p1t1o

@sevenperforce Dang, that blog is gold. Here's one line: "A former Peenemunde rocket scientist associate of mine..."

I was lucky enough to be in a good Cadet Force at school, where we were trained in shooting various military firearms to a fairly high degree. Thing is, the more I know about firearms, the more I disagree with the public having access to them, or at least unrestricted access. If I was allowed to have one, I certainly would, because guns are cool and interesting, shooting is fun, and Im good at it. But I'll be danged if I want anyone else (because humanity) to have one, and Im more than willing to pay the price of not having one. The number of examples of full-time firearms professionals (police, military) having negligent discharges is...less than comfortable. The idea of being around unknown members of the public with loaded firearms makes my stomach turn. Recent research in the US has shown that there is a detectable drop in firearms incidents whenever there is a large NRA convention. In terms of home defence (the usually trotted-out excuse) they arent even particularly optimal.

The "inventor" of the dean drive refused to demonstrate or explain it unless he was promised a Nobel Prize first... The source for this is actually Jerry Pournelle: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/science/dean.html

Soap doesnt murder them either, it just washes them off. FunFactTM: Barring any kind of weird infection, hands are by far more dirty than genitals. If just going #1 its far more hygienic to wash hands before going, washing them after makes little difference as your hands come away cleaner.

DEAN DRIVE. THATs the thing I have been trying to think of since seeing the OP, thats what it is.

Do they still think her remains were eaten by Citizen Snips crabs? (CRAAAAAABS!)

Just went through the whole thread to make sure these hadnt been posted yet: Garratt-Class locomotives

Humans, as well as most animals, are toroidal.

Oh yes, the Kardashev scale certainly is that. But I disagree about the "human terms" part, if anything the scale is designed specifically to identify things that are nothing like humanity. It hinges on the idea that any civilisation, no matter how strange or alien, needs energy, and classifying them based on the order of magnitude of their use of it. It simplifies things in order not to anthropomorphise them. I think.

You need to think bigger. A Kardashev type II civilisation has found a use for the total energy output of their star. It is unlikely they are still limited by the surface area of a planet, usng their dyson sphere to power their electric juicer. Think planetary engineering, ringworlds, taking Jupiter apart as an art project etc. But the Kardashev scale has always been more of a thought experiment than a practical way of characterising civilisations.

If it was true, Its likely it was only the case for a certain missile system (minuteman most likely), for a certain period of time, not all missiles in the inventory for the duration of the cold war. @YNM @kerbiloid With a little googling, the source of the idea is a Dr. Bruce G. Blair who was a minuteman launch officer. Here's a link documenting some of what he has said on the matter, its a page from the book "Nuclear Shadowboxing: Cold War Redux" https://books.google.com/books?id=oO6pwt8016QC&pg=SL252-PA93&lpg=SL252-PA93&dq=Our+launch+checklist+in+fact+instructed+us,+the+firing+crew,+to+double-check+the+locking+panel+in+our+underground+launch+bunker+to+ensure+that+no+digits+other+than+zero+had+been+inadvertently+dialed+into+the+panel.&source=bl&ots=Sx9rmecSRu&sig=ob6FqwbRX3EJH4H-ht5q2f12YUw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX1dT51dzZAhUoxVkKHTQxDiEQ6AEINjAB#v=onepage&q=Our launch checklist in fact instructed us%2C the firing crew%2C to double-check the locking panel in our underground launch bunker to ensure that no digits other than zero had been inadvertently dialed into the panel.&f=false And here is an article where Blair responds to the government's denial that a "00000" code was ever used. http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/21/air-force-swears-our-nuke-launch-code-was-never-00000000/ In the end, it will be very difficult to confirm this either way. On the one hand, we have an ex-crewmember giving first-hand reports, on the other, official denial, and on a third had arguments about misunderstanding how the systems worked. It is unlikely in the extreme, that an officially-produced documents spelling out the use of a "00000"-style passcode, would ever reach public domain even if it ever did exist. Things like this do not subscribe to the same freedom-of-information laws. It is also the kind of thing that you would expect the authorities to deny, if it were true, but I admit that that is vulnerable to the logical fallacy "they deny it so it must be true!". It may have even been true but never documented. Or it indeed may be an urban myth born out of the ether. But then a lot of things around nuclear history are like this. Its also worth noting, just generally, that in the wake of 9/11, a lot of publicly available information has been removed from various places, not that they've "re-classified" things that were once public domain, but various documentation is now much harder to get to see. What *is* documented and generally accepted though, is that Strategic Air Command at the time, was definitely interested in keeping the launch process as simple as possible specifically to lower the possibility of mistakes and to make the whole process quicker. For me, the weight of evidence "rings true", Id put money on it, and its more interesting to think of it as true, especially since there are other things just as bad that did actually happen - like a live warhead accidentally falling off aircraft or being drawn from stocks, loaded onto an aircraft and flown across the country without any authorisation whatsoever. And my favorite - Remember how there was a concern that the first nuclear weapons might "ignite" the atmosphere and end all life on the planet? It was never a possibility of course, and most of the principle scientists knew this very well, but it was a conversation that had to be had: 3 in a million. Would you roll that dice? With the entire human civilisation at stake? People win the lottery every dang DAY at odds worse than that by orders of magnitude... Also note that the calculated probability was *not* zero. I think as science has improved (it WAS early days after all) the possibility has been erased entirely, but still, someone - someone in authority - sat down and said "this is a level of threat we are willing to accept" whilst talking about slagging the entire surface of the Earth. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/chung1/

