Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Kick tires, update resume
All the good folks whose attention and focus are required for a safe flight could have been told they'll be losing their jobs not six days before a launch.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
STS-130
"I think if they were out there, we would have seen them already."
--Terry Virts, COL (Ret.), USAF
Give him a reality check then give him the controls.
--Terry Virts, COL (Ret.), USAF
Give him a reality check then give him the controls.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Gooses, mooses and octupi
From the New York Times: Looking at Deers for a Solution to Ticks
Update: Unfortunately, headline has been corrected.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
You can't smell your sniff
In a July 2008 interview produced by NASA, Canadian astronaut Julie Payette was asked to discuss the most surprising thing about her first spaceflight.
She said, “On my first flight we had a space walk, and...when they came back in, I was the person responsible to repressurize the airlock and then open the hatch. And when I opened the hatch, I thought wow, I'm smelling this kind of cold, aseptic smell, and I thought wow, this is the smell of space. Because the airlock had been exposed to the vacuum of space for several hours, and when we opened the hatch from inside, well, this cold smell, this smell of nothing really, because there's nothing left in there, was the smell of space....”
“Not so fast, Julie,” says Dr. Puff Pants, senior research fellow at the Man-Bunny Center for Astronomy and Cosmology. “I'm sure you smell something, but it ain't space.”
And apparently, among NASA flight crews this perception is fairly widespread. This year, in a March 29 interview with SPACE.com, astronaut Thomas Jones said, “When you repressurize the airlock and get out of your suit, there is this distinct odor of ozone, a faint acrid smell...I like to think of it as getting a whiff of a vacuum!”
“Impossible,” says Dr. Pants. “Vacuums cannot be whiffed.”
So what's going on?
“Well, whatever they’re smelling is the result of materials being exposed to the environment of space. Substances that astronauts are bringing into space are reacting in that environment; producing some substance or set of substances that have a particular odor.”
And according to Dr. Poofy Too, associate professor of otolaryngology at the Man-Bunny Medical Center, “In order for the brain to generate the perception of smell, there has to be present what are called ‘odorant molecules’, which bind to receptors on the nasal epithelium lining the inside of your nose. This sets off an electrochemical cascade, which the brain ultimately interprets as the subjective experience of odor.”
And according to Dr. Pants, it would be impossible for odorant molecules to exist in a vacuum, because there are no molecules in a vacuum.
“Otherwise,” Dr. Pants says, “it wouldn't be a vacuum.”
But in his interview, Dr. Jones offered part of an explanation that the rabbits we spoke to said could be the first step in solving this mystery. According to SPACE.com, Dr. Jones “thinks the odor could stem from atomic oxygen that clings to spacesuit fabric.”
“That's quite likely to be part of the story,” Dr. Pants says.
Inside the shuttle, Dr. Pants explains, atomic oxygen is nearly non-existent, and astronauts are breathing air rich in molecular oxygen, O2, the same substance that keeps both Man and Bunny alive here on Earth. This gas would certainly permeate, and potentially remain trapped in, tiny microscopic spaces inside the fabric of a space suit. By contrast, atomic oxygen, O, is extremely unstable, and so is very rare under atmospheric conditions–those here on Earth, and within the carefully designed artificial atmosphere of the Space Shuttle.
“But,” says Dr. Pants, “once an astronaut steps outside the spacecraft, he or she is exposed to radiation, really tremendous solar radiation.” Much of this is high-energy radiation, what scientists term “ionizing radiation”, and it will split the molecular oxygen, generating large quantities of atomic oxygen.
“So at this point,” Dr. Pants explains, “once the space-walker re-enters the airlock, and the airlock is pressurized with air from inside the shuttle, you have a whole herd of lonely oxygen atoms, and they quickly combine with normal molecular oxygen.” This process is highly favored, Dr. Pants says, and generally produces high concentrations of “tri-atomic oxygen.”
And this would explain why astronauts consistently describe this “smell of space” as similar to the smell of ozone, because tri-atomic oxygen, O3, is precisely that: ozone.
“And yes,” Dr. Too says. “Ozone has a very distinctive odor.”
There still exists a likelihood that there are substances inherent to materials used in space–those generated by solar radiation reacting with compounds other than oxygen, or even from chemicals used in pre-flight cleaning–being forced by the vacuum of space from their microscopic hiding places, and stirred into this molecular cocktail inhaled by our astronauts. But one thing is certain: reports of bizarre odors in space are the result of the astronaut's equipment and activities in space, and are not at all the “smell of space.”
