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Private Rocketplane Test A Success
HobbySpacer writes: "XCOR
announced the success of the first phase of flight tests
for the EZ-Rocket. In the most recent flight, Dick Rutan fired both of its rocket engines to take off and reach a speed of 160knots and an altitude of 6200 feet. The vehicle is a Long-EZ kit plane modified to hold
twin 400 lb thrust rocket engines fueled by isopropyl
alcohol and liquid oxygen. The project is not aimed at a homebuilt EZ-Rocket but will demonstrate safe and reliable rocket propulsion.
The primary goal is development of reusable launch technology that leads next to a high altitude sub-orbital rocket vehicle for
space tourism,
rocket
racing (e.g. vertical drag racing at air shows) and the
X-Prize competition."
Rockets are the most inefficient method of propulsion that's still in use, a better goal would be figuring out an entirely new propulsion system that could apply to everything. Speaking of which, what's the latest on Ginger?
And furthermore, who cares about "vertical drag racing"? Drag racing cars is fun because it's something everyone can relate to. Very, very few people can relate to racing rockets.
Until rockets collide. Ack, that sounds like it could be the next PowerMan 5000 song :) (/joke)
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
"isopropyl alcohol and liquid oxygen. "
,EZ-Rocket doesn't sound too safe to me. Nor does "Nuclear Reactor In a Box"
Wait a minute, what did the Nazis use for rocket fuel for the Me. 163 Komet? Wasn't one of the components pure hydrogen peroxide, making it VERY dangerous to work with?
I dunno
If your last name was Rutan (read "Rootin'"), you should not name your kid Richard (or encourage the nickname Dick!). This is common sense.
Thankfully, Bart & Lisa's prank calls to Moe on The Simpsons should discourage future "Hugh Jass"s, "Ivana Tinkles"s, and "I.P. Freely"s.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Think of how much money goes into car racing. Rocket racing would be an incredible spectacle.
This could easily lead to full funding for the transitional stage of private rocketry before the obvious profit potentials of orbital flight.
The visions of certain very big companies influencing the designs and the paint jobs of the rockets inspires scary visions.
never mind the obvious upgrades on jokes like "If company X designed ABC"
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Is it just me or does anyone else think that pushing the limits of rocket design technology at public airshows might not be in the best interests of public safty?
In conventional top fuel drag racing when things go wrong which they often do it can often result in part flying off 100's of meters into the air. Dragsters by their very nature are stressed to the limits of their durability, in order to get that little bit faster than the next guy.
I don't think we want distasters reminisant of the challenger disaster happening at airshows before we decide this is a bad idea.
160knots = 296 km/h
6200 feet = 1890m
400 lb = 1779N
A cool feature for slashcode would be automatic unit conversions.
They're using rubbing alcohol and liquid oxygen. Despite the fact that low-concentration hydrogen peroxide might be on your bathroom shelf beside the isopropyl alcohol, they are entirely different chemicals.
lol, so when are the Vulcans going to land!
can someone tell me why they're not interested in using balloons at all for reusable launch vehicles? It would make far too much sense to me since it's essentially free and lightweight, and a lot LESS expensive than dumping humungous feul tanks into the ocean after every launch. You can get up very high, ditch the balloon, then use attached rockets to fill you the rest of the way. You could even use reusable balloons with hot helium instead in case you need to lift too much weight for just hot air to raise.
If God gave us curiosity
Now, not only do I have crapily modified cars running down main street fridays and saturdays, but now I also have to deal with these jerks interruptin my flight!? I don't want to see a rocket with a 4' muffler, it's not cool. I don't care if your rocket has a Vtec engine. I want to fly safely from point A to point B, much as I would like to drive from point A to point B without having your terrestial counterpats fly past me at 100+ mph.
Honestly, kids these days.
XCOR is doing it just right. I've always felt that the way to space is paved with a market - a REAL market not platimum mining fairy tales - a small group, and a small, non-gold plated start. Equipment that's simple, tough, reliable, not cutting edge.
