else ?
I appreciate that the German navy were placing "unusual" demands on the design. But even if the designers couldn't do anything about that, surely they must have intended the ships to be at least reasonably seaworthy ? If not, what was the point of making them ? Perhaps there was a propaganda value in having the shipyards be seen to turn out ships at a very fast rate. But was that their only intended purpose ? Am I missing something ?
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