|
Post by nomuse on Mar 21, 2007 16:26:01 GMT -4
Be interesting to put together statistics of failures and deaths during adoption of rotary-wing technology, jet technology, supersonic aircraft...
Me, as a former ground-pounder I do love the idea of anything that can get down close enough to see the difference between me and the guys I'd prefer they be shooting at.
But be that as it may...the fact that the Harrier can make any flights at all puts the lie to VTOL being a complete impossibility.
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Mar 12, 2007 19:32:18 GMT -4
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Mar 9, 2007 18:32:14 GMT -4
Oops. No wonder I have so much trouble with moving goal-posts!
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Mar 9, 2007 16:54:39 GMT -4
Oil up those wheel bearings .... the goal posts are about the move!
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Mar 8, 2007 21:11:39 GMT -4
Instruments being Mark I eyeballs and a complete assembly of semicircular canals with receptors. Oh, and no gyro. (And contrary to typical artistic depictions of such machines, the thrust chambers are around waist level -- not shoulder level, like the typical "hangs from the rocket thrust" thinking would have it.)
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Mar 8, 2007 19:59:02 GMT -4
I was waiting for a cool moment to spring this, but I have an obvious example of a craft that lands vertically under pure rocket power -- and has made hundreds of successful (and very public) flights: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Bell_Rocket_Belt_in_flight.gifSeen flying by thousands of spectators, including entire Superbowl crowds, as well as being featured in movies and television shows. A hydrogen Peroxide rocket with no moving parts, it used two jet nozzles set close to the pilot's center of gravity, with a combination of gimbal and nozzle adjustments operated by the pilot to control flight and maintain stability, as well as a simple thrust adjustment lever. Flight is free and untethered, in the modern model lasting up to thirty seconds, and that includes powered take-off and a soft, powered, vertical landing.
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Mar 8, 2007 17:00:45 GMT -4
Hear, hear. There's a thread started for him on the collected lunar material. Let none indulge him in THIS thread on THAT subject, but hold him to an answer on stability and the reality of vertical take-off and landing under rocket power.
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Feb 25, 2007 5:58:27 GMT -4
I wanna "Jay Utah and the Babbling Maggots" t-shirt!
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Feb 15, 2007 19:28:31 GMT -4
My original experiment with the strong light source and the two cards was designed to be basically self-correcting in regards to conduction and environmental lighting (diffuse reflection and thermal re-radiation) -- I basically assumed that if you did the experiment practically you'd be inside, in still air, the direct source would dominate, and fatigue and boredom would discourage you from holding a card in front of a light long enough to experience significant second-order effects. As I posted that experiment, I basically hoped HeavenlyBody would leave it there, and not try to go into the details I intentionally left out. My mistake. I should have realized CT's will always go in the direction of more detail and more potential obfustication rather than stand up from their computers and confront the results of simple experiments.
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Jan 28, 2007 13:54:09 GMT -4
I assume there is a law about how the chances of someone mentioning Godwin's Law in an internet discussion approaches unity as...
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Jan 27, 2007 20:10:50 GMT -4
Um..... why does it matter? Are we that eager to try to catch on of the ApolloHoax regulars in a "lie?"
The article of debate is whether the LM could remain habitable. For a first approximation, remove the Moon entirely from the equation! No time of day, no angle of incidence to worry about. Just insolation at Earth's distance from sun against cross-section of the LM! Of course, to calculate its ability to radiate heat you have to look at actual surface area....and then it gets important about not just the gross shape but even the little crinklies in the foil...
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Jan 26, 2007 17:12:21 GMT -4
I have my own version of the "You Can't Believe Just One" syndrome.
If you live in a rational universe where governments are mildly corrupt and tremendously inefficient you look at something like the offered Apollo Landings Hoax and your reaction is, basically, "They could do this when they couldn't even get away with burgling a hotel room?"
If, on the other hand, you accept that something of that scale was possible, then you also have no trouble accepting black helicopters, Area 51, chemtrails, or whatever is your poison of choice. Each of these is accepted, in all it's unlikeliness, because you have _other_examples_ of similar far-ranging conspiracies.
It's an interesting sort of bootstrap operation. Once you get past the hump, any new ideas or challenges can fit into the new framework comfortably -- governments always lie, have hidden powers and technologies, and are terribly well organized to keep them hidden.
Similar process for the doubt of known science and the scientific establishment that is at work within it.
Or perhaps, now that I think of it, neither belief structure is in the nature of constructing a self-consistent world (aka a world where massive conspiracies are all around one, and a world where science is part of The Big Lie.) What they are most marked by is negation; and even more specifically, negation of sources of information.
The conspiracy theorist is forced to doubt any source with even the slight taint of officialdom, any major news or publishing organization, any large organization, and of course any sources that disagree with his theory of the moment. This to me sounds more than anything like a dictionary case of solipcism. The conspiracy theorist is led, by their beliefs, to distrust and discount essentially everything that happens outside their own skull. Unfortunately, by the nature of the beast, the only investigation they will never undertake is inwards.
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Jan 25, 2007 2:38:44 GMT -4
Shoot, I adjust for angle of incidence (albeit usually unconsciously) every time I do a lighting design for the stage. It's that basic. And I see the effect on a sphere every time I light one, render one, or paint one by hand. The poles get less light per area, and that's how we can tell just by looking at it that it is a sphere, not a cylinder!
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Jan 24, 2007 21:19:12 GMT -4
By the by, would draw your attention to the polar ice caps on Mars, which has a minimal atmosphere.
|
|
|
Post by nomuse on Jan 24, 2007 21:16:38 GMT -4
So....you aren't brave enough to try the card experiment as described?
Even IF there are other factors, even IF they are large (or larger) in the total equation, Jason's statement that angle of insolation matters still stands. He did not lie or obfusticate in his description, and the others on this board agree with his position; angle of insolation reduces the heat taken in by surfaces at an angle to the sun, exactly as it does to the arctic regions of our own world. Trying to catch him, or others, in a lie is misdirection and a sideline to the central question, to wit, could the LM interior and critical components be kept temperate?
|
|