I'll bet there is a market for Me-163 and X-1 replicas. Maybe not a huge market but a market nevertheless.
There was a business in Texas building Me-262 replicas, full size, exact in the airframe but using modern engines and avionics. They had orders in hand, deposits, and airframes well under way. I stopped following them some time ago and don't know if they delivered: last I heard there were problems.
Get more people flying rockets - even if it's in the atmosphere at subsonic speeds - and you've taken the first crucial step.
Congratulations to XCOR! Smart, hard working, visionary people.
It would be cool to see what kind of logo the liquid-oxygen and isopropyl alchohol manufacturers come up with to plaster on the sides of the rockets, however. Also: all monkey pilots!
Looks like it's moderators on crack day today.
:)
If you want to get into orbit, or leave Earth entirely, the crucial thing you have to do is go really fast. Altitude is pretty much irrelevant except that aerodynamic drag slows things down more at lower altitudes.
The only difference than launching from a balloon at altitude would be the slightly reduced aerodynamic resistance, negligible compared to the cost, complexity, and risk of building a floating launch platform
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
overqualified?
The first tourist in space got to stay on the ISS for a couple days and he was using a well tested reliable vehicle (Soyuz). The tourists of these sub-orbital rockets would get minutes (at most hours) in a cramped vehicle, is it worth the risk ? Although I agree with the concept of stimulating creativity for designing sub-orbital re-usable vehicles, keep in mind that these "tourists" would still be essentially strapped to a liquid oxygen bomb and that if "civils" start going into space what does that say about the gruelling Astronaut selection performed by NASA and all the space agencies that produce astronauts (Russia, ESA, CSA, NASDA,ISA etc.) These people (astronauts) give up a good part of their life to get a trip into space. Challenger was the first to fly a "tourist" on the crew and we know what happened. NASA then cancelled all civil/commercial endeavors using the shuttle ever since... In my opinion the risks are too great to let just anyone fly in these vehicles. (as payloads mind you) -I am tempted to use the cliche "Talk about the Wrong Stuff"
Starting a grill with liquid oxygen.
And I thought my newest 60 mile per hour RC car was the coolest thing ever. Damnit, it's already obsolete like my 400mhz p2. Z;(bu
PayPal $$ if you sign up for free offers (eBay, cred cards, e
Okay, not really. But I should have a gotten patent on that...
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
Uhh. Didn't the nazi's have "Rocket Jets?" ;)
Once again. Slashdot is behind on their news..... a good 50 years
And as I recall these jets flew fine. Except landing the damn things was next to impossible. I seem to recall that 90% of the deaths related to the Nazi Rocket Jet was due to landing incidents.
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
If the rockets are very similar in power output, how do you determine who wins? Is it the only guys that doesn't black out and crash in a huge ball of flames?
The primary goal is development of reusable launch technology that leads next to a high altitude sub-orbital rocket vehicle
Could a missile fired from sub orbit on an (relatively) inexpensive platform such as this one, actually knock out a satellite?
Yes I realize that the missile would have to be expensive enough with it's payload and whatever guidance it would need to find it's target.
But if these things can be made as cheaply as they say, I wonder if small governments (okay i am sicking of typing the "T" word) could use this kind of technology to cause a lot of mayhem.
No, it's not. It's more exciting when you race things that weren't meant to be raced or fly things that weren't meant to fly.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
The big problem was that the new engine concept didn't work out, and using off the shelf engines doomed the thing to suborbital flight, for which there is no commercial market.
And next season on Junkyard Wars two teams will have 10 hours to build their own Rocket Racers! (While the American host wanders around mispronouncing "pumpkin".)
I love these private ventures. It shows that humans will either one day inadvertently rule the galaxy for all the wrong reasons or more likely blow themselves to smithereens in the attempt to do something cool enough to make a quick buck.
