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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!
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.
Soon our daily lives will be improved by new, exciting products based on Zero G Water Balloon Bursting technology.
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.
You left out one...
"just imagine a beowulf cluster of these..."
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
You left out one... "just imagine a beowulf cluster of these..." Damn, I knew I forgot something.....
"Does your computer have IP on it?"
Or maybe I just should get some coffee before posting, mod parent down before somone can see it please.
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.
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?
I just wanted to clarify the parent's comment for those who don't necessarily know what the correct term is.
As someone who has done combustion experiments in the Glenn Research drop towers, I can authoritatively say that the term (that the parent likely means) is microgravity, not zero gravity. Zero gravity would imply that one is defying the rules of physics. Microgravity suggests merely that the effects of gravity are significantly diminished due to free fall: orbit, the vomit comet, or simply dropping a vessel in an evacuated tower.
Things having to do with such experiments are frequently labeled with neat mu-g stickers in NASAs facilities.
-Paul
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
..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.
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.
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
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.
They were throwing other liquids into the blobs too. Imagine their disappointment (and mess) they experienced when gravity returned.
You would expect correct, not popular, terms used on Slashdot...
*ahem*
English is descriptive, not perscriptive.
English is descriptive, not perscriptive.
English is descriptive, not perscriptive.
Our spoken language evolves over time, and words mean no more and no less than how they are used by the greatest number of people.
While the technical or local jargon of certain elements of our culture may include more specific terminology to reflect a desired distinction, this does not in any way invalidate the correctness of the more common term.
"Zero Gravity" as meaning any time when there is no relative gravity is quite enough for most folk. The distinction between no effective gravity due to distance from an overriding mass ("zero G") and there being no effective gravity due to unhindered movement ("free-fall", or "Mu-G") is irrelevant in the common usage.
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
Looks like it can be one of the applications...
It's not an experiment unless there are testable hypothesis that one can disprove or expand upon. The results of this test do/did not increase our understanding of the way fluid flows work.
On top of that, when you say, "the payoff is uncertain," the rule "YAGNI" comes to mind.
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.
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?!
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.
The premise of observing fluid flow in microgravity with a high speed camera is more than sufficient. Many liquid phenomena - like viscocity - are minor forces that are overwhelmed by gravity. Observing the media in freefall will give us better insights into the true workings of the fluid, workings we can't observe because of gravity.
And you don't know if our knowlege didn't increase. They hadn't released their findings (yet anyways). Those vibrational modes were pretty interesting and didn't seem to damp as quickly as one would think they should. There could be some good use for it. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean there isn't someone who does.
YAGNI may have relevance in the comp sci world but in engineering research it isn't the case. We don't know that we are going to need hypersonic ramjets in the near future, but we do the research anyways because it might prove useful. It might not. It's a risk you take. You have to explore in order to discover.
-everphilski-
Yes, that's the official NASA malapropism.
the effects of gravity are significantly diminished
Yes, the effects of gravity in the local reference frame are diminished to...well...zero. Not a little bitty bit, which is what micro means, but zero.
NASA simply replaced a slightly loose term with a totally misleading one, and ignored a perfectly good one: freefall.
rj
Umm, and how exactly was this an experiment and not just two guys fucking around? What is their hypothesis? What are their conclusions? Where are the finely tuned experimental apparatus and measurement devices? The guys used a coke bottle for fuck's sake!
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Tang [and] velcro ... both existed before the space program even began.
I think what he was trying to say was that the space program was the impetus for keeping Tang and velcro on top of his head.
How the heck do you know? This was a publicity page, for pete's sake. Did you read the papers they published? Could you even name them? You're reading this like it's the great publication of all their work, but it's really a case of "Hey look at these cool videos we made in the course of our research."
Blockquoth the poster:
It might come to mind, but it shouldn't. First, we're talking experimentation, not programming. Second, YAGNI applied to research essentially says, Do no basic research. In 1930, do I "need" ultrapure silicon wafers? Do I "need" to know why and how silicon can semi-conduct? No. But if no one had been asking those questions, you would not be writing your reply on a mass-produced digital computer.
Basic research is exactly about things for which the applications seem remote or even unforeseeable. Do you think they researched lasers in the 1960s so that you could listen to CDs and watch DVDs? No. They researched lasers because they were interesting quantum phenomena. It was far and away not something "needed". And in fact that is often the case.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Point by point:
How the heck do you know? This was a publicity page, for pete's sake. Did you read the papers they published? Could you even name them? You're reading this like it's the great publication of all their work, but it's really a case of "Hey look at these cool videos we made in the course of our research."
Normally publicity pages have some reference to that which they are publicizing. This one does not; I can't find one reference to a paper published on this topic from the balloon page. I think that your assertion that it's a publicity page is baseless. Do you have any evidence to show that they were publicizing anything through this page? Where are the papers? I've looked on the homepage that the balloon page links back to and can nowhere find them.
It might come to mind, but it shouldn't. First, we're talking experimentation, not programming.
Many people think that programming is experimentation. In any case, how does the different labelling (programming vs. experimentation) in any way suggest that YAGNI cannot also be effectively applied to other things?
Second, YAGNI applied to research essentially says, Do no basic research. In 1930, do I "need" ultrapure silicon wafers?
Well, no, and that's why they weren't developed until the 60s, about the same time as they were becoming needed for the continuing process of miniaturizing the computer.
It doesn't say "do no basic research." It says, "don't do research that won't improve something right now." I think this is good advice for a lot of different researchers, from English PhDs researching the meaning of line 10 of Shakespeare's fifth sonnet to physics researchers popping water balloons at a cost rate of thousands of dollars per balloon (fuel, time, etc.).
Do you think they researched lasers in the 1960s so that you could listen to CDs and watch DVDs? No. They researched lasers because they were interesting quantum phenomena.
About lasers, you are right, there was no purpose for them; they were "a solution looking for a problem," according to Wikipedia. That lasers are specifically noted as an anomaly in that sense suggests that more people than just I think that most of the time, things should be researched for some immediate direct benefit. I'm sure there are other exceptions to this rule, but I don't think it would have hurt anything if research on lasers had been delayed until someone had said, "Hey, I need a really tightly focused beam of energy!"
I can't believe that water balloons being popped in zero g could possibly have the same wide range of applications as lasers do. So before we spend tens of thousands of dollars on doing it, it might be good if we had a reason to.
In some way, shape or form, there will be forces of gravity affecting materials that we experiment with. It's the relative gravity that may be near zero. As long as you can observe an interaction at nearly the same speed as it's going, it's pretty much zero g.
As for applications, creating a perfect sphere comes to mind.
To clear it up once and for all. Its called microgravity, because of the tides. If the shuttle iis orbiting with its cargo bay doors pointed towards the earth, then objects towards the top of the shuttle will slowly drift towards the doors. Conversly objects near the floor, will drift towards the floor. This drift is microgravity. It you look at the force diagrams, you will see that the middle of the shuttle is in perfect balance bewteen gravatiotional attraction from the earth and the centrifugal force due to rotational motion. Anything off of this center will have a slight excess in either direction. Now, if the shuttle were orbiting 160 miles above a neutron star, these differences will be a lot more noticable.
Carl Sagan, did not like the idea of promoting man exploration because of the spin off arguments. I don't like the idea either.
Velcro is not a NASA spinoff.
http://www.velcro.com/kidzone.html
Er, um , the parent's parent.
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...