“The astronauts smelt it,” Dr. Pants says, “and they most definitely dealt it.”
She said, “On my first flight we had a space walk, and...when they came back in, I was the person responsible to repressurize the airlock and then open the hatch. And when I opened the hatch, I thought wow, I'm smelling this kind of cold, aseptic smell, and I thought wow, this is the smell of space. Because the airlock had been exposed to the vacuum of space for several hours, and when we opened the hatch from inside, well, this cold smell, this smell of nothing really, because there's nothing left in there, was the smell of space....”
“Not so fast, Julie,” says Dr. Puff Pants, senior research fellow at the Man-Bunny Center for Astronomy and Cosmology. “I'm sure you smell something, but it ain't space.”
And apparently, among NASA flight crews this perception is fairly widespread. This year, in a March 29 interview with SPACE.com, astronaut Thomas Jones said, “When you repressurize the airlock and get out of your suit, there is this distinct odor of ozone, a faint acrid smell...I like to think of it as getting a whiff of a vacuum!”
“Impossible,” says Dr. Pants. “Vacuums cannot be whiffed.”
So what's going on?
“Well, whatever they’re smelling is the result of materials being exposed to the environment of space. Substances that astronauts are bringing into space are reacting in that environment; producing some substance or set of substances that have a particular odor.”
And according to Dr. Poofy Too, associate professor of otolaryngology at the Man-Bunny Medical Center, “In order for the brain to generate the perception of smell, there has to be present what are called ‘odorant molecules’, which bind to receptors on the nasal epithelium lining the inside of your nose. This sets off an electrochemical cascade, which the brain ultimately interprets as the subjective experience of odor.”
And according to Dr. Pants, it would be impossible for odorant molecules to exist in a vacuum, because there are no molecules in a vacuum.
“Otherwise,” Dr. Pants says, “it wouldn't be a vacuum.”
But in his interview, Dr. Jones offered part of an explanation that the rabbits we spoke to said could be the first step in solving this mystery. According to SPACE.com, Dr. Jones “thinks the odor could stem from atomic oxygen that clings to spacesuit fabric.”
“That's quite likely to be part of the story,” Dr. Pants says.
Inside the shuttle, Dr. Pants explains, atomic oxygen is nearly non-existent, and astronauts are breathing air rich in molecular oxygen, O2, the same substance that keeps both Man and Bunny alive here on Earth. This gas would certainly permeate, and potentially remain trapped in, tiny microscopic spaces inside the fabric of a space suit. By contrast, atomic oxygen, O, is extremely unstable, and so is very rare under atmospheric conditions–those here on Earth, and within the carefully designed artificial atmosphere of the Space Shuttle.
“But,” says Dr. Pants, “once an astronaut steps outside the spacecraft, he or she is exposed to radiation, really tremendous solar radiation.” Much of this is high-energy radiation, what scientists term “ionizing radiation”, and it will split the molecular oxygen, generating large quantities of atomic oxygen.
“So at this point,” Dr. Pants explains, “once the space-walker re-enters the airlock, and the airlock is pressurized with air from inside the shuttle, you have a whole herd of lonely oxygen atoms, and they quickly combine with normal molecular oxygen.” This process is highly favored, Dr. Pants says, and generally produces high concentrations of “tri-atomic oxygen.”
And this would explain why astronauts consistently describe this “smell of space” as similar to the smell of ozone, because tri-atomic oxygen, O3, is precisely that: ozone.
“And yes,” Dr. Too says. “Ozone has a very distinctive odor.”
There still exists a likelihood that there are substances inherent to materials used in space–those generated by solar radiation reacting with compounds other than oxygen, or even from chemicals used in pre-flight cleaning–being forced by the vacuum of space from their microscopic hiding places, and stirred into this molecular cocktail inhaled by our astronauts. But one thing is certain: reports of bizarre odors in space are the result of the astronaut's equipment and activities in space, and are not at all the “smell of space.”
“The astronauts smelt it,” Dr. Pants says, “and they most definitely dealt it.”
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Crude interpretation
On Monday, the New York Times carried an Op-Ed by Michael Lynch, “Peak Oil is a Waste of Energy.” Reaction from industry leaders has been mixed. Mr. Lynch is an energy consultant with the Center for International Studies at M.I.T., and on Tuesday, Valero Energy’s Philip Maelipeck joined U.S. Energy Information Agency analyst Carl Sheplin in a conference call to the Man-Bunny Matrix.
