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NASA Ames Research To Close Largest Windtunnels
Makarand writes "The world's largest and second largest
wind tunnels operated by the
NASA Ames Research center
will be shutdown after 60 years
and may remain shut unless major defense contracts from
the Pentagon or the private sectors are available.
The largest windtunnel will be fired up for the last time in June for four hours.
It will test the parachutes that will land the Mars exploration rovers onto the Red Planet
next year.
Fewer defense contracts and the increasing use of computer simulations are being cited as reasons
for the windtunnels to face closure."
That really blows. No, really.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
...at $5000/hour.
What is the point of the internet?
I bet they could find a way to make a pretty cool amusement ride out of it.
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
What am I going to use to keep my video card cool..
The experiments formally tested at this wind tunnel site have been moved to congress. An unnamed NASA reseacher was quoted as saying "There is just so much hot air expelled there, it seemed redudant to have a wind tunnel. In fact, we're also looking at this thus untapped resource as a possible source for energy".
NASA is also looking into tapping the "natural gas" deposits found around the nation's Taco Bells.
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
I always thought Rush Limbaugh was the world's biggest wind tunnel?
Can i buy one of those fans for my computer?
Maybe i could buy the wind tunnel and move in like
they did with those old missle silo's. It could be
sleeping on air every night. I guess you could be
flipping around in there unless you ate a balanced diet.
The upside is no one would hear you fart.
Because now, everyone will have to use a third-largest wind tunnel, and just dream about the days when there was a second largest wind tunnel and even a largest wind tunnel.
I don't know, my "Hello World" program seems to be bug free. Be careful with sweeping generalisations.
Isnt the surest way of knowing how an object will behave in the wind is to run it through a wind tunnel? After all, consider sending a probe to mars. What if the parachute checked out OK in a computer simulation, but doesn't apply to real physics because of some bug?
Computers can do cute things like simulate the parachute in a Martian atmosphere. Which might be kind of handy given that the air density on Mars is 1% of Earth.
For the simple stuff, there are wind tunnels. For everything else, there's computers.
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Perhaps NASA could sell the old tunnels on eBay?
"I don't know, my "Hello World" program seems to be bug free. Be careful with sweeping generalisations."
Does it check if the output is writable? Does it do integrity checks on its memory(and itself) to verify there was no corruption or tampering?
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
If they are going to use an AMD* based computers they'll need an EXTRA wind tunnel instead to cool them.
* I got an AMD so I'm allowed to bash it :)
Hate me!
I used to have a sign on my desk (when I was a hardware kind of guy, not the snivering software type I've now become) that said:
"One test is worth 1,000 expert opinions."
Translated, this means that there's nothing quite like empirical data to verify analytical results. The gathering of this empirical data is best done in a controlled environment, NOT post-production!