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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."
and i'm 98.7% sure it's been posted here on /. somewhere before
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
You'd think NASA would have something a little less obsolete...
I'm friends with the youngest daughter of the former head of the PowerPC division of IBM you insensitive clod!
last updated 2002, sure is breaking news.
http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/balloon/HS.HTM
Has anyone done porn in zero-G? I'm thinking bukkake could be big in zero G or super-high speed format.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
I want a bong and a budget too.
this page is quite old last updated on 2002. get some fresh news..
Soon our daily lives will be improved by new, exciting products based on Zero G Water Balloon Bursting technology.
1) Go back two-three years
2) Find cool article
3) resubmit
The tests were conducted in part to develop the ability to rapidly deploy large liquid drops by rupturing an enclosing membrane.
All I can say is THANK GOD someone has finally researched this. I've lost count of the number of times I've wanted to rapidly deploy large liquid drops is a low/no-G environment.
Now can they please start with th research of the effects of pepper spray on penguins. That's the real science goldmine.
of Lava Lamps, same blobs floating arround. Groovy.
First off..."I Soviet RUSSIA, the baloons burst you". & "I for one welcome our new ballon overlords...".
Now did we really need to spend uber government money to find that out? But that's our tax dollars at works folks. I hope you enjoyed the movie that second per second was probably more expensive to create than to just pay ILM to do it on a computer.
"Does your computer have IP on it?"
You would expect correct, not popular, terms used on Slashdot...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
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
This reminds me of the ZERO-G company, which offers commercial weightless flights on a specially-modified Boeing 727. Folks like Buzz Aldrin and Burt Rutan have flown on it, as well as everyone's favorite slashdotter John Carmack. Carmack posted a description of the flight, along with photos and a video.
I'd love to go myself, but I think it's still a little too rich for my poor grad-student blood.
and pay farmers to not grow crops
was i the only one reminded of the movie "the abysss" while watching the clips?
From the bottom of the page:
This page was last updated on
Monday, 12 August, 2002 12:22 PM
Have you metaroderated recently?
Three years to forget what a herd of nerds feels like... just in case the server groans, here's the coral caches:
l loon/balloo01.mpg l loon/balloo02.mpg l loon/balloo03.mpg
http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov.nyud.net:8090/ba
http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov.nyud.net:8090/ba
http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov.nyud.net:8090/ba
I've done Zero g and it is fun and feels weird. I can't do anything with water because the pilot would not like the inside of his plane full of water and I don't have a way of getting away from it (strapped in a seat). Plus it only lasts 2-10secs in small planes :).
..what happens when potato chips are released in Zero G. Then I'll be able to make up my mind as to whether the Simpsons is real or pure fiction.
http://www.crapville.com/media_videos12/raverpengu in.wmv
I think it's despicable that we're spending money on this "space program" that we could be spending on the homeless and destitute! I mean, honestly, exploding water balloons in space?! Imagine how many people the money from this nonsense could feed!
... Bush's head explode like a balloon on TV. In slow motion.
Did anyone take a close look at the QT and MPEG videos? Look at the first one, the "balloo01.mov". The codec listed is simply "video", and I think that means zero compression. It's 160x120, and 15 fps, 1040 kbps. The MPEG is 320x240, 24 fps, and 700kbps. So not only is the MPEG much much better quality, it is about 1/6th the bit rate (after taking into consideration the frame size). Why didn't NASA use some kind of good compression for the QT clip? (Like Sorenson for instance - this was way too early for h.264)
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
This is not a low gravity experiment. Technically the best you could call it is a virtual low gravity. The water is actually within the same gravity well as the plane is and is falling to the earth at the same speed. The difference is that it is enclosed in an atmosphere that is also falling at the same speed, or being forced to fall at the same speed. This does not necessarily remove all of the effects of gravity upon the fluid. The results might be similar in a real low gravity environment, but not the same. All this experiment shows is what happens if you fall to the earth at the same speed as the water and air is not whipping around the the water blob to cause deformation. It is important to remember the difference here.
If you are falling into a Black hole and all of the material around you is falling in at the same speed, does that mean you have negated the effects of the Black hole?
I've been thinking a lot about this stuff in my brief life.