“I liked Michael's article,” Maelipeck said. “Does it sound like it was written by a highly motivated eighth-grader? Sure. Does it abuse historical precedent and misrepresent facts? Here and there. But I enjoyed it.”
But some elements are especially troubling, according to Sheplin, such as Lynch's response to those who say oil is becoming more difficult to extract. He considers this argument “vague and irrelevant”, on the grounds that oil explorers operating mule-drawn rigs in 19th Century Persia, “certainly didn’t consider their work easy.” Advances in technology, Mr. Lynch says, have made oil easier to extract, not more difficult.
“This is an anachronism,” Sheplin said.
And Maelipeck?
“My initial reaction is that Michael Lynch is a guy who knows a thing or two about being vague and irrelevant.”
“Look at it this way,” Sheplin went on. “With access to modern mining equipment, at the push of a button, I could sit in a control room in California and pull hundreds of pounds of gold from the Sierra Nevada right this minute, much more than I could have recovered 150 years ago sitting on a streambed with a steel pan. Does this mean gold hasn’t grown more scarce in California? I guess so. Hey, everybody: Gold! Gold on the American River!”
Maelipeck added, “I say we stuff those Persians into a time machine, let them out into Ahmadinejad’s tired old fields, and the moment they report back and say, ‘I’m sorry, this mule-powered job is no more difficult today than it was 110 years ago’, that’s when Michael Lynch will start making sense.”
Later, Lynch puts forward the assertion that there are “some 10 trillion barrels [of oil] out there”.
“That is bizarre,” Sheplin said. “I don’t know where he’s getting those data.”
“Well, personally,” Maelipeck countered, “I find most geologists to be pretty Gloomy Gus these days, so it’s nice to see someone with the courage to make up such nice numbers.”
But according to Sheplin, there have been dozens of surveys completed since World War II, and the most recent estimate of global proved reserves came in at less than 1.5 trillion barrels. Even stranger, Sheplin says, is that Lynch seems to qualify his figures as a low-ball estimate, explaining that they don’t include quantities of oil which “in time, we may be able to efficiently tap” from oil sands in places like Canada (emphasis added). According to Sheplin, proven reserve estimates from Canadian oil sands stand today at less than 200 billion barrels.
“So yes,” cautions Sheplin, “don’t mislead yourself by forgetting to add 2% to Lynch’s supposed 10 trillion barrels of conventionally available oil.”
Another point generating controversy is the assertion that political instability puts global oil supplies under constant threat of disruption. While this may seem reasonable, Mr. Lynch categorically dismisses it, with the reasoning that “political risk is nothing new.” By way of example, Lynch simply states, “a leading Communist labor organizer in the Baku oil industry in the early 1900s would later be known to the world as Josef Stalin.”
“Well, I guess that clears that up,” Sheplin said.
“This one time, at band camp …,” Maelipeck added.
Sheplin continued, “So, essentially, a young Josef Stalin's presence in an oil field 100 years ago failed to interrupt global supply. Well, there you have it: today's potentially catastrophic political instability seemingly endemic to 90% of the world's oil producing regions--problem solved.”
“And also, yada yada yada…Hitler!” Maelipeck added.
Both Sheplin and Maelipeck were nearly at a loss in dealing with Lynch’s apparently nonsensical use of oil-field water cut numbers in his assertion that increasing water concentrations in Saudi Arabia's Ghawar oil field are not a sign of declining production. Lynch is correct that water cut numbers increase mostly because operators routinely pump seawater into a reservoir to displace oil and maintain field pressure. But, as Maelipeck put it, “why does he think the pressure needs to be propped up in the first place?” Maelipeck ventured that Lynch was “just another M.I.T. idiot who doesn’t understand pressure/volume relationships,” but Sheplin was a bit more nuanced.
“Mr. Lynch makes a lot of the 35% Ghawar water cut comparing favorably with the global average, but the real news isn’t in a snapshot percentage, it's in the trend. Neither of those numbers is particularly heartening, but even starting at 0% water, a rapid increase in water cut while field pressure remains constant can’t ever be considered good news.”
Also included in the first page of Lynch's column is a simple line-drawing of an oil drilling rig, and this illustration caught our reviewers’ attention as well.
“Very cute,” Maelipeck said. “Now, for some reason, this drilling rig appears to have smoke coming out of it. I’ve never seen that before. I think if you burn your oil as it comes out of the ground it becomes harder to turn a profit.”