The first crucial step to what ? More mindless resource burning ?
When I hear "vertical drag racing" I tend to choke. What exactly is good in that ?
If you want progress, go for old-fashioned horizontal drag-racing using electrical engines and suitable batteries. This might have an impact on technology advances in a sector that might essentially help save the planet by using different resources.
If you want more progress on old-fashioned combustion engines create a car-racing formula that essentially bases on getting the race done with a limited amount of fuel. This might boost engine efficiency.
Nobody is doing this right now. At least not to a commercially usable level. It just not where the money lurks.
Disclaimer: I am not a tree-hugger. I just think we don't need Formula1 teams with 800hp cars, that talk about "doing research for the cars on the road in 10 years". We don't need developing drag race technology that will never see any commercial use. And we certainly don't need vertical drag racing, as it is just old technology in the hands of the masses.
+++ath0
How clean a rocket is depends on the fuel, its silly to state that all rockets pollute.
Anarchists never rule
Nice try dick, but you're not the first
if(linux != rocket racing == true}{
for(;;)
print "Lay off the cheap crack, read the topic"
}
oops, remove the space between the h & t before trying the link
Linux has nothing to do with rockets at all.
Besides, if you decide to flame Linux, at least know what you are talking about.
1) Mandrake, Slackware, RedHat, etc are not versions, but atonomous distributions.
2) The Mandrake distribution is specifiaclly compiled for a pentuim. Get Red Hat if you want to run it on a 386+.
3) There is no anti-virus software for Linux because there are no viruses (the concept of users and limited file access to a user prevents viruses from doing much harm).
4) Linux has an excellent firewall implementation called "iptables". Furthermore it's a stateful packet filter / NAT that does many things most firewalls can't.
5) IE is not a standard. It's a web browser.
The IETF NEVER encouraged the "adoption" of IE.
Standards are CSS, HTML, etc which the Mozilla, Netscape, Konqueror, Galeon, Nautilus web browsers all stick to.
6) As for the apps, you have many choices. Here are some of the MS counterparts:
IE: Mozilla, Netscape, Konqueror, Galeon, Nautilus
Outlook: Evolution, Kmail, Netscape Mail
Excel: Gnumeric, Kspread, OpenOffice
Word: Abiword, Kword, OpenOffice
Ignorant idiot!
The FAA is just going to love this. From all reports, they can just barely keep the current hub system from totally breaking, are centralization demons, can't get their heads screwed on right about letting small airports have cheap TARDIS radar (favoring instead a humongously expensive, overbudget, and behind-scedule grandiose system of their own, there was an article in Wall Street Journal about this recently). Yep, they're really going to love this..
Do you who was doing this? Was it Roger Gregory from the Xanadu project? I used to work with him and he seemed to be working on something similar. He used to bring in pieces from failed tests, like 4" sections of the aluminum engine cracked clean from the rotational force. If it is the same person, too bad it didn't work out, he seemed to really be into his design and we all learned a little about rocketry when he was around.
Ooooh! A whole 140hp in a vehicle that weighs more than a half-ton! Wow, I'm impressed. And don't forget folks, that 140hp is measured at the crankshaft!
As opposed to my 1993 Yamaha FZR-1000, which weighs a bit over 400 pounds, and I have personally tested at 122hp at the rear wheel on a rear-wheel dynamometer. (Factory, no mods.) The current model sports 140 rear-wheel hp and weighs just over 300 pounds.
I could run the 1/4 mile, stop and eat a sandwich before you crossed the line.
Stupid toys like Civics shouldn't be allowed on the road.
On the other hand, it looks like the Rutan brothers are using something like Extreme Programming to build rockets... build up little by little, test daily, twice, three times a day, use existing airframes as testbeds (Dick Rutan could fly a LongEZ in his sleep, and probably has by now :) .... and you know damn good and well that when they get a reliable product they're gonna release it as a kit.
(drum roll please)
Open Source Aviation!