I once had a dream where i was a fish in a "blob" of water floating around in microgravity. I kept seeing how close i could get to the edge, until i finally got too close and was sent out of the bubble and lost control completely. At that point i woke up.
Anyway, I would love to see that done in the same manner as these experiments.
I wrote NASA about this but no reply was received.
As we all know, cats always land on their feet when dropped. This task is achieved by rotating the tail in freefall and making use of Newton's third law, as the tail rotates in one direction the cat rotates in the other until its feet are pointing downwards.
How would a cat behave in a zero-g environment?
I suspect that the cat would spin its tail continuously in an effort to reach the right way up, but without access to either the space shuttle or an aircraft that can create zero-g I cannot prove this.
Any takers?
Ed Almos
Budapest, Hungary
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
This has been featured on slashdot before. Furthermore, this is nothing new. From the link:
'This page was last updated on
Monday, 12 August, 2002 12:22 PM"
Did you ever wonder what it would be like to pop a water balloon in space?
No, not really..
They were throwing other liquids into the blobs too. Imagine their disappointment (and mess) they experienced when gravity returned.
If you're in a true zero-g environment, how do you drop anything, let alone a cat?
Cue The Sun...
well i would like to piss in Zero G
The purpose of any language is to communicate ideas between communicators. For most people, a local dialect is sufficient to get them through the day.
Techincal jargon, however, is found in most professions. The words developed in techical situations are descriptive - to the person who coins the word or phrase, but come to be perscriptive to everyone who must learn the word in order to communicate properly.
I do agree that language is not perscriptive. It is, however, prescriptive.
A child, in order to read and write English language correctly, must conform to that child's instructor's preconcieved notions regarding the appearance, sounding, and function of the letter "y". This is not enough, however; that child must also learn about 25 other english letters, as well as numbers, common punctuation, and a great many other structured concepts.
He must also learn proper spelling, in order to avoid from confusing a string of letters like "perscriptive" for an actual word, and must develop a cerain sensitivity in order to see that the author of such a string of letters probably misspelled it and had the intent to write "prescriptive".
In the study of of language, a student is usually exposed to his first case of jargon: the names for common characters used as punctuation have little use outside of the study and use of themselves. To illustrate, let me say that neither I nor anyone I know uses the word "comma" except in some discussion regarding language itself, or possibly the instruction of a typist, programmer, or a similar employee.
Everyone in the conversation about a comma, however, must know that a comma means a certain, specific character, not ( nor ) nor & but,
If they do not know this, then they will be lost in that conversation until they learn, or are taught, what the term means.
It is clear then, that some language must be taught. It must, then, be prescriptive.
How can I explain that overhead is a "clear, blue, sky" without first knowing, and assuming you know, the meaning of the words "clear", "blue", and "sky"? Sure, I can use other words or signs such as hand or smoke signals or timed ear wiggles, but I then must assume that you either know the meanings of those gestures, or that 1) you are capable of learning them and 2) that I am capable of teaching them. At the moment that those meanings are transferred, I am offering a small glimpse into my thought processes prescribing to you, the meanings of certain words or phrases, at least as they are used in that particular instace of communication. You may accept or reject such prescription either consciously or subconsciously, and either with or without a proper use of my conscience (I may be lying, in fact). If I sense that you are rejecting it, I may use more or less persuasion or coersion to try to influence that decision.
These distinctions, though they offer some description on the importance of language, have little brearing on the fact that language must be prescriptive. The adjectives (read descriptors) , "clear" and "blue" and the noun "sky" must have had some previously understood meaning, else the phrase "clear, blue sky" is worthless as a description of anything. Without knowing the meaning of those words, I could just as easily think that a person using the phrase "clear, blue sky" was talking about a floor or a ceiling or a rooftop, depending on whether he was pointing in one direction or another.
An excellent read from your local library is "De Magistro" - "The Teacher" in english by Saint Augustine, which delves into language theory.
and I thought vacuum's implode..
This is undoubtably a publicity triumph for NASA. They're doing what they do best: breaking things in 0 G with taxpayer dollars.
Looks like it can be one of the applications...
The point that I see is that without clear agreement on definition of terms, there can't be any clear communication. For the vast majority of communication, the lack of clarity isn't a problem. We understand each other as well as we need to. As you say, it's sufficient to get through the day.