Sheplin said, “It's a nice cartoon, but I'm not sure why [illustrator] Ted McGrath chose deliberately to make this look like the work of a child.”
“It's appropriate for this column,” Maelipeck said.
“I liked Michael's article,” Maelipeck said. “Does it sound like it was written by a highly motivated eighth-grader? Sure. Does it abuse historical precedent and misrepresent facts? Here and there. But I enjoyed it.”
But some elements are especially troubling, according to Sheplin, such as Lynch's response to those who say oil is becoming more difficult to extract. He considers this argument “vague and irrelevant”, on the grounds that oil explorers operating mule-drawn rigs in 19th Century Persia, “certainly didn’t consider their work easy.” Advances in technology, Mr. Lynch says, have made oil easier to extract, not more difficult.
“This is an anachronism,” Sheplin said.
And Maelipeck?
“My initial reaction is that Michael Lynch is a guy who knows a thing or two about being vague and irrelevant.”
“Look at it this way,” Sheplin went on. “With access to modern mining equipment, at the push of a button, I could sit in a control room in California and pull hundreds of pounds of gold from the Sierra Nevada right this minute, much more than I could have recovered 150 years ago sitting on a streambed with a steel pan. Does this mean gold hasn’t grown more scarce in California? I guess so. Hey, everybody: Gold! Gold on the American River!”
Maelipeck added, “I say we stuff those Persians into a time machine, let them out into Ahmadinejad’s tired old fields, and the moment they report back and say, ‘I’m sorry, this mule-powered job is no more difficult today than it was 110 years ago’, that’s when Michael Lynch will start making sense.”
Later, Lynch puts forward the assertion that there are “some 10 trillion barrels [of oil] out there”.
“That is bizarre,” Sheplin said. “I don’t know where he’s getting those data.”
“Well, personally,” Maelipeck countered, “I find most geologists to be pretty Gloomy Gus these days, so it’s nice to see someone with the courage to make up such nice numbers.”
But according to Sheplin, there have been dozens of surveys completed since World War II, and the most recent estimate of global proved reserves came in at less than 1.5 trillion barrels. Even stranger, Sheplin says, is that Lynch seems to qualify his figures as a low-ball estimate, explaining that they don’t include quantities of oil which “in time, we may be able to efficiently tap” from oil sands in places like Canada (emphasis added). According to Sheplin, proven reserve estimates from Canadian oil sands stand today at less than 200 billion barrels.
“So yes,” cautions Sheplin, “don’t mislead yourself by forgetting to add 2% to Lynch’s supposed 10 trillion barrels of conventionally available oil.”
Another point generating controversy is the assertion that political instability puts global oil supplies under constant threat of disruption. While this may seem reasonable, Mr. Lynch categorically dismisses it, with the reasoning that “political risk is nothing new.” By way of example, Lynch simply states, “a leading Communist labor organizer in the Baku oil industry in the early 1900s would later be known to the world as Josef Stalin.”
“Well, I guess that clears that up,” Sheplin said.
“This one time, at band camp …,” Maelipeck added.
Sheplin continued, “So, essentially, a young Josef Stalin's presence in an oil field 100 years ago failed to interrupt global supply. Well, there you have it: today's potentially catastrophic political instability seemingly endemic to 90% of the world's oil producing regions--problem solved.”
“And also, yada yada yada…Hitler!” Maelipeck added.
Both Sheplin and Maelipeck were nearly at a loss in dealing with Lynch’s apparently nonsensical use of oil-field water cut numbers in his assertion that increasing water concentrations in Saudi Arabia's Ghawar oil field are not a sign of declining production. Lynch is correct that water cut numbers increase mostly because operators routinely pump seawater into a reservoir to displace oil and maintain field pressure. But, as Maelipeck put it, “why does he think the pressure needs to be propped up in the first place?” Maelipeck ventured that Lynch was “just another M.I.T. idiot who doesn’t understand pressure/volume relationships,” but Sheplin was a bit more nuanced.
“Mr. Lynch makes a lot of the 35% Ghawar water cut comparing favorably with the global average, but the real news isn’t in a snapshot percentage, it's in the trend. Neither of those numbers is particularly heartening, but even starting at 0% water, a rapid increase in water cut while field pressure remains constant can’t ever be considered good news.”
Also included in the first page of Lynch's column is a simple line-drawing of an oil drilling rig, and this illustration caught our reviewers’ attention as well.
“Very cute,” Maelipeck said. “Now, for some reason, this drilling rig appears to have smoke coming out of it. I’ve never seen that before. I think if you burn your oil as it comes out of the ground it becomes harder to turn a profit.”