No, I'm serious... when you buy a kitplane, you get the source (plans, etc.), and you are perfectly free to hack'em, and post your results and sell the resulting product. (Kindof a BSDish license... 1/2 :) The original 2-seat pusher LongEZ became the 4-seat Velocity, the taildragger Quickie, and inspired the commercial LearStar and Beechcraft StarShip designs.
Yeah, aircraft design is kinda like doing something the size of Mozilla.. but once you've got something working (and the VariEze/LongEZ designs have been around for... well, the old VariViggen (the granddaddy of all homebuilt canards) the Museum of Flight was registered in 1972, so.... and once you've got something it's dead easy to do incremental improvement and even rapid prototyping.
They've been doing this on a shoestring budget (I know how the Rutan brothers work, that's how they built Voyager) for about two years now, and they've got a bird in the air alreddie... where the Zoche folks have been at this aerodiesel thing for six years now, and still don't have anything flying... which is a reflection of the design philosophy; Zoche is going for an FAR-23 certified engine up front, where XCOR is happy to get something off the ground in a safe manner... in much the same way as Netscape would write this huge thing ground-up and only release it when it was all done as opposed to Mozilla pumping out milestone after milestone as things gradually started working...
In short, real-world, non-code-geek example of why bazaar-style development works.
I find it unbelievably strange that John Carmack (of Doom,Quake fame) is also building a rocket capable of transporting humans. He's made a ton of progress. His company: Armadillo Aerospace
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
Raceing rockets might show few benifits right off, but looking deeper, it is a good thing.
1) Create a visable result for capital put into research and development of rocketry. Visable results tend to be more impressive than paper proof, allowing for more capital and thus more research.
2) Research, unlike in auto raceing could be more directly applied ot commercial designs. In auto raceing speed, acceleration and handling are all assets, with fuel efficency as well.
With rockets, the fact remains, getting craft from ground to end point as fast and as cheaply as possible.
Not sure if it's been posted yet, but a guy out in Oregon is also working on something related to this.. Goes by RocketGuy
Everything he's worked on and gone through is pretty damn interesting, worth the read if you haven't heard of him.. He's set to launch in May of next year
Yoo-hoo! Mr. Moderators!!!
Does someone want to moderate this loon off-topic?
No. I'm not part of the Linux Hive-mind, nor am I a Microsoft astroturfer. BUT this bollocks is 100% OFF THE TOPIC!
How much more off topic could he be? None! None more off topic...
"Information wants to be paid"
If you want progress, go for old-fashioned horizontal drag-racing using electrical engines and suitable batteries. This might have an impact on technology advances in a sector that might essentially help save the planet by using different resources.
Great! So how much extra coal or oil should we burn in power stations to generate the electricity to power these things?
Conventional forms of electic transport just move the pollution from one place to another..
"Information wants to be paid"
I would pay! This is how we get to Mars guys! Its so simple! Bernie Ecclestone is quaking in his boots - F1 Rockets are on their way and the tobacco industry is going to pay for it!
Better get a thicker fire jacket Schumi!
I'm going to start on building my own rocket... you know what they say, start small: with this. ;)
42 + 1 = 42
Kinda amusing, but there's no point in correcting the post, as it is an obviuos troll...
The top tiers of racing (CART, Formula 1) are VERY concerned with fuel mileage. It is not uncommon for a 500 mile race to come down to who can stretch their fuel the farthest - pit stops a very time expensive when each extra second in the pits translates to over 200 ft. on the race track. Also, in CART, the teams are limited to n gallons per race, so unlimited horsepower without regard to fuel efficieny is not a winning formula.
The research done in racing does in fact make it to the road. Anti-lock brakes, traction control, and 'crush zones' all come from high-tech racing. Aerodynamics as well, which directly impact fuel effciency.