It depends on many factors. Here is a relevant document: "Chemical and Physical Factors Affecting Combustion in Fuel-Nitric Acid Systems" https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930090132.pdf I dont think it includes your exact fuel/oxidiser combination, but theres a bunch of relevant info. **edit** Heres another document, from Copenhagen Suborbitals, that talks about your fuel/ox combination in some detail...though i still couldnt find any figures on combustion temp. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=28926.0;attach=451503

The star *is* storage, a type II civilisation has just learned how to tap the storage effectively. The highest density storage possible is in the form of matter, and what is a great big collection of matter? A star. Your star running on empty? You're a type II civ so...build a new one. (Or, I guess you could just travel to another one, if you want to be boring)

Humanity is a crazy mix of whackjobs. Its easy to forget that "normal" people are probably in the top 10% of sane/intelligent people. Im not sure if I *hate* weddings. I dont particularly like attending them, but I am quite looking forward to my own, but thats not going to happen for a couple years (house first). But yeah some people be really freaking nuts about weddings. Apparently a tip-top-tip is never mention its for a wedding when negotiating things like catering or flowers. Suddenly its all "Oh you must let me show you our wedding collection (and wedding rates)." Speaking of flowers, forget the dress have you seen how much people pay for flowers! Honestly I have no idea how much it will end up costing, fiance and me are pretty much in agreeance with most people here, in that spending stupid money is stupid. One extravagance I do want, is that Im going to spend a few hundred on my ring, which I intend to make an heirloom. We dont have any heirlooms since a housefire made a total loss out of my dads parents house (mums parents are a long story). Did I mention its going to be made out of titanium from an SR-71?

Cross section should not remain constant, it should just avoid sharp changes and optimally, should approximate the cross-section/length profile of a Seers-Haack body. Conical parts do seem to help make smooth changes (where the sudden change in radius at the end of a cylindrical section would be quite different).

Bear with me here... *** There is a version of this design that would work, and a version of it is explored quite elaborately in the Book "Seveneves" by Neal Stephenson. What you do is physically seperate the "gun" from the "return system", put the return system on the craft and leave the gun at the launch point. Then up the fire rate by several orders of magnitude. Power supply and propellant stay at the point of launch. Stream of projectiles hits ship, impact provides thrust. Ship returns steady stream of projectiles, recoil provides further thrust. Pretty good aim is necessary. In ground-to-orbit applications this is sometimes called a "space fountain". In Seveneves this is further advanced by using a continuous chain of links rather than discrete projectiles. *** So in essence, it DOES work, but the spacecraft remains stationary. You use the force of the projectiles to stretch the spacecraft to encompass the entire distance from origin to destination It helps if most of the spaceship is empty space.

One could easily ask the question "Why are most strap-on boosters the same shape as the central core?" Just in terms of optimal packing, conical shapes are better. This could potentially reduce drag due to a lower "wetted area" (put very simply: amongst everything else, drag is also proportional to surface area.) So swings and roundabouts basically, different design heritage puts it on a slightly different track to western designs.

Reminds me of... Brown paper, White paper Stick it together with the tape The tape of love... ...the sticky stuff

hahahahaha yes, its well known here, but you've shown you have good taste, its an excellent reference Here's a "welcome to the forums" gift, another often-referenced text which is a fun read about the history of liquid fueled rocketry research: https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf This and project rho are probably the two things I reference the most.

News has definitely been quiet on that front for a while...

RollerBlades. That is all.

[snip] Wow that sucks, thats a pretty bad one. I usually assume that this sort of person is likely quite young and perhaps exploring anonymity, or unsupervised browsing, for the first time. But Im also quite certain that there are grown adults out there that turn into children when released onto the internet on their own. *** Whilst Im here, what is with sending seperate "save-the-date" cards and then an invitation? I know the save-the-date is for your wedding, and its got the date right there, whats the invite for? It even says on it "invitation to follow". ???

Come on man... **thumbs down**

is this good laptop for playing ksp causally Come on guys! "Causally"? Is nobody going to jump on that? "Yes, but only at sub-light speeds." *** But seriously, yes, though that laptop is not exactly setting fire to anyones mind, it is more than enough to play KSP. As far as I know the minimum specs for KSP have not changed much in the last couple of years. A cheap computer today is as good as an expensive one form that long ago. There are faster laptops that will enable a heavier mod load, or greater frame rates, but that one should be sufficient to play, definitely "casually".

lol @ "Vger"