Sheplin said, “It's a nice cartoon, but I'm not sure why [illustrator] Ted McGrath chose deliberately to make this look like the work of a child.”
“It's appropriate for this column,” Maelipeck said.
Friday, July 31, 2009
It's a bird, it's a plane
In the desert west of Salt Lake City, Utah, by terrible coincidence, a communications antenna atop a Man-Bunny Matrix ground transport collided with a small songbird, as the transport traveled east along an Interstate Highway at a speed of 77 mph. Passengers reported seeing the bird perform a slow barrel roll, then a ‘Split S’, before finally augering in. The transport was nearly a half kilometer downrange by this time, but navigators marked the approximate location and the crew made preparations to respond.
Exit ramps were scarce, but an emergency vehicle turn-around allowed the transport quickly to double-back. Rescue fursonnel deployed from the rear, accompanied by a reporter and camera crew.
But the decision to deploy fursonnel was made with some hesitation, because the rescue operation was getting underway just outside the bounds of the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Ground. And as soon as rabbits had exited the vehicle, they could tell it was a busy day at the office.
“It was loud,” explained Sergeant Major Eyebrows, a medic serving in the Man-Bunny Defense Force who took part in the search. She later told investigators, “We just wanted to find that bird and get the hell out of there.”
They did find the bird. Its neck was broken, it was dead, but there were no other visible signs of injury. Reporters photographed the bird and medical fursonnel recorded the likely cause of death as central nervous system trauma. The team then gave the animal a quick and proper burial.
But as rescue fursonnel were hopping back into the transport, behind a nearby ridgeline the sound of two helicopter rotors blended with the whine of turbine engines, and Sergeant Major Eyebrows noticed something strange. Whatever machine this was had more than one large main rotor; had approached to within 800 meters of the rabbits' position, and was clearly very big and very fast.
“The Army’s got big helicopters, and the Army's got fast helicopters, but you'll never see both,” Eyebrows said.
She knew there were only two possible explanations. Either the Army was testing an incredible new helicopter, or the rabbits were listening to a test flight of the Boeing V-22 Osprey.
Eyebrows later told investigators from the Man-Bunny Defense Intelligence Agency that the aircraft was executing complex maneuvers, while taking great care to remain concealed behind the ridge.
“They came within inches of clearing the rise,” she said, “but were never visible from the Interstate.”
Phone calls to the Office of the Commander at Dugway were not immediately returned, but a spokesman for the U.S. Air Force Military Airlift Command confirmed that the Marine Corps had recently flown two Ospreys to Edwards Air Force Base in California, and one to an unspecified location in Utah.
In another phone call, Marine Corps spokesperson Captain Melissa O’Clippe told the Man-Bunny Matrix, “We’ve been flying the V-22 for years, but it's a joint aircraft. Test pilots need no excuse at all to strap on a new airplane.”
The make and model of the songbird now at rest beneath the Utah desert has yet to be positively identified, but the photographs taken by rescuers have been transmitted to researchers at the Man-Bunny Department of Non-Mammalian Affairs in Northern California, where they are awaiting evaluation.
Exit ramps were scarce, but an emergency vehicle turn-around allowed the transport quickly to double-back. Rescue fursonnel deployed from the rear, accompanied by a reporter and camera crew.
But the decision to deploy fursonnel was made with some hesitation, because the rescue operation was getting underway just outside the bounds of the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Ground. And as soon as rabbits had exited the vehicle, they could tell it was a busy day at the office.
“It was loud,” explained Sergeant Major Eyebrows, a medic serving in the Man-Bunny Defense Force who took part in the search. She later told investigators, “We just wanted to find that bird and get the hell out of there.”
They did find the bird. Its neck was broken, it was dead, but there were no other visible signs of injury. Reporters photographed the bird and medical fursonnel recorded the likely cause of death as central nervous system trauma. The team then gave the animal a quick and proper burial.
But as rescue fursonnel were hopping back into the transport, behind a nearby ridgeline the sound of two helicopter rotors blended with the whine of turbine engines, and Sergeant Major Eyebrows noticed something strange. Whatever machine this was had more than one large main rotor; had approached to within 800 meters of the rabbits' position, and was clearly very big and very fast.
“The Army’s got big helicopters, and the Army's got fast helicopters, but you'll never see both,” Eyebrows said.
She knew there were only two possible explanations. Either the Army was testing an incredible new helicopter, or the rabbits were listening to a test flight of the Boeing V-22 Osprey.