Karma: Professionally Doomed (mostly affected by inability to keep opinions to self)
Looks like they are building five of them and plan to fly one this year. http://www.stormbirds.com/project/
Thank you Mr.Gates for your insightful comment and near surgical accuracy in dissecting the topic of 'Private Rocketplanes'.
--This isn't a man who is leaving with his head between his legs.
I'm very suprised to see nobody else in this forum recognize the name "Rutan." The Rutan brothers, especially Dick, are huge figures in experimental aviation. The Design that was modified for this experiment was originally created by Dick. As were many other novel and very successful airplanes. Among them were the "Voyager" aircraft that circled the globe unrefueled. He also has an "nonsymetrical" twin engined, twin hulled aircraft that carries eight people, goes 300mpg and is fully aerobatic. Trust me, this guy knows his stuff and is quite unlikely to win the Darwin arward. Not saying can't, but given this guys intelligence and experience, I don't believe he could ever be a candidate.
Open Source Aviation... AKA Home Building
Just in case anybody is interested, you can get the complete plans for 5 of Rutan's aircraft on CD-ROM at www.wicks.com
Full Disclosure: Yes, I had something to do with producing this CD, but I don't make anything from these sales. I just thought somebody might find these interesting, if rather pricy...
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
http://www.wicksaircraft.com/showPage.phtml?pagenu m=88
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Meanwhile, previous Long-EZ customer's will love this the Rocket-EZ. John Denver could've killed himself much quicker in one of these. And James Gleick could make another - high speed - attempt on his own life too.
Regards, Ralph.
In fact the boomerang (asymetric twin aircraft) has a complete data acquisition system run by a Powerbook (at least last time I saw it... he may have upgraded by now)
Who knows? He may even be running OSX by now!
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Great, now we have (or will have) commercially available continent-crossing payload-delivery vehicles for every 3rd-World whack with enough cash to buy one. Kinda wish that Rutan had stuck with his old hobby, building small planes that could fly around the world... which could be considered another continent-crossing payload-delivery vehicle... cough never mind...
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
Please don't post if you don't know what you're talking about.
The LongEZ has been around forever and is a very safe design. As I understand it, Denver's plane had the fuel selector switch mounted in a nonstandard position and he lost control while trying to access it (another argument for standardized UIs). Ultimately it was pilot error.
No sig? Sigh...
See: Link to Lotus it has run on linux for some time now.
It is only a matter of time before WINE fixes the rest.
Ummm.... actually John Denver was flying a (poorly) modified LongEZ. As in many things, if people don't follow the directions, things break.
Burt Rutan has been sued many times for people crashing one of his designs. In every case it has been proved to have been due to a poorly applied modification to the original design.
Kinda like I probably shouldn't hack the linux kernal if I am going to have to trust my life to it. I am admittedly not a very experienced programmer; just enough to make me dangerous.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
It's good to see that while others are thinking up ways to kill us, we're doing a pretty good job of coming up with ways to kill ourselves.
While I have no doubt that the rocketplanes test was a complete success, I do have some issues with its ultimate goal of low cost reusable orbital operations. Two 400lb rockets just arent going to cut it. Figure the plane wieghs in at 10 tons fully loaded, thats 20000 lbs of fuel, rocket and pilot, and wings. Wings are good for getting you up off the ground, which this demonstrated, but they really become a liability above say mach 3-4 and they are obviously completely useless once in space. Keep in mind that they only got up to about 160knots or maybe 200mph. Orbital velocity is 14000 mph. you need alot more oomph than 800 lbs of thrust to put you into a stable orbit.
I do not know what kind of efficiency you mean, but in terms of energy efficiency rockets are actually very good. A rocket engine transforms about 90% of the chemical energy of the propellants to kinetic energy. This is excellent.
The total energy efficiency of an orbital rocket can be defined as the potential energy of the empty rocket in orbit divided by the chemical energy in the propellants. Even here rockets are not that bad.
