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Exploding Water Balloons In Zero G
ArchAngel21x writes "Experimenters burst water balloons in the low-gravity environment produced aboard a NASA DC 9 aircraft. There are 3 videos available in QuickTime or MPEG." From the site: "The tests were conducted in part to develop the ability to rapidly deploy large liquid drops by rupturing an enclosing membrane. As can be seen from the experiment footage, the initial rupture process is nearly ideal, but the finite size of the balloon material eventually ejects a spray from the drop surface. Then, when the balloon material leaves the drop entirely, it causes a large deformation of the drop (blob) which oscillates throughout the remainder of the test. Calculations suggest that such oscillations will continue for hours before the drop eventually becomes spherical."
In fact, it is not stupid at all.
I am sure that the gathered knowledge can be used in many situations. One of them could be "Dealing with leaking liquids in space missions".
Of course, the old problem is still there - the time when this knowledge will be implemented into something useful might be very far away from now.
The saddest poem
Consider the value of quickly deploying a glycerine shield in space to slow down stray space debris from hitting the space station or shuttle.
... without spilling the liquid. And then boom! Instant shield.
Your glycerine (or even more viscous liquid) baloon is all filled and easily moved into place
Sometimes, it's the best course to use proven technology, rather than something new. The DC-9 is a proven airframe for this sort of work, and does its job quite well. Moving to a different sort of craft would require a lot of money and effort for frankly fairly little gains.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
I really had resolved to sit this one out, to not get involved with all the NASA-bashing that such a page is guaranteed to inspire. And then I saw this.
It might be hard for someone in media-drenched America to understand, but the point of this was not to entertain you. I know, I know: It's virtually indecent to propose that anything be done for any reason other than your amusement. The point of these experiments was to learn something about fluid flow.
Maybe ILM could have made the samne movie -- and maybe not, because fluid flow is hard. Certainly they could have made a movie that you would have thought was a simulation of fluid flow in microgravity, because they're clever and because you (and no one else, really) has a firm idea of what that would be. But as a visual simulation it could teach us nothing new and concrete. And as a summer blockbuster it would likely have fallen flat.
These guys, on the other hand, are doing science. They're running experiments to explore the operation of the physical universe. Along the way, they came upon video footage that, they thought, looked "fun" and so they shared it. I can't see anything to be critical of here.
I'm sure I'll arouse the ire of the wrath from atop the thing by bringing up the old chestnut of spin-offs, but we have no idea of what practical applications willcome from this knowledge, and the knowledge that comes along with it that they didn't put on that page. It's fairly easy to see how understanding this could help with fuel injection systems, but I'm sure there are many other potential payoffs.
And yes, we do need to spend government money on that, because the payoff is uncertain. Private industry will not invest in basic research, whose beneficiaries are unknowable at the outset. Indeed often the people who make the money are not the ones who do the research. As for it being "uber" dollars: The entire NASA budget is about $16B. The federal budget is about $2,200B. So all of NASA is about about 1% of federal outlays. Not only is this smaller than the series of "emergency" outlays to cover the war in Iraq; it's smaller than the generic pork the Congress (and administration) roll into the budget.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The question is begging to be asked... in your scenario, what's the benefit of pre-breaking the baloon? You're better off keeping the baloon intact and letting the space debris break it. So, there's no "deployment" of large liquid drops involved (it's a side effect, not the aim of the shield).
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.