But when it comes to technical matters, the specifics do make a difference. Any good technical report will define the relevant terms it is using, just to be sure that there is no confusion. As the company engineer, I drive people nuts asking them to clarify what they mean, but when I don't we end up ordering 30mm fiber instead of 30mil fiber. Anyone doing science experiments can point to how a slight change in wording can totally change the experiment.
The key distinction, though, it knowing when to use each form. In a paper written based on this experiment, you would use microgravity instead of Zero-G. In an article meant for layman's consumption, though, there is no meaningful difference. In fact, the technical term is less well known and therefore won't communicate as effectively to the audience.
This is even better. "The Uranus Experiment Part Two was placed on the Nebula ballot by a bloc of writers who were (1) protesting the fact that the SFWA members voted to re-institute the Dramatic Nebula award, and (2) thought it would be 'fun' to put a hardcore porn film on the ballot," said Ann C. Crispin, SFWA vice president.
If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?
Strap some buttered toast to the back of a cat and the two will hover, spinning just inches above the ground forever.
The package said "Windows XP or better. Pentium Class Processor or better"... So I got a Mac with OS X
why is this flamebait?
... the ability to rapidly deploy large liquid drops by rupturing an enclosing membrane.
Quick, somebody patent that! They were even nice enough to work out the lawlerly language for us!
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
It's nice to finally see this. It was written about, years ago, by Spider Robinson in his terrific novel, Stardance.
If you're in a true zero-g environment, how do you drop anything, let alone a cat?
:'(
Jeez, I already apologized a thousand times and paid the veterinarian's bill! I even brought a can of tuna for Mr. Whiskers while he was in his full-body cast.
Why do you have to keep bringing that embarrassing incident up?!
Exploding balloons water you!
This is currently on usenet, on the it.binari.x.erotismo.animazioni group.
It was posted June 17th, and is still available on EasyNews' servers.
Watch out! First the bursting membrane patent and then the ass wipe patent. We are in the grip!
=)
Hello all. My name is Mark Weislogel, the now old guy who did the water balloon stuff on the NASA low-g aircraft. Sorry to be clueing in to this conversation so late, but I received too many emails over the weekend to be able to respond one by one, and I just want to tell the story a little more completely. We were performing unrelated experiments on the NASA airplane related to liquid fuel tanks on spacecraft. But we could only utilize 15 of the 50 trajectories that the plane made due to our experimental equipment. So instead of twiddling our thumbs for the remaining 35 trajectories we proposed/conducted these water balloon experiments inside a plastic room made cheaply for the NASA DC-9 aircraft at Glenn Research Center--mostly because they were cool, but also because they demonstrate so clearly how large liquid blobs can be rapidly and easily deployed. (Most people expect the liquid to go everywhere instead of basically remain in tact as a blob, and at the time NASA was looking in to deploying large liquid drops in low-g by any number of techniques.) Make the blobs large enough and you can study totally unearthly self-gravitating capillary blobs--models of fluid planets, suns, or I don't know? By self-gravitating and capillary I mean the self-gravitation force is on the order of the surface tension force--a truly weird situation, but one certainly to be experienced by the spacecraft of the future that may have to employ literally tons and tons of self-gravitating fuel to get anywhere. But the primary purpose was fun. The videos have since become an excellent outreach tool with 100,000+ hits, music videos, and copies made and distributed to k-12 teachers. The cost was nearly nothing to the government and I bought the balloons myself. I did borrow a high-speed camera to do those few ground tests, but I did the tests at lunch time while being shadowed by two home-schoolers on a career day thing. I returned the camera. So just to say, it was low budget. The footage was voted by the American Physical Society as one of the decade's top submissions for the Gallery of Fluid Motion publication. Believe me? Anyway, we did about 80 ruptures, most were flops: hit them with ping-pong paddles, glitter, Alka-Seltzer tablets, static electric fields, etc. You would have loved it. You probably would have some cool ideas yourself. I will talk to NASA about putting the highrez movies up. I have forgotten all about that. Also, there's going to be a reunion tour if all goes well, so stay tuned--more blobs to follow, blobs with a twist. later...
I like Mark's chain email response:
"
you guys are smart...
see reply on slashdot.
later,
Mark weislogel
"