If you have a hydrogen powered rocket with a specific impulse of 4300m/s and a total delta-v of 9000m/s, your mass ratio is 8.109, so the propellant weighs 7.109 times as much as the empty rocket. But the empty rocket has a specific kinetic energy of about 30 MJ/kg, whereas the propellants only have a specific chemical energy of 11MJ/kg. The total efficiency is thus 30/(7.109*11)=0.38. Not too bad, eh?
The reason rockets are still so expensive is that most current rockets are direct descendants of ballistic missiles where cost was not important. And the shuttle is a f***ing joke.
regards,
tuttle
"Meanwhile, the Red Team has covered the blackboard and half their walls in diagrams and has decided to build their rocket engine from hubcaps and motorcycle handlebars..."
Pesonally, I think this guy (http://rocketguy.com) will kill himself first. :) A lot of money and some knowladge can definately go a long way towards that goal. Looking as some of the stuff he did is quite impressive, but it seems like he sees some new technology and wants to use it, i.e. his landing system. Airbags, balloons, parachutes and parafoils, all in one landing. I guess he never head of the "K.I.S.S." principle.
In Austin Texas there is a doctor who does vasectomies whose name is Richard Chop. Sort of chicken and egg, which came first the name or the vocation. (I kid you not, you can check the phone book.)
development.lombardi.com
You forgot a few other niceties:
Volume: one litre is the volume of 1000 cubic centimeters (i.e. 10cmx10cmx10cm cube). How many of you can tell me how "large" one gallon is, physically? Could you guess how many gallons are in your swimming pool just by the dimensions... in your head?
Kilogram: the mass of one litre of pure water. How much does a gallon of water weigh???
Metric Tonne: the mass of one cubic meter of water. How many Imperial Tons does your swimming pool weigh?
I can easily visualize things in terms of metric units... but it's very difficult to do so with Imperial units. I see this as a great aid in any sort of mental gymnastics.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Depends what you consider "progress". Drag racing with electric motors has different requirements than downtown driving. Drag racing emphasizes one brief, powerful pulse -- you might end up with a power source featuring EMP and MHD extraction from a shaped explosive charge within a titanium chamber.
Um.. Formula 1 are not drag racers, they're open-wheel racers. Drag racers try to zoom quickly in a short straight line. Formula 1 races are in the 2-hour range.
And this research you're disparaging is the same research which produced fuel injection, electronic ignition, computer powertrain controls, and those other things which increased gas mileage over the past 25 years from 10 MPG...
I hate to break this to the programming community, but you did not invent the philosophy of "open source" or the "bazaar vs. the cathedral."
Science has had an "open source" component for pretty much as long as there has been modern science. Everybody works on some little bit of the problem (figuring out how the universe works), and when they have something they think is reasonable they publish it for everyone else to critique. Such publications may not technically be free, because you have to subscribe to the journals, but in reality if you go to any science library you can get free access to them. Really, the philosophy of finding mistakes by releasing code as "open source" so that a lot of other people can look at it and tinker with it is the same old philosophy behind peer-review and publication of scientific papers. The "open source aircraft design movement" exists; it is called "Journal of Aircraft" and is delivered to my home every couple of months.
This may get me modded down, but I think that "open source" is just Computer Scientists figuring out something that the other branches of science have already known for a very long time. Getting new developments into the public domain and letting other researchers bang around on them will yield even newer and better developments. One team of people locked away in isolation is not nearly as likely to develop a workable product (which for science would pretty much be a model of everything in the universe.)