Eyebrows later told investigators from the Man-Bunny Defense Intelligence Agency that the aircraft was executing complex maneuvers, while taking great care to remain concealed behind the ridge.
“They came within inches of clearing the rise,” she said, “but were never visible from the Interstate.”
Phone calls to the Office of the Commander at Dugway were not immediately returned, but a spokesman for the U.S. Air Force Military Airlift Command confirmed that the Marine Corps had recently flown two Ospreys to Edwards Air Force Base in California, and one to an unspecified location in Utah.
In another phone call, Marine Corps spokesperson Captain Melissa O’Clippe told the Man-Bunny Matrix, “We’ve been flying the V-22 for years, but it's a joint aircraft. Test pilots need no excuse at all to strap on a new airplane.”
The make and model of the songbird now at rest beneath the Utah desert has yet to be positively identified, but the photographs taken by rescuers have been transmitted to researchers at the Man-Bunny Department of Non-Mammalian Affairs in Northern California, where they are awaiting evaluation.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
One fuzzy marsupial
Paul Corey writes in today's San Francisco Chronicle, "Thousands packed onto the aircraft carrier Hornet on Saturday to hear Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin describe his experience as the second man on the moon - a desolate place, he said, where the air was so thin he felt like a kangaroo as he bounced on the surface."
Bear in mind, bouncing around like a kangaroo is not anything new here in the Man-Bunny Matrix, but take note, it is gravity, much more than relative atmospheric density, that keeps the rest of you from kangarooing here at home.
The 'air' on the moon is quite thin. Its atmosphere has roughly 1/1,000,000,000,000 the density of Earth's, and consists mainly of the odd molecule outgassing from the lunar surface. But even on Earth, unless a given kangaroo is grossly overweight, or fitted with a sail, its cross-sectional area is probably insufficient for the atmosphere to make much of a difference in its bounceability, relative to a vacuum. However, put this kangaroo on the surface of the Moon and it will experience a gravitational field roughly 1/6 what a kangaroo feels here on Earth. Still equipped with its powerful leg-muscles, this will make a big difference.
Yes, our Moon is a desolate place, where air is so thin it is effectively nonexistent, and acceleration due to gravity can make a kangaroo out of even you.
Bear in mind, bouncing around like a kangaroo is not anything new here in the Man-Bunny Matrix, but take note, it is gravity, much more than relative atmospheric density, that keeps the rest of you from kangarooing here at home.
The 'air' on the moon is quite thin. Its atmosphere has roughly 1/1,000,000,000,000 the density of Earth's, and consists mainly of the odd molecule outgassing from the lunar surface. But even on Earth, unless a given kangaroo is grossly overweight, or fitted with a sail, its cross-sectional area is probably insufficient for the atmosphere to make much of a difference in its bounceability, relative to a vacuum. However, put this kangaroo on the surface of the Moon and it will experience a gravitational field roughly 1/6 what a kangaroo feels here on Earth. Still equipped with its powerful leg-muscles, this will make a big difference.
Yes, our Moon is a desolate place, where air is so thin it is effectively nonexistent, and acceleration due to gravity can make a kangaroo out of even you.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
One giant tank
On any given day, the United States burns through 214,470 gal of diesel oil
in 132 s.
Forty years ago today, the engines of the SI-C (first stage) on the
Saturn V moon rocket smoked an identical volume of kerosene, propelling a single vehicle to a speed of 5352 mph, altitude 58 mi. The process was completed in 168 s flat.
in 132 s.
Forty years ago today, the engines of the SI-C (first stage) on the
Saturn V moon rocket smoked an identical volume of kerosene, propelling a single vehicle to a speed of 5352 mph, altitude 58 mi. The process was completed in 168 s flat.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Please insert Disk 2
As the LA Times points out, some experts are dismissing a North Korean link in the ongoing attacks on U.S. and South Korean computer systems, because denial-of-service attacks are “fairly rudimentary”, and “more the hallmark of hackers than hostile and resourceful foreign governments.”
“They’re loud and clumsy and not really what we would expect out of a sophisticated adversary,” said Amit Yoran, former Bush administration computer security czar, in downplaying involvement by a government which recently threw considerable computing resources behind production of this advertisement.
“They’re loud and clumsy and not really what we would expect out of a sophisticated adversary,” said Amit Yoran, former Bush administration computer security czar, in downplaying involvement by a government which recently threw considerable computing resources behind production of this advertisement.
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