Slashdot Mirror
Star Trek Enterprise Tested to Mach 5
Sporkinum writes "University of Queensland Laser Diagnostics Dept
has a page
where they put the Enterprise through the gauntlet in a mach 5 wind tunnel. It did surprisingly well."
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Say what you want about Star Trek in general, but the design of the "movie" Entreprise is one of the prettiest, most graceful vehicles ever built.
Something that beautiful deserves to get built, someday.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Oh, come on, FK. You know as well as I do that there are innumerable reasons to allow something like this to be done: Training, morale, fostering intellectual curiosity, testing equipment, and probably a few more.
Like, oh, boosting PR for the site, to attract new personnel. (Note the "what else we do" link at the bottom of the page.)
...cause you're starting to sound stupid.
/.'ers:
/.'ers who check this website every 15 minutes, every day, for the rest of their lives?
Two comments from
(1) Yeah, but there's no atmosphere in space.
No sh**. They acknowledge that in the second paragraph of their description and then proceed to suggest that mach 5 in an atmosphere may be similar to warp 5 in a vacuum (where you are pushing against the fabric of space). This isn't a scientific journal -- it's just some fun they're having after doing real work.
(2) What a waste of time.
This from the first couple dozen posters -- who really is wasting their time: the kids who did the experiment in an afternoon, or the
Get a life.
Allow me to begin the second phase of stock Slashdot comments. Phase I has already taken place: "what a waste of taxpayer/foundation/whatever dollars!" Phase II begins now:
Lighten up! It is clear from a very quick look at the rest of the site that the "Enterprise" simulation is just a fun application of some very serious science. It's clear that no special apparatuses (apparati?) were constructed to provide a real simulation of the Enterprise -- in fact, it's pretty obvious that the model used came out of a cereal box, or something.
Day in and day out, it looks like these guys are engaged in cutting-edge wind tunnel science, testing object against forces so strong, they can only be simulated for tiny fractions of a second. This means that someone spends hours setting up everything within rigorous parameters, then pushes a button. "Bam!", and it's over. If the object under test was mispositioned by a fraction of a millimeter, the team gets to do it all over again.
Once -- just once -- they'd like to have a chance to do something fun with the equipment. Someone has an old Enterprise model (actually, it may be from a snow globe). After a long day (probably unpaid) of testing the frontiers of science and boredom, they load up the (already warmed up) machine and have a little fun.
Thanks to the 'net, we get to share their fun. And in another few decades, we may get to enjoy the results of their hard work when we book that vacation on Luna.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
All the comments seem to be of the type "Wow, what a waste of research time/money, -EVERYONE- knows there is no air in space."
What ever happened to "Because its there."? You've got the capacity of generating Mach 5 winds... So you take your Enterprise model, and bolt it in and give it a go.
OF COURSE the Enterprise isn't designed to enter atmosphere. Its also a fictional vehicle.
People who do things like this, do it Because They Can.
I sure as hell would. Ever build a kaleidoscope, and shine a laser into it? What about with one of those clear crystal isocahedrons inside it as well... I know for a fact that there was no New Science being done. I also know it was fucking cool as shit. Yes, I proved nothing with my shiny thing, except it looked good, and was fun.
The Enterprise test was perhaps just that. Dicking around with shit. It just happened that the experiment returned "Its surprisingly aerodynamic". And they wished to share their results. Its geeky news, and so it made it onto Slashdot.
Relax, science doesn't always have to have a purpose. That's how discoveries are often made. Not by "That proves my theory." but "Hey, That's funny..."
Explain to me how performing areodynamic tests on an enterprice model while they're working could hurt their chances of finding women.. I'd just like to know what sort of manly areodynamic tests these scientists could have done to somehow magically score some women in a social setting.
It's been a long time.
In the article, which I took the time to read, they stated that shock waves created by the model were intended to be analogous to shock waves created by passing through the space time continuum in a warp field. Obviously, this is only theoretical (if you can even call it that) and mostly just for fun, but one day space traveling people may look back and say these folks were ahead of their time.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Accually, you'll notice that in star trek, they never use phasers at warp speeds. (They may have cheated in a few places, but nothing comes to mind.)
Simple concept: When travelling faster than light, dont use weapons that can only move at light speed.
Photon torpedos, on the other hand, are physical objects. If you fire them out at a relative speed of a few thousand meters per second while you're going a few times the speed of light, they're still moving away from you, and not blowing up in your face.
And, from my recollections of the star trek technical manual (TNG), the navigational deflector is key to travelling faster than light. It projects a field far in front of the warp bubble moving small particles out of the way. Otherwise, a gram of asteroid would do significant damage to a ship moving faster than light. The warp bubble itself only propells the ship forward (by bending space around it).
You'd be amazed how well thought out the physics of star trek are. Off topic of parent, but mentioned elsewhere was that of inertial dampeners and structural integrity - two systems that make it possible to accually accelerate at values that would normally crush people into gelatinous goo and snap even the hardest substances. They say that the scripts were written in the "we've got a [tech problem] down here!" format - but I can say one thing - the guy who substituted that text in was no idiot. The problems almost always match the situation. Ever wonder why when the bridge crew starts falling around, the next line is often "Inertial Dampers are offline!". Stating the obvious, yes, but at least they didnt say something like "the warp core containment system just went offline".
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