That said, I don't think the idea of developing aircraft the same way that you develop programs is a good idea, because they are NOT the same sort of things. I'm sure you all know the joke about if Airplane development went like Computer development then we'd already have hypersonic transport aircraft with world spanning range that the average person could afford to own and operate... and they would explode once every week or two killing everyone on board. Aircraft Theory and Aircraft Conceptual Design and Aerodynamic Behavior and other such things are generally done as public science and/or published in journals and presented at conferences (i.e. "open source"). When it gets time to actually design the aircraft, this is done with a relatively small, closed team of people. There is a good reason for this. Airplane and rocket crashes kill people. Pick up a copy of The Right Stuff and read the first chapter. Such things ARE tested regularly. They are tested methodically and often. In wind tunnels and CFD code and on the ground and finally in the air. They are tested with methods and in progressions that were proven to work with VERY costly (in dollars and lives) prior experience. You could call it "extreme programming" for aircraft. Aircraft design is also complex. Simply moving the battery from the front to the back of a plane this size can invalidate all previous flight test data, so it is with good reason that the development is done by people who know the whole picture intimately (a difficult thing for a hobbyist to do). And, many aircraft design groups don't want their detail designs and their "tricks of the trade" to be open source because they are proprietary or classified. Yes, other sciences have "Closed Source" projects, too; but unlike in computer science, they tend to usually be offshoots and niche developments with the bulk of science being "open source" (to use CS lingo). Even big, private company laboratories in other scientific fields publish a lot of "open source" scientific material. Not only do they realize the value of having it reviewed and verified by other scientists "for free," but they also understand the importance of such publication in maintaining their organization's prestige in their industry and in recruiting the best new talent.
Aerospace has had "open source" for almost 100 years now. Physics has had it since the days of Newton and Galileo. Computer scientists, welcome to the club. Just don't think the rest of us haven't known about this for a long time... and stop tacking the phrase "open source" on everything. Try terms like "peer review" and "in the public domain" on for size; maybe you'll sound less socialist and the public will take it more seriously.
Isn't this a dead give-away. System = collection of units used together: International = hodgepodge designed to clip the wings of foreign aspirations. Enough said
Actually, you would more easily understand the intensity of a kilometre-candle, (ie a candle at a kilometre), rather than a metre-microcandle, (ie a millionth of a candle at a metre), which is what a microlux is all about. Also, an acrefoot is an easier volume to grasp than a Megalitre, although they're the same size. People convert sheets of paper into stacks miles high because thousands and millions can not be grasped.
7 base units
CGS had only three, and seemed to work OK with that. I've used systems with one base unit. All this means is how many equations you plan to leave out of the derived theory.
They only have seven, because the the system is a botch-up that they HAD to have 7. The mole was only invented as a base because SI did not want to use the coherent kilomole. The base unit "Ampere" depends on the size of the metre and kilogram, but the "Henry per metre" is free of such dependancies. Yet the "Ampere is afforded the status of "base unit". The size of the candela depends on the square metre, but the lux does not.
Sad about the mass unit having a derived name ...
you try telling me what 27 miles is in feet
Don't have to. Because I don't do that sort of conversion at all. Really.
be able to have some idea of exactly what each derived unit means
Some is the operative word here. Rationalisation throws a spanner in the works. 1 C translates into 12.566 C, if flux is being refered to.
Really, it is perfectly logical, and a heck of a lot simpler to learn than the old Imperial or Imperial-derived systems, where there were about 3 times as many different base units.
The imperial system has three base units; yard, pound and gallon. All the rest are supplemental. Somehow, three by seven is three. Good one.
Also, if you are sticking to SI notation to the letter, it is plain from the name of the derived unit exactly how it is derived from the base units.
I did way better with no units, in a google system. In essence, 1 s = 1e100, 1 m = 1e1100, 1 kg = 1e73300, 1 A = 1e32100. Decimal prefixes are just added in: 1 cm = 1e1098. Do unit and exponent calculations all in the same column. The units are far enough apart that you can do the unit sums and exponents with a calculator, and you don't have to remember individual dimensions.
yes, partly because scientists want to be able to understand each other
The pre-metric system used by scientists was Paris feet. Not having a precise widely used measurement system does not hinder much of science.
Why measure volumes in litres. Doesn't the cubic metre cope with this??? No. Volumes are derived from the linear measures, and are very hard to reproduce. Capacity is done by bulk comparison, and is very easy to use: ergo, litres, gallons, bushels.
Also, if you are sticking to SI notation to the letter, it is plain from the name of the derived unit exactly how it is derived from the base units
And from this, we can see immediately how "Weber" is derived from "Metre", "kilogram", "second", and "ampere". Get real.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
What speed!
Casual Games/Downloads
Have you ever seen a solar-powered calculator? A wind-prop built up in offshore regions generating power for those living on the coast?
Just because America ignores the technology, it does not mean it is not there.
The entire point: gas(online) is still WAY too cheap in the United States. After all we know it might be gone in 30-50 years. So we'd better start getting into alternatives. Or we might end up fabriating very good walking shoes in the near future.
Of course you might say: These devices suck (solar and wind-energy), they have such a low efficiency. Well, take a look at convential combustion engines from 60 years ago. They sucked in terms of efficiency as well. Research made them better. Research can still make them better, but there are alternatives that deserve research just as much.
And i tend to think that a electrical engine has a higher power yield. Remember when you turn the ignition on your car (any car) next time: 75% of all the energy your gasoline/diesel can generate at all is WASTED (converted) into energies that don't serve forward motion: vibration, noise, engine heatup, friction...
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Agreed and point taken. What I am saying is: limit the gasonline usage even more. What will we see? Shorter races? Or again even better efficiency with a race getting even more kicks because a "technology race" is being held at the same time the drivers are battling for the lead position.
The up-and-down combustion engine is being used for lots of decades. What could be won with rotary engines? What can be archieved by restricting cars to 1liter-engines with twin-turbos. And what could be won (in terms of environment preservation) once these techniques make it to the showroom?
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The Long-EZ was picked because it has a very good glide ratio. Without the prop, it apprantly glides even better. Dick is the original factory test pilot and he probably has more hours flying this airplane than anyone.
Let me begin by saying that I have always dreamed of space, I would love to one day be floating freely down the corridor of some space hotel, or watching the sun rise over the sea of tranquility.
I'm sure I am not alone in this desire, and a good sign of that is the x-prize and the hobby rocket builders. Unfortunetly in everyones zelous attempts into the great beyond fossile fuels are being burned at an alarming rate(I realize isopropyl alcohol and liquid oxygen are the fuel for this rocketplane, but not all of these ventures use the same fuel). With the dawning of comercial space tourism fuel usage will only increase, and vast amounts of polution will follow. I think before we start throwing money and these little rocket ships, perhaps we look for another method of placing cargo and people into orbit.
Years ago there was talk of a mass driver (magnetic cannon) to launch objects. While this also uses vast amounts of power, this power does not nessesarily have to come from fossile fuels. Perhaps prior to a launch vast solar cells could be used to charge capacitors, or we could use tidal, hydro, or nuclear power none of which are perfectly clean but they are arguably cleaner the coal, oil, or gas power stations.
I don't know if their is a perfect soloution, but I voice my opinion because I worry that they day I float in some space hotel, it won't be because I am on vacation, but because earth is in hospitable due to mass polution and our own destructive tendencies.
Geoffrey Cameron Peart
McMaster Software Engineering
Monkies? I like Monkies
The rockets we are currently firing use hydrogen peroxide, which produces nothing but water and oxygen in the exhaust. Not even the most rabid greenie could argue with that.
Hydrogen / oxygen rockets also produce water and excess hydrogen. Alcohol / ocygen rockets leave a few other things similar to auto exhaust, but not really worse.
Solid rockets leave some bad stuff, and some propellants are truly nasty, like nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine, but those are also much more expensive, so wouldn't be used in a cost effective program.
John Carmack
And all who dwell within the rockethouse
AC's cheerfully ignored
"The primary goal is development of reusable launch technology that leads next to a high altitude sub-orbital rocket vehicle for space tourism, rocket racing (e.g. vertical drag racing at air shows) and the X-Prize competition." ---How about the Darwin Awards